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Dozens of LA Skeletons, Caskets & Entire Cemeteries Are ‘Disappearing’

Jan. 3, 2013 7:05am Billy Hallowell

LEEVILLE, La. (TheBlaze/AP) — 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. But the landscape has changed dramatically.

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.”

Louisiana Cemeteries Are Floating Away & Disappearing

In this Dec. 29, 2012 photo, water washes around and against the tombs of those buried in a Leeville, La., cemetery. 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. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

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.

Local residents say 11 cemeteries in Jefferson Parish have repeatedly flooded since Hurricane Katrina. In Lafourche, Terrebonne and Plaquemines parishes, more than a dozen others have succumbed to tidal surge. Some have more than 300 gravesites.

Officials say not much can be done to save the cemeteries or the sinking communities that surround them, though some towns have tried pouring concrete slabs to build up the burial sites and hold headstones in place. They’ve also anchored above-ground caskets to the slabs to keep them from floating off.

“When I was a kid, you didn’t see graves floating away and going under water,” said Timothy Kerner, 53, mayor of the fishing town of Jean Lafitte, where schools, restaurants and homes have flooded at least four times in the past seven years.

Kerner said all 11 cemeteries in the area were under water during Hurricane Isaac, which struck Louisiana in August. Although many caskets had been anchored to concrete slabs, dozens still floated away, finding new resting places under and between houses.

In some cases, human remains became separated from the caskets.

In this Dec. 29, 2012 photo, 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. Credit: AP

“It’s horrible,” said Kerner, shaking his head as he flipped through photographs taken as officials recovered the caskets and remains. “It’s sad, and it would be sad in any circumstance, but in this case you have families that have been here for 300 years, for generation after generation.”

Kerner said his community has about 1,500 gravesites – some dating back to the early 1800s, when the town’s namesake, pirate Jean Lafitte, used the bayous for smuggling.

Along the Louisiana coast, towns like Jean Lafitte watch the Gulf march closer each day, threatening wildlife habitats and a way of life.

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.

Archie Chaisson, coastal zone manager for Lafourche Parish, said about 90 percent of one Leeville cemetery dating to the 1800s has been swallowed by a wide bayou that empties into the Gulf, and two other burial sites have been submerged in recent years.

What’s left of the bayou-side cemetery is accessible only by boat. Some headstones are barely visible above the water, and waves lap at the bricks and concrete surrounding caskets.

Chaisson said that as recently as 1920, the cemetery was several feet above sea level, surrounded by orange groves, cotton fields and cattle farms. Much of the ground has subsided to barely sea level, and during Isaac, about seven feet of land washed away in the tidal surge, he said.

“The bodies just lay abandoned because there’s nothing we can do for them now,” he said.

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.”

Curole said Louisiana’s coastal erosion problems started with the cutting and dredging of canals for oil and gas exploration, which allowed saltwater to work its way into freshwater marshes. The damming of the Mississippi River in the early 1900s also prevented the river from re-depositing freshwater sediment.

“We created the problem, and now we have to be smart about fixing the problem,” Curole said.

In Lafourche Parish, some of the earthen levees are as high as 16 feet to protect the communities within, and the parish is creating “apron marsh” by pumping sediment from inside the levee out to the broken marshes just beyond it for added buffer from the Gulf.

Curole said there isn’t much that can be done to save communities like Leeville, which sits beyond the levee system and today is about two-thirds open water.

“It’s so strange to not see any trees,” Cheramie said, adding that she rarely makes the short drive from her home inside the levee system to the family cemetery just beyond it. Her grandmother’s gravesite today is surrounded by saltwater-soggy ground and patches of dead marsh grass, with open water nearby. “It makes me feel sad.”

Cheramie said that about 10 years ago, a concrete slab was poured to try to raise the ground and hold the cemetery’s crosses in place, but with repeated hits from storms since 2005, sand and mud from the marsh have begun taking over the slab.

“It’s just disappearing,” she said. “It’s a shame to say, but you stay away because it’s too much. It’s too hard. We’re losing so much so fast, and it’s out of our control.”

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Comments (26)

danbou
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:38pm
The LSU library chart room used to have a copy of an old French map of this area. (1700′s) I assume it’s still there. It showed the bayou with a crow foot. As you went through later maps the crow foot vanished. A rather large lake that existed just south of there on the east bank, then vanished into the gulf.

It’s easy to gang up on the oil companies. They didn’t help. But the whole area is sibsiding and been doing so long before the arrival of the French. (How many old channels of the river have geologist found?) And 2 the army corps of engineers. They damned up the bayou at Donaldsonville. Depriving the bayou of fresh water and new silt deposits.

