City to Take Custody of Unclaimed Storm Victims
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 11, 2006
NEW ORLEANS -- Inside a fleet of refrigerated trucks parked an hour west of here lie the bodies of more than 200 unidentified or unclaimed victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"Some, we don't know who they are," said Chuck Smith, leader of the federal mortuary effort in Carville, La. "And with some, we can't locate the families, or the families are unable to make provisions."
The question now, five months after the storm, is what to do with the dead.
The makeshift morgue, a joint federal and state effort, is scheduled to close by the end of the month. And like virtually every other challenge facing this flooded metropolis, the funeral tasks have been complicated by the vast scale of the disaster and the difficulties of coordinating local, state and federal efforts.
Initially, state authorities had selected a four-acre cemetery site in Carville, and in preparation for the burials, had graded and planted the ground. A memorial was envisioned there.
But that did not sit well with many in New Orleans who argued that a proper burial includes the sense, spiritual and geographical, of "going home." Most of the dead come from the city.
"I told them we cannot be burying New Orleanians outside of New Orleans," Mayor C. Ray Nagin said of his protests to state officials.
The mayor said he also objected to the proposed use of wooden caskets, which "over time would have disintegrated into the earth," making it difficult to relocate remains if more identifications are made later.
So now the city will take custody of the dead. The trouble is that the city, already struggling with the burdens of hurricane recovery, must now scramble to build a mausoleum for the Katrina victims.
New Orleans officials met last week with FEMA officials to discuss the city's request for financial help to build the mausoleum, which is expected to cost about $400,000. A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman said FEMA is prepared to reimburse the city for at least some of the mausoleum expense.
It would be built at a publicly owned cemetery here, said the city's health director, Kevin Stephens, and made of some appropriate material, such as granite. The bodies will be held in metal caskets, and if one of the unidentified bodies within the mausoleum is later identified, it can easily be removed and placed elsewhere for burial.
The city is also working with a corporate donor who may contribute nearly $1 million to a memorial for the victims, Nagin said.
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."
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