The Dead Deserve to be Buried

Another tragic story in the Katrina aftermath. I won't post this as news but hope it gets the attention it deserves so people have a chance to read about it. For those of you who may wonder what the point is to know these things. Well the answer is pretty evident. The people who died, their friends and family, those who survive and Americans everywhere should know what is really going on.

The dead have not been buried in many cases. It doesn't really matter what the reasons are because I'm sure there are some damned good ones, like being trapped in an attic or floating around in the water. I understand the difficulties in rescuing and discovering everyone in a chaotic and turbulant situation.

But this story - Vera's is sad - not only because of the immediate health reasons of having exposed bodies on the streets and the very real possibility of diseases, but because Vera was a human being who didn't get a chance to die like one. We - all of us, deserve some respect and dignity in life as well as death.

It is sad and tragic and believe me, I don't use that word lightly. Dead people are lying around in the sun, abandoned on the streets, dead in bathrooms and freezers and attics; exposed corpses, pathetic and wretched in a country where we thought this couldn't happen.

Vera didn't die in the hurricane. She didn't die in the flood - she died in the aftermath and was left to rot.

How many more of these cases will we read about and discover before this is all over?

And most importantly, what does it teach us?

It is too late for the dead to start pointing fingers and appropriating blame. It is too late to listen to the naysayers and those with so much foresight it makes your head spin. Many like her didn't escape and didn't die with the hurricane or the floods.

Yes she is dead and there is nothing anyone can do about it. FEMA or the soldiers or guards can't help. But we should care. We should really care about the aftermath.

After all the blame has been appropriated - the looters and politicans forgotten. It is these corpses that will be remembered.

In a makeshift grave on the streets of New Orleans lies the body of Vera Smith. She was an ordinary woman who, like thousands of her neighbours, died because she was poor. Abandoned to her fate as the waters rose around her, Vera's tragedy symbolises the great divide in America today

However Vera Smith may have lived her life, one thing was certain. In death, she had no dignity. Killed in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her body lay under a tarpaulin at the junction of Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue for five full days. Not her friends, her grieving husband, not her neighbours could persuade the authorities to take her corpse away.

Finally, disgusted by the way she had been abandoned - and concerned, too, about the health implications of advancing decomposition - her friends buried her in a makeshift grave. A local man fashioned a simple cross, and on top of the soil that was shovelled over her body he placed a white plastic sheet and wrote "Here Lies Vera. God Help Us."

news.independent.co.uk...



[edit on 6-9-2005 by nikelbee]

Slight title fix.

[edit on 6-9-2005 by RANT]

[edit on 6-9-2005 by intrepid]

And I just heard on cnn that the majority of dead will be buried in a mass plot without autopsies and without contact with the families. In other words, people won't get to see or make any contact with the bodies of their loved ones.

They said they could bring in refrigerator trucks like they did after 9/11 but it was decided against.

This is so sad.

It makes sense, both health-wise and financially (that is a concern) but it still breaks my heart that the bodies will be dumped in a huge hole all together... Ugh!

It is very sad. Regardless of spirituality or religion, ceremonies and traditions are what makes us different from everything else. If we start forgetting that, we are indeed as inhuman as they are saying we are.

Problem is, you can't really bury people in the ground in most of Louisiana...if not all the state.

You try to dig and you'll get water. That's why people in NO are buried above ground in vaults.

Originally posted by nikelbee
Another tragic story in the Katrina aftermath. I won't post this as news but hope it gets the attention it deserves so people have a chance to read about it. For those of you who may wonder what the point is to know these things. Well the answer is pretty evident. The people who died, their friends and family, those who survive and Americans everywhere should know what is really going on.

The dead have not been buried in many cases. It doesn't really matter what the reasons are because I'm sure there are some damned good ones, like being trapped in an attic or floating around in the water. I understand the difficulties in rescuing and discovering everyone in a chaotic and turbulant situation.

But this story - Vera's is sad - not only because of the immediate health reasons of having exposed bodies on the streets and the very real possibility of diseases, but because Vera was a human being who didn't get a chance to die like one. We - all of us, deserve some respect and dignity in life as well as death.

It is sad and tragic and believe me, I don't use that word lightly. Dead people are lying around in the sun, abandoned on the streets, dead in bathrooms and freezers and attics; exposed corpses, pathetic and wretched in a country where we thought this couldn't happen.

Vera didn't die in the hurricane. She didn't die in the flood - she died in the aftermath and was left to rot.

How many more of these cases will we read about and discover before this is all over?

And most importantly, what does it teach us?

It is too late for the dead to start pointing fingers and appropriating blame. It is too late to listen to the naysayers and those with so much foresight it makes your head spin. Many like her didn't escape and didn't die with the hurricane or the floods.

Yes she is dead and there is nothing anyone can do about it. FEMA or the soldiers or guards can't help. But we should care. We should really care about the aftermath.

After all the blame has been appropriated - the looters and politicans forgotten. It is these corpses that will be remembered.

In a makeshift grave on the streets of New Orleans lies the body of Vera Smith. She was an ordinary woman who, like thousands of her neighbours, died because she was poor. Abandoned to her fate as the waters rose around her, Vera's tragedy symbolises the great divide in America today

However Vera Smith may have lived her life, one thing was certain. In death, she had no dignity. Killed in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her body lay under a tarpaulin at the junction of Magazine Street and Jackson Avenue for five full days. Not her friends, her grieving husband, not her neighbours could persuade the authorities to take her corpse away.

Finally, disgusted by the way she had been abandoned - and concerned, too, about the health implications of advancing decomposition - her friends buried her in a makeshift grave. A local man fashioned a simple cross, and on top of the soil that was shovelled over her body he placed a white plastic sheet and wrote "Here Lies Vera. God Help Us."

news.independent.co.uk...



[edit on 6-9-2005 by nikelbee]

Slight title fix.

[edit on 6-9-2005 by RANT]

[edit on 6-9-2005 by intrepid]

well said. all the posts on this forum blaming people are missing the point. people died, real people died!they died with no decorum or respect. please lay off the blame game until this nightmare is over. then get to the truth.
stop posting your favourite conspiracy theories. lets just remember the victims.