Going Home Again
Release Date: February 17, 2006
Release Number: 1603-353
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BATON ROUGE, La. -- There was no indication why the long line of trucks pulled to a stop in front of the tiny cemetery along St. Bernard Highway - the road that cuts through Violet, Louisiana, a waterfront community east of New Orleans.
In the shadow of giant ocean-going ships docked nearby, officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service and deputies from the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Department flagged oncoming traffic to a halt. One by one, huge tractor trailers backed onto the cemetery property. The lines of stopped cars grew longer. Curious drivers waited patiently. They would have no way of knowing the precious cargo being delivered.
Inside each of the refrigerated trailers were as many as 21 new, highly-polished caskets. Arranged side by side in rows of three, the silver and chrome coffins contained the remains of deceased who were lifted from their final resting sites - displaced when Hurricane Katrina's storm surge ripped through months earlier. Today 107 St. Bernard Parish residents were coming home.
The last leg of their journey probably started many hours earlier - like other missions that returned remains to parishes in hurricane ravaged south Louisiana. Under moon and starlight, in a vast empty parking lot, several semi trailers stood wheel to wheel - lined up with military exactness.
Appearing from behind a nearby building, moving at a respectful speed, a lone truck approached the lineup, turned to cross in front of the formation and took a position fronting one of the trailers.
Soon another tractor would appear, making the long slow drive across FEMA's Disaster Mortuary Response Team (DMORT) temporary morgue near Carville, La. The scene would have repeated itself - six times in all on this chilly pre-dawn morning.
As each trailer was hooked on, a chaplain, dwarfed by the rig, made the sign of the cross. Circling the vehicle he blessed truck and cargo with holy water. Then, with heads bowed, he gathered the drivers to pray for success on their sacred mission. Finally, accompanied by police escorts, lights flashing, the procession of trucks and other government vehicles filed slowly out of the compound - passing DMORT personnel lined up to pay their last respects.
The provisional morgue is a joint FEMA/state effort. Working in support of local parish coroners, displaced remains were brought to the facility for identification and re-casketing. Identification was often a difficult process - other times impossible. Many of the remains were simply too old. In some cases, funeral homes had not taken the time to fill out identification papers in the "memory tubes" included with caskets. Frequently cemetery records were incomplete or destroyed altogether by the floods.
The sheer magnitude of both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita compounded the problem. Tsunami-like storm surges carried objects great distances. It was frequently difficult to establish where remains originated. One coffin in Cameron Parish in western Louisiana was washed from a cemetery located six miles from the coast. It was eventually found another 32 miles farther inland!
And for all the attention given to DNA testing, the overwhelming majority of all ID matches made after Katrina and Rita were the result of painstaking research and deduction. Using information gathered by funeral professionals with Louisiana's Family Assistance Center, DMORT workers compared evidence such as mementos found in coffins, identifying marks on bodies and dental records. Matters were further complicated because many family members of the deceased evacuated out of state and were not available to assist investigators.
DMORT officials will turn over a list of identities to the local coroner. For those that weren't identified, a record has been made of all possible identifiers in hopes that a family member will show up later. But, just as when Hurricane Audrey hit Louisiana in 1957, some of these names will never be known.
As the first of the caskets are unloaded at Merrick Cemetery, one of four cemeteries these trucks will visit in the parish, Don Banks oversees the process. Banks and his company Global Disaster Management (GDM) were contracted by St. Bernard Parish to coordinate body retrieval after the storms. That included recovering displaced remains. He characterizes his partnership with FEMA and DMORT simply and emphatically. "Excellent, excellent, excellent. Great professionals to work with."
In addition to working closely with FEMA, Banks and his partner at GDM, Megan Griffiths, relied heavily on the Louisiana Air National Guard and the Arkansas National Guard to help spot and retrieve displaced remains. Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state medical examiner, coordinated the re-interment effort on behalf of Louisiana.
As each casket is lifted off the truck and placed into a new vault, the families of these storm victims take another step toward closure. Everyone involved in the effort on a federal, state and local level is of the same mind. Danny Baldwin, a funeral director from Franklin, North Carolina assigned to FEMA sums it up, "We're trying our best to help these people heal."
FEMA manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 08:32:26