Black Newspaper Spurs Effort to Send Volunteers to NOLA to Recover Bodies

[preciousdove]

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=f6f882afc06da203720250179462fada

News Feature, Donal Brown and Cheryl Brown,
New America Media and The Black Voice News, Sep 29, 2005

SAN BERNARDINO, CA - Concerned about the mishandling of the deceased in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a coalition of community leaders and organizations raised funds to send about 10 volunteers to New Orleans to help recover bodies. This effort comes amid evidence that black morticians are being shut out of the recovery effort for contractors favored by the government.

Estimates of more than 10,000 dead are now considered inaccurate. As of Sept. 29, the official count for all of Lousiana was 896, but efforts to recover bodies in New Orleans has just gotten under way.

Mark McKay of McKay’s Family Mortuary said the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent out a call for morticians across the country to send supplies but excluded many black mortuaries. McKay and others fear that black morticians will not be allowed to participate in the recovery and burial of bodies, many of them, African American victims. McKay believes it is important to bring dignity to the process and honor the dead....

House said that it took some effort to get FEMA permission. His group will travel to New Orleans on Oct. 4 braving the hazards including bacteria, mold, poisons from refineries, lead dust and airborne asbestos. Many of the volunteers are employed in law enforcement; two are licensed morticians; and others work in the funeral business. All are experienced in dealing with hazards related to handling the deceased. They will work in New Orleans for 10 days.

[rodeodance]

1. I can't believe they left these bodies just laying around for so long.

[willing dwarf]

2. MortuaryScience Race

It's well known in Black Communities that if you want to make money, one sure way to do it is be a mortician. White folks don't seem to care to handle the bodies of black folks. They can't deal with the hair I suppose.

It's ridiculous but true. So it makes sense that the black community is obliged to send in their own morticians if they want to see the bodies of their own treated properly.

This is ridiculous. Who ever heard of segregation in death? If the white folks who are plotting to get New Orleans in their grips for good were to consider it, the heaven they claim to believe in won't be segregated...or will it? WHo knows if any white folks will even make it to heaven at this rate!

[roguevalley]

3. there are people going back to their homes and finding their family

members dead in their houses. some of the houses have marks that no one is dead and inside, they are laying where they died. I think they will undercount. This is a good idea.
God bless them all, this grisly task.

[OneBlueSky]

4. there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies in attics . . .

in the poorer and most heavily flooded areas of the city . . .

remember, when the levee was breached, the power was already out from the hurricane, so most people had no warning that they were about to be flooded . . . they found out when the water started rising . . . as it got deeper and deeper, many were forced higher and higher into their houses, until they could go no farther . . . many drowned, and many were likely suffocated as well . . .

while it's disgusting and infuriating that the authorities are STILL not doing thorough searches of homes in these areas, it's even MORE disgusting and infuriating that armies of rescue workers armed with axes and chainsaws weren't dispatched to cut a hole in every residential roof in the city to see who might be trapped -- within three days of the disaster, at the latest . . .

if this disaster had happened in Miami Beach they sure as hell would have . . .