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dbuzz2
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 4:51pm
- The importance of these rivers in the growth and the continued economic prosperity of our nation, cannot be overstated. You may think that your tax dollars are being wasted on a “sinking ship” but I would caution that everyone who lives in the watershed mentioned above reaps huge economic benefits from New Orleans without realizing it. For instance, ocean going ships carrying all of our consumers goods that we love so much, (which we no longer make here in America), cannot travel up-river very far. South Louisiana is where their cargo shifts to barges to continue by water, or by rail or truck. And if you use petroleum products in any way, the contribution of South Louisiana should be self-evident.
- The building of locks and dams along these rivers, while beneficial for commerce, traps the silt in the heartland and has indeed starved the river of vital sediment. The building of levees in the past century has stopped the nuisance of spring floods, but now sends the remaining sediment far out to sea, instead of the yearly re-building of our Delta. I’m not blaming the Corps of Engineers for things that where done a hundred years ago… it just is what it is. Please just understand that we as South Louisianians, did not do this to ourselves in some attempt to extract tax dollars from the Government. It was done TO us by the Government.
Sorry for the rant, Thanks for understanding

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dbuzz2
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 4:47pm
Before anyone asks, I am a conservative, 2nd Amendment backing native of South Louisiana. Do with that what you will. Now for a little bit of geography for the people that either don’t have enough internet search ability or just don’t care to enlighten themselves before they spout off in these comments. I’m not a scholar by any means, just a little knowledge learned growing up down here.
- There is no “rock” that the French Quarter was built on. The city was started almost three hundred years ago (long before anyone knew of “storm surge” and nobody back then had hundreds of years of storm data to use as a basis for locating settlements). It stands on an alluvial plain that was building and subsiding, meandering and shifting direction, for thousands of years before the French got here. It’s location was beneficial because the land was “high and dry” and also located close to a natural native portage from Lake Pontchartrain which lies to the north.
- New Orleans is where it is because of the Mississippi River. If folks will do just a small amount of research, they might see that where every major river in the world reaches the sea, there exists a port city. The Mississippi is the largest river in America, and New Orleans is that city.
- From Pittsburgh at the headwaters of the Ohio River, to Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska and the rest of the Missouri River Basin, to Minnesota where the Mississippi begins as a trickle, when rain falls, all water flows to New Orleans

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HI_Don
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 3:36pm
This is what happens when you confuse SEA LEVEL with what you created as WATER LINE behind levies and dykes. Just as this article mixes them up throughout the text. When you build below SEA LEVEL and you no longer control or can control the influx of the sea, you get flooding. Just like folks who have built directly on the beach front are amazed that the tidal surge and storms occasionally wipe out their structures despite the fact that the beach fronts do exactly that and have done so for as long as their have been beaches and oceans.
Brain surgery and rocket science this isn’t folks. These are the same folks building sand castles at low tide and are amazed to find them gone the next day. Sorry for your loss and the disrespect of the dead, but next time when you choose “high ground” for a cemetery site, make sure it is actually “higher” than the flood plain, higher than the tidal surge, and higher than sea level. And while your at it, higher than the areas known or expected to flood when the river 100 feet away rises.

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hades3
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 2:44pm
This is an example too those who believe man controls nature and the environment. Billions are being spent due too those who preach global warming as the cause of natures natural happenings.
I will believe that man is in control of nature, when he can control earthquakes and volcanos, until that time no supposed scientist can convince me a greater power is not behind natural occurances.
Disasters occurred long before man set foot on the earth. Disasters measured by todays standards
created the universe and everything within it. NEWS FLASH !!!!!!!! They will continue too happen. Man is just along for the ride, even though sometimes that ride is very bumpy.

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Seagal45
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 1:43pm
Always wondered what the heck was wrong with those people building at or below sea level.

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COFemale
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 12:26pm
1st of all New Orleans is 12 ft BELOW SEA LEVEL. What sane person builds or buries something already below sea level even if it is above ground burial. They claim it was on high ground, which was probably actual sea level. HELLO PEOPLE.

Hey dig up your grandma and relocate her if you are so grief stricken. Otherwise she will swimming with the fishes.

I also like how they blame the oil and gas exploration for their woes. No sweetheart it was you stupid morons burying you dead below sea level close to water where hurricanes could come ashore. Never is a Liberals fault.

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- CenterLineStripe
  Posted on January 3, 2013 at 6:27pm
  @Cofe, that was a stupid comment
  
  Report this comment
emmaliza123
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:42am
Geology101 textbooks explain this changing of the coastline. Since the last Ice Age, sea levels in the Gulf have risen an average of 1/4 inch per year. Since the Galveston sea wall was built, after the 1900 hurricane, the rise has not been anywhere near the average, as anyone can see by going to Galveston. New Orleans is a long-term problem, as most of it was built BELOW SEA LEVEL, not the most intelligent project….Plus, dams on the Mississipi are doing to LA what the Aswan Dam is doing to the Nile River – once the richest farmland in the ancient world but now is suffering the same fate as the mouth of the mighty Mississipi…..Silt over millennia no longer rebuilds the land.

