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Dave Martin / AP
A leafless tree stands over graves in the Cheniere Caminada cemetery in Grand Isle, La. Many coastal Louisiana cemeteries are just skeletons of what they used to be.
The Associated Press reports from Leeville, La. — As a young adult, Kathleen Cheramie visited her grandmother's grave in a tree-lined cemetery where white concrete crosses dotted a plot of lush green grass just off Louisiana Highway 1.
Now, the cemetery in Leeville is a skeleton of its former self. The few trees still standing have been killed by saltwater intruding from the Gulf. Their leafless branches are suspended above marsh grass left brown and soggy from saltwater creeping up from beneath the graves.
"It was a beautiful place to visit," said Cheramie, 67, who lives in nearby Golden Meadow. "It hurts to see it now."
Dave Martin / AP
What's left of the old Leeville cemetery is only accessible by boat. Some headstones are barely visible above the water, and waves lap at the bricks and concrete surrounding caskets buried at the site since the late 1800s. Much of the ground has subsided to barely sea level, and during Hurricane Isaac, about seven feet of land washed away in the tidal surge.
Cheramie's small family graveyard is among at least two dozen cemeteries across the southeast Louisiana coast that are rapidly sinking or washing away because of erosion and subsidence accelerated by the tropical punch of storms such as Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, Lee and Isaac.
Slideshow: Isaac makes landfall on the US Gulf Coast
Coastal Louisiana has lost about 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s as canals dug for oil exploration allowed salty water to intrude into marshes and a succession of powerful hurricanes sucked marsh muck that protects populated areas out into the Gulf.
Dave Martin / AP
Windell Curole handles pieces of headstone at his small family cemetery which sits along the bayou near Leeville. Curole said saltwater from the Gulf is causing a crippling subsidence problem.
South Lafourche Levee District General Manager Windell Curole, who also serves on the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said saltwater from the Gulf is causing a crippling subsidence problem.
"We did not bury people in marshes," Curole said. "We buried them on high ground. This was high ground, and now it's subsided to the point of being wetlands and open water." Read the full story.
Editor's note: Images taken on Dec. 29, 2012 and made available to NBC News today.
Dave Martin / AP
Water washes around and against the tombs of those buried in a Leeville, La., cemetery.
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Nothing should have been built there in the first place stop throwing good money after bad. Let mother nature take it back. They are dead let it go. If is's a relative move the grave somewhere like Arkansas they need new DNA
I didn't have to troll very long for that one
Left wing...c'mon, that was pretty damn funny I thought. And I have relatives in AR...
Should make for some great speckled trout fishing in a few years
It's my feeling that no pun was intended.
Sounds like the definition of "high Ground" needs to be reviewed. You're in Hurricane territory. you live at, below or near sea level, depending. High Ground is about 5 feet above the highest recorded wave to strike the beach. If the highest wave recorded (tallest) is (say) 30 feet, then the High Ground starts in at 50 feet above high tide. If you are not at 50 feet above high tide (in these hypothetical bounds) then you are a moron.
Steve--see, when I was in HS in the late 60's, my family lived in a town in central MISSOURI, said town NOT being on any river or stream, and my mom came home from visiting the cemetary and told my dad that the markers on great Aunt Stella's and Great Uncle Lawrence (they were the ones that were flat, horizontal, and originally about 6 inches off the ground) had sunk down so badly that the lawn mower the cemetary used was going OVER them and chipping the granite. And the cemetary wanted $50 apiece to raise them back up.
Long story short, my family went out with picks, shovels, and bags of gravel, and dug them up, and poured the gravel down the hole to raise them up.
and of coures, discovered that PART of the problem was that the 'contents' of the coffins had LONG since 'liquefied', the wooden coffins had gone the 'dust to dust' route, and despite the head stones being set in a 2 foot deep 'tooth root' of concrete, everything had sagged down.
Erosion, and deteriation, are facts of life in EVERY climate.
Cremation is the best way to go!
