you need a body before declaring someone dead

It is morbid, but also instructive to read short stories on how individuals and entire families died from Hurricane Helene rains in North Carolina, see this Washington Post article, What Helene took

 The pictures in the article can themselves can be instructive. Homes “perched” right near a river. Stories about, “They lived there for 60 years” and never had an issue with flooding. It was not just flood waters but also landslides that took houses and lives away. Bodies were being found miles away, and even in a neighboring state.

 For emergency managers there is another instructive note—something I’ve written about before. In one county the number of deaths has been revised “downward.” That should never happen! You don’t declare anyone dead until you have a body. And, that body is counted by the medical examiner or coroner, who is the “only person or office” that tallies the number of dead and releases that information…period! Nothing from the sheriff or fire chief and certainly not an emergency manager.

 If someone has not been found and they have not “reappeared” on social media, etc.  List them as “missing.” Should their body be recovered, then move them over to being dead. At some point a legal determination will be made by the appropriate authorities that a person is “missing and presumed dead.” That is not done by any of the previous mentioned authorities and such a pronouncement will be a legal one.  Follow these procedures and you won’t have to be explaining yourself later.