Cool! I had not realized that you needed ID in order to die. Many times in my life I've been disturbed by the notion of death; as Woody Allen put it, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my works, I want to achieve it by not dying". Now I realize that all I have to do is throw away my ID and I'm safe <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

More seriously, lots of those folks were really dirt poor. Most everyone with a car got out of NO. The ones left had no cars and thus lower numbers of drivers' licenses. It was a rushed, disorganized bugout and "let me see your papers" was the last thing most people probably had on their minds.