PS--my dad told my mom that the NEXT time it happened, we'd pay the $50. ;p
Erosion is a fact of life in every coastal area and along most rivers, it's especially bad in areas with sandy soil. In North Carolina the Cape Hatteras lighthouse had to be moved almost 3000 feet inland to offset the erosion in 1999, it was a national Park, it belonged to the government so money was no object.The cemeteries don't belong to the government so they aren't very concerned with saving them, and the surviving families are gone or dead so they can't take care of the graves. To offset erosion the cemetery at Chikamauga Battlefield National Park in Georgia the Park service has brought in fill dirt to keep erosion at bay on several occaisions, again it's government so money is no object. Graves are not something the government is concerned about the government has paved over several indian burial grounds in the process of building the interstate highway system they've moved several whole towns that were in the way of government projects without moving the cemeteries they aren't concerned if it doesn't belong to the government or the Park Service they'll allow mother nature have her way, and erosion will continue.
Cletus--when Bagnall Dam in MO was built in the 30's to dam 3 rivers and create the Lake of the Ozarks, they flooded numerous towns and farms (many of which had small family cemetaries!) and didn't move most of THOSE graves! (or tear down the towns/houses!)
They don't call it "The Army Corpse of Engineers" for nothing.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, forgotten and dissolved into the earth. Just the normal course of human events - why such sadness?
Buckmango--the sad part is that many old headstones USED to be not only true works of art, but contained
'Americana' that cannot be replaced. My fathers family was from the south, and on family trips to visit, to give the kids an energy expending break from the long car trip, we frequently would stop at old cemetaries and let the younger ones run while the adults read the inscriptions on some of the tombstones. ("I told you I was sick" being one of the funniest!)
And in coastal GA, in one cemetary where the 'burials' were above ground in stone boxes, some of the tops were inscribed with the details of the deceased's life, which were VERY poignant. Sad to lose that.
It's not like they are going to Drown. Their grave just becomes a Burial At Sea.
sad as it is, are these folks just realizing that the Mean Elevation of the state of Louisiana is only 100 feet above sea level???!!!
Smallest--the facts of life are, in the 'olden days' transportation and water for crops/human and animal drinking demanded that you live near the water, no matter if it was the ocean or the local river/stream.
And in those SAME times, it was usually necessary to 'get them in the ground' pretty quick because of the 'bouquet' not to mention spreading illness, so it was usually not POSSIBLE to transport bodies a long way away for burial. And they DID pick the high ground for most cemetaries--it just didn't REMAIN high ground.
But my home town in Central MO is at 850 some odd feet, NOT on a river or stream, and we STILL have erosion.
I worked on the oil rigs down there, coming in from Wisconsin for 2 - 3 months at a time to work on a rig or a boat. Golden Meadow (speed trap) Port of Fourchon, Houma, Slidel...all areas with above ground crypts, some look like cities dedicated to the dead. (especially around New Orleans). It made me wonder why they never made it mandatory to cremate. If I understand Acadian culture, they tend to bury their dead by tradition. Burying them in a water filled hole in a swamp in the hot and humid area would expedite rotting and "return to the earth" as one might say. I can understand that, "Cajun" people tend to live in less populated areas and don't tend to have "cities" of dead.
One would think with the problems of flooding and the rotting corpses, skeletons and coffins popping up all over the place when these floods happen, that someone would have come up with a new idea to dispose of the dead. It is amazing to see the waste of space cemetaries really are...it becomes quite vivid if one would take a trip through various developed areas of Louisiana and see the waste of good land there is dedicated to the dead. I could see miles and acres of land put to better use for the living. Not to make money for some damn corporation but to simply reside.
Unfortunately, we have overpopulation and we have to many people that believe in archaic religions and superstitions, so we will be stuck with these wasteful monstrosities.
Miles and miles of mangrove forest has been destroyed by man. They were the only thing that protected inland areas. With the mangroves gone there is little left to prevent one disaster after another and erosion that will continue year after year.
Don't be alarmed so is America's social and morale fabric.
Keep what you got and grab as much as you can along the way.
Bad moon a rising.
Laos Deo--a perfect metaphor for NOT fixing Social Security (I'm getting MINE and to He!! with whether it will be there for my kids and grandkids) or getting the national debt under control (lets dump all the debt on future generations, so WE can all get a new ball park, or new fisheries, or whatever pork WE want but cannot afford. INCLUDING many so called 'entitlements'.)