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SamIamTwo
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:34am
Above ground internment was common in the 70′s. This is/was a known issue. The buried dead floats in LA. Hope floats too.

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- danbou
  Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:23pm
  There are some interesting old descriptions of burials in NO. One was to bury you above ground where you baked in an oven. The other was in ground. Where they had to dig the hole quick before it filled with water. Drilled holes in the cofin to let the air out. Then piled rocks on the coffin to sink it. Then fill in the hole.
  
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woodyee
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:23am
Thousands of years from now, some of those interred their now will be found as fossilized remains. I wonder what will go through the minds of the archeologists when they find a few of those that had been buried in their cars.

“Must have been a massive flood and some couldn’t get out of the way in time…it just couldn’t be possible that some from such an advanced society were too stupid to know they were living on tidal plains, could it?”

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huey6367
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:56am
You live in an area that was once underwater. Sounds like a potential problem to me.

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RepubliCorp
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:37am
nothing 60 billion in tax dollars wouldn’t fix

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term limits for congress
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:23am
Just about everything built in the Mississippi delta is slowly sinking. I suppose Mother Nature has never heard of the EPA.

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term limits for congress
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:18am
they should have built pyramids.

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beesknow
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:13am
“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.”

As soon as it is a Wetlands the EPA will prevent anything from being done for it and will probably require them to remove any remaining graves as to prevent more damage to the wetlands.

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- oldguy49
  Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:32am
  and spend billions of dollars doing it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
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ArmedAndReallyPissed
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:12am
In March last year ( 2012 ) we in Central Iowa twice had Temps at 90 degrees or above. Those are JULY Temperatures. Then of course we had, and still have, the drought. As a Kid, i used to be able to Ice Fish from Christmas to Mid March. Now the Ice may be safe enough to Fish for 2 to 3 Weeks during the entire Winter.
I’m just glad Global Warming isn’t real……………Insert Sarcasm here.

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- Melika
  Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:26am
  That’s right, because once the climate hits the temperatures you like, it should never change. We should immediately instigate policy and practices to coerce the climate into another mini ice age so that people and animals can starve and freeze to death. Or we could wait another 50 years or so for the planet to do that on its own schedule, but then you would miss out on all those awesome months of ice fishing and whining about how you remember temperatures in June being in the 70′s.
  
  A dead planet has a climate that never changes. We’re a part of Mother Nature and the natural order of things, so she must want us to warm her planet up to encourage more diverse life and to get rid of the genetically unsuitable organisms (which is exactly what is happening during this warming phase).
  
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LameLiberals
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:11am
. There is a season the French built the French Quarters so far in-land and on rock The stupid Americans who came after them tore up the protective marches and built on swampland. And these IDIOT LA dumbaxxes expect ALL taxpayers to pay for THEIR levees and to rebuild THEIR HOMES after every hurricane or disaster. Someone needs to tell LA and NY and NJ homeowners that is what fire and flood insurance is for – rebuilding their homes. Their city is reposnisble ONLY FOR restoring electrical, water etc and the other states should not be financially involved at all. Vast areas are on swampland and SINKING. Building a levee 20 foot high won’t work soon because the homes are on the bottom of a sinking bathtub – one hurricane away from being underwater yet again. The government needs to get out of the flood insurance and bailing out private homeowners and private company business. ENOUGH!

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- jackal
  Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:47am
  I live in Biloxi about 80 miles E as the crow flies and you are right the FQ did not flood for it is on high ground.The other issue is the MRGO built by the Army Corp of Engineers too it diverted the MS River silt from the marshes of S.LA which made a natural barrier for those N (New Orleans) from storms.The Chandelier Islands an excellant fishing spot for Redfish and Spotted Sea (speckeld)Trout is also fading away because of the MRGO.
  
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Mapache
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 7:32am
Perhaps LA should not be constantly battling the forces of nature and try to learn to live with it. It was man who intruded and made a tidal basin a city.

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chips1
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 7:31am
You can’t keep a good man down. Why would the living want to have a cemetery in a flood prone area? Could it be that Louisana was built in the wrong place? Is it possible that in 100 years, New York will be in the wrong place? Constant change seems to be the norm for millions of years.

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on January 3, 2013 at 7:29am
The land has been sinking for millenia before mankind even settled there, and while it is sad what is happening to the cemeteries, it is natural forces at work. Its been known of for ages, so the inevitable should have been seen and dealt with long before now.

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- DadRocked
  Posted on January 3, 2013 at 8:05am
  SNOW – Here is a prime example to read the comments before one posts… Who knows, maybe somebody has written what one was going to post…
  
  I especially liked the line, “The few trees still standing have been killed by saltwater intruding from the Gulf. ” The saltwater is ‘intruding’… chuckled at that one…
  
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