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Katrina's Unclaimed to Get Hometown Burial
Louis Cataldie, the Louisiana medical officer in charge of identifying victims of Hurricane Katrina, tours the Carville, La., morgue where many were sent.
(By Chitose Suzuki -- Associated Press)
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While the mausoleum is being planned and built, the bodies will be in the custody of a mortuary company that the city is choosing, Stephens said.
Katrina's dead have proved a large-scale logistical challenge. State officials, working with local coroners, have recovered 1,103 bodies.
Of those, 97 are still unidentified, and a large portion of those will be difficult to identify, state officials said, because investigators lack not only personal effects but also the locations where the bodies were recovered. Without those initial clues, it is difficult to know from whom to seek DNA samples to match the body with a family.
DNA has been used to make identifications in some cases, but the vast majority of bodies have been identified using more conventional techniques, with workers searching through flooded New Orleans dentists' offices and poring over soggy dental records.
"We're down to those we have no idea on," Smith said. "The ones that only DNA will get."
Once the bodies are identified, moreover, there is no guarantee that they can be released.
As of Friday, 106 bodies had been identified but remained on the trucks either because the families could not be located or because the families, who are scattered across the country, did not have the means to arrange a funeral.
"So many people have been completely displaced," said Bob Johannessen, a state spokesman. "A family that winds up in Buffalo, New York, may not have the wherewithal to claim a body and conduct a burial."
An array of complications has slowed the process of releasing and burying the bodies.
In four or five cases, the next of kin is mentally impaired. In 20 or more cases, the families are working with FEMA to receive money for burials. In others, the grief-stricken families are simply letting the government handle arrangements.
"There are some who say just let the state take care of it," said Randy Lemoine, director of the call center where identifications are being coordinated. "We're talking about very poor families. Some are dragging their feet to see how the state will handle the process.
"Other families are still dealing with their own grief," he said. "They are struggling to get their personal affairs in order. It's heart-rending to hear their stories."
The mortuary team's task goes well beyond those killed by this year's hurricanes, too. An estimated 1,300 dead were displaced when caskets laid to rest long before the storm were swept away by floodwaters, officials said. One coffin in Cameron Parish was carried more than 33 miles by Hurricane Rita's storm surge. It was found beneath a highway overpass.
In this city, whose cemeteries and jazz funerals are a distinctive regional custom, the focus is on returning Katrina's victims.
"There is something about being buried in the place you lived and coming home," said Stephens, the city health director. "We need to bring closure. We really do need to bring closure."