MOmaid: You're blameing the wrong people. All the blame goes to the politicians for raiding the social security fund to fight Wars, Foreign Aid, Bridges to nowhere, space projects, etc. etc. etc. If they would have kept their filthy mitts off of the fund there would have been enough money for social security for the next hundred years. And we can't keep bringing in Hundreds of thousands of Immigrants into this country and putting them social security and SSI without them ever having put one thin dime into it. It's madness the way these Politicians spend that money.
Tarzan, that is pretty well said for a dude that wears a loin cloth and is best friends with a monkey.
Just for informations sake, even P.B.S. been running episodes, which tell the history, of the Louisiana Bayou country. Thats right, I said Bayou Country.
Although the French Quarter was built on what was, THEN, high ground, most of the area was built up AFTER an 1800's man designed and built a pumping system, to drain the water from the natural basin form, which houses most of the city.
Prior to his pumps being brought on-line, most of what we call New Orleans was, also, under water.
As P.B. S. has noted, in its science shows, coastal erosion is proceeding, at a most rapid rate. This means that even areas, which were, once, HIGH ground, are being drawn into the Gulf. This is a very definite result of pollution, including dumping of oil. The marsh-lands, which, once protected all of the New Orleans area is being "drained" away. This is why storms, such as Katrina, do NOT lose force, before hitting the city, anylonger.
This drainage has caused real loss of land, in New Orleans. "Funny" thing is, the "ancestors" tried to compensate, for the water damage, and subsidence, by burying people ABOVE ground, in tombs.
New Orleans has been pumping water, for centuries, and will continue pumping for as long as its sub-surface area is inhabited.
I just wonder WHERE all the people would move to, if the bayou is abandoned. Some had suggested Nevada, among other places, but dont we need MORE than "thoughts". Dont we need to start making REAL plans. And, NO!, I DONT mean, just cutting off all aid, until people move away.
Ofcourse, any REAL solution will cost BILLIONS of dollars, and not many people have that kind of money.
I just think that this is one of those discussions which America needs to have. Just my opinion, though.
commander--I feel the same way about the victims of Hurricane Sandy. They should NOT, I repeat NOT recieve federal aid to REBUILD in the same place. For all who want to blame global warming striclty on polution, remember that Venice Italy has been sinking for CENTURIES.
No matter WHAT the cause, if you want to build on 'flood prone' areas, and can afford to do so on your OWN dime, and take the loss if the worst does happen, so be it.
But NO support for rebuilding in the same place. It is sad, but a fact of life. Of you want to build on the slope of a (temporarily) dormant volcano, YOUR risk. On the shores of a river? YOUR risk. ANYWHERE in CA? Your risk, be it from earthquakes, fires, or flooding/mud slides. YOUR risk.
That's what insurance is FOR folks, and that is why it is MORE expensive to get in some areas than it is in others. YOUR responsibility.
MOmaid please include a good proportion of the Midwest in your feelings. Why should we consistently pay for people who live in an area where tornadoes happen much more frequently than superstorm Sandy? BTW the tri-state area in the Northeast pays way more in taxes than Midwest or southern states. We have put more in the coffers so we need some back. Also, if you're going to rule out "flood prone" areas, hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires, landslides, earthquakes etc. you would be hard pressed to find any state that meets such criteria. Man made or not weather patterns are changing, we are all going to be affected at some point. Finally, my friends who lost their houses accepted the responsibility and did pay dearly for flood/home insurance. Unfortunately, the insurance companies are fighting tooth and nail to pay the claims or are flat out denying them.
I am not trying to be uncaring but I do not know why this is now suddenly news worthy. This problem has been happening in louisiana for a long time. I have a friend who served with the coast guard and was stationed in louisiana in the 60's. his job was to recover human remains that "floated out to sea" when the graves sank.
Even the dead can't have any peace.
Don't know why people still think that general area is inhabitable. You would have thought they would have figured that out back in 2005 & maybe found a better place to live by now.
Informed--agreed! And the SAME is true of the areas of New Jersey/New York that were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.
It is sad, but they need to MOVE away.
