http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/15/news/orleans.php Morgue for Katrina shuts down
By Shaila Dewan The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2006
CARVILLE, Louisiana After using it for only 10 weeks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has shut down a $17 million state-of-the-art morgue built to handle victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to agency officials.
The morgue, which can decontaminate and examine 150 bodies a day and has living space for nearly 500 workers, is closing because the number of bodies coming in has dwindled to about one a week, said Chuck Smith, a FEMA official.
Smith said Tuesday the morgue had been developed when officials believed there would be 5,000 deaths. Instead, there have been about 1,300 in Louisiana so far and it was apparent within a few weeks of the hurricane that the number of deaths would be 1,000 to 2,000.
"It is the Taj Mahal of forensic science; it is a beautiful place," said Frank Minyard, the New Orleans coroner. "But by the time we moved there we were finished with all the autopsies."
The shutdown began over the past weekend, when the morgue accepted its last body, found in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
FEMA has begun removing the equipment in the morgue and putting it in storage in preparation for the next disaster with high casualties.
State and local officials say they would have preferred that the federal government leave the equipment for their use, expressing concern that dozens of bodies remain to be found in the debris and damaged houses from the storm. Although state officials signed off on the morgue's disassembly in December, Louis Cataldie, the state emergency medical director, said that he thought the plan was flexible, and that the facility would still be usable after FEMA was gone.
But Smith said the federal agency's role had ended.
"Our mission is to support the state and local governments," said Smith, the incident commander of the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team at the Carville site. "When we get to the point where they're no longer overwhelmed, it's time for us to go."
The team, known as D-Mort, is a part of FEMA. After Hurricane Katrina, it was given the job of helping to identify storm victims.
Of the 910 bodies that were examined by D-Mort, all but 95 have been identified. About 100 have been identified but their families have not been located, or they have yet to be picked up by funeral homes.
Among D-Mort's last actions will be to transfer the remaining bodies to New Orleans, where officials are planning to build a mausoleum. Bodies that are identified, in some cases by DNA testing, could be disinterred in the future, officials said. The morgue also examined 610 bodies washed out of cemeteries after the flooding caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and put them in new coffins, officials said.
The Orleans Parish morgue was destroyed in the storm, and Minyard, the coroner, said he hoped to sign a lease on an unused funeral home at the end of this week. FEMA will pay to replace equipment he already had, but neither he nor the state had a dental X-ray machine or the software that compares dental records, all of which will be removed from the Carville morgue. Nearly 400 identifications have been made using dental records.
No one seemed to know what would happen to the 70,000-square-foot, or 6,500-square-meter, building that housed the morgue, built from the ground up on private land belonging to Bear Industries, a construction supply company.
In addition to the morgue, a warehouse, and rows of never-used cubicles, it included a cafeteria and fitness center.
CARVILLE, Louisiana After using it for only 10 weeks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has shut down a $17 million state-of-the-art morgue built to handle victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to agency officials.
The morgue, which can decontaminate and examine 150 bodies a day and has living space for nearly 500 workers, is closing because the number of bodies coming in has dwindled to about one a week, said Chuck Smith, a FEMA official.
Smith said Tuesday the morgue had been developed when officials believed there would be 5,000 deaths. Instead, there have been about 1,300 in Louisiana so far and it was apparent within a few weeks of the hurricane that the number of deaths would be 1,000 to 2,000.
"It is the Taj Mahal of forensic science; it is a beautiful place," said Frank Minyard, the New Orleans coroner. "But by the time we moved there we were finished with all the autopsies."
The shutdown began over the past weekend, when the morgue accepted its last body, found in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
FEMA has begun removing the equipment in the morgue and putting it in storage in preparation for the next disaster with high casualties.
State and local officials say they would have preferred that the federal government leave the equipment for their use, expressing concern that dozens of bodies remain to be found in the debris and damaged houses from the storm. Although state officials signed off on the morgue's disassembly in December, Louis Cataldie, the state emergency medical director, said that he thought the plan was flexible, and that the facility would still be usable after FEMA was gone.
But Smith said the federal agency's role had ended.
"Our mission is to support the state and local governments," said Smith, the incident commander of the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team at the Carville site. "When we get to the point where they're no longer overwhelmed, it's time for us to go."
The team, known as D-Mort, is a part of FEMA. After Hurricane Katrina, it was given the job of helping to identify storm victims.
Of the 910 bodies that were examined by D-Mort, all but 95 have been identified. About 100 have been identified but their families have not been located, or they have yet to be picked up by funeral homes.
Among D-Mort's last actions will be to transfer the remaining bodies to New Orleans, where officials are planning to build a mausoleum. Bodies that are identified, in some cases by DNA testing, could be disinterred in the future, officials said. The morgue also examined 610 bodies washed out of cemeteries after the flooding caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and put them in new coffins, officials said.
The Orleans Parish morgue was destroyed in the storm, and Minyard, the coroner, said he hoped to sign a lease on an unused funeral home at the end of this week. FEMA will pay to replace equipment he already had, but neither he nor the state had a dental X-ray machine or the software that compares dental records, all of which will be removed from the Carville morgue. Nearly 400 identifications have been made using dental records.
No one seemed to know what would happen to the 70,000-square-foot, or 6,500-square-meter, building that housed the morgue, built from the ground up on private land belonging to Bear Industries, a construction supply company.
In addition to the morgue, a warehouse, and rows of never-used cubicles, it included a cafeteria and fitness center.
CARVILLE, Louisiana After using it for only 10 weeks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has shut down a $17 million state-of-the-art morgue built to handle victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to agency officials.
The morgue, which can decontaminate and examine 150 bodies a day and has living space for nearly 500 workers, is closing because the number of bodies coming in has dwindled to about one a week, said Chuck Smith, a FEMA official.
Smith said Tuesday the morgue had been developed when officials believed there would be 5,000 deaths. Instead, there have been about 1,300 in Louisiana so far and it was apparent within a few weeks of the hurricane that the number of deaths would be 1,000 to 2,000.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.htmlhttp://rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.htmlThey've been hiding/disposing of the bodies to mke the death tolll go down
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