Many workers and volunteers labored seven days a week, ten to twelve hours a day, retrieving caskets and remains from trees, marshes and waterways. Their challenge was magnified by the abundance of very aggressive alligators and snakes that inhabit the area. It was necessary that the rescuers have snake anti-venom, as well as paramedics and SWAT teams to shoot the predators when they came too close.
 

Directing the re-entombment program for the thousands of graves disturbed by Hurricane Rita in Cameron Parish was not a desk job for Zeb Johnson. The assistant coroner for neighboring Calcasieu Parish Forensic Center and owner of Johnson Funeral Home was often up to his waist in the alligator and snake infested marshes helping retrieve caskets and remains.

Thanks to a joint effort by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), DMORT (Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team), SI® Funeral Services, Johnson and Hixson Funeral Homes of Lake Charles, Louisiana and hundreds of volunteers, 38 Cameron Parish cemeteries have all been restored. The Keith Gallagher (2nd from left) and members of the SI team are pictured completing the reburial process as the family of the diseased waits to conduct a brief service to re-dedicate the gravesite.

The 38 Cameron Parish cemeteries breached by Hurricane Rita have been restored. Pictured are the Hixson Funeral Home and SI Funeral Services teams that were involved in the clean-up and reburial process. They are (l to r): Matilda LaBove -- Hixson Funeral Director, Creole, LA; Jerrod Daigle – Hixson Funeral Manager, Lake Charles, LA; Kevin Kingan – Customer Service Representative (CSR), SI, Oakdale; Matilda Ann Bertrand – Hixson Funeral Director, Lake Charles, LA; Loyd McDaniel – CSR, SI Oakdale; Donnie Drake – Lead CSR, SI, Oakdale; Chip Winkle – Manager, SI, Shreveport; and, Keith Gallagher - - SI Regional Manager, Louisiana, SE Texas and Arkansas.
 

Immediately after Hurricane Rita hit on September 23-24, 2005