I'm not even reading this "news" article. If people need to live and build anything in areas prone to flooding so they can have a nice view, they should pay to rebuild their own properties. Same goes for NYC, NJ, and anywhere else people CHOOSE to build and live near water.
Cemetaries that are in flood planes need to go away. People in general, need to quit living and dying in 40 year flood planes. The hurricane Katrina people rebuilt in the same flood plane and they want American's to foot the bill the next time it floods... It is a ridiculous problem.
When you stop the deposit of sediment in a river delta area (which happened as soon as the Mississippi was encased in levees). the river delta area will slowly sink as the sediment compacts and the weight of the delta pushes the underlying sea floor down. This is what is happening in LA in a large part of the state. Add to that the rise in sea levels and the cutting of channels into the delta, and this is what happens. All those areas (including New Orleans) will continue to sink, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
We need to get past the antiquated burial traditions in our culture and cremate people anyway. Cemeteries are a waste of space.
Another reason to do away with cemetaries all together. They are one of the biggest wastes of land that exists. Funeral homes are the biggest ripoff around. $10,000 to bury a family member is ridiculous. Once a person is dead, he or she is dead. It's over. Do away with the body, remember the person, and get on with taking care of the living.
There sure are a lot of armchair "experts" willing to tell people how to live and what to do about the issues they are facing. Not much empathy for sure. "But for the grace of God, there go I" should be considered before making snide comments about things like this. Instead of finding someway to show these people that someone actually cares, these "experts" can only offer up hate and distaste. Whatever happened to common decency in our country? Whatever happened to trying to make people feel better, instead of cutting them down? The smarta..... abound on these comment sites and leave a very bitter taste. God help us all!
Not wise to try and fool Mother Nature!
OK I feel for these people. Having the remains of thier loved ones floating in brine water. However, what did they expect when you bury something in a swamp bowl. The planning for these "small family cemetary" was not good. Like I said I feel bad for them. At the same time would you feel bad for a guy that gets drunk and shoots himself in the foot while cleaning a gun? Besides the people in the cemetaries are dead, and I'm pretty sure they are completely unaware of whats going on.
Now on the other hand I know the writer of this article is trying to tug on heart strings to get the point of erosion across. I give him props for that. Erosion is a problem. Even more so in places that have been altered by humans. I have seen many places in Texas that were wonderful lush farm land that would grow maize and other things as high as your head. Thanks to the army corp of engineers and canalization for the rivers. No flooding. Now the fields are almost worthless and have to be forcibly irrigated which washes away the land at the edge of the gash they clawed out of the land.
So yes. Erosion bad. People below sea level burying thier dead. With the water table being little more than 3 or 4 ft below the surface. Ocean right next door. Stupid.
Millionaires on the Jersey Shore want to rebuild in the same spot, and they want American's to pay for it. I say, if you can afford a million dollar property in a 40 year flood plane, YOU pay to rebuild it when it goes underwater. It will eventually go back underwater. Chris Christie can shove it up his lard ass! Shaming Congress for not coughing, or better yet, choking up 60 Billion dollars for the mess down there.
We MUST respect the dead. Shame on the people of New Orleans for allowing this to happen. Those graves should have ben moved.
Respect them why? They are dead. They do not care. Funerals and graves are for the living, not the dead...
We have way bigger fish to fry than worrying about some old cemetary built in a 40 year flood plain... Get real! These people are gone. If the dead have any family members still living that want to pay to have the graves moved, call them, if it bothers your sensibilities. Other than that, I do not want to pay for it in my taxes. These people are LONG dead and are feeling no pain. Save our resources for the living, and let the ocean take the cemetary.
How many times must we say it???? LEEVILLE and GRAND ISLE are not, I repeat, NOT NEW ORLEANS!!!! There are many many other cities, towns, burgs, in Louisiana other than the cesspool of New Orleans. Louisiana does not equal New Orleans, any more than California equals Hollywood. Get a MAP!!!! Leeville/Port Fourchon/Golden Meadow, is part of Lafourche Parish, NOT Orleans. Grand Isle is part of Jefferson Parish.
Why don't they move the cemeteries? Well, I guess it isn't a bad thing being buried at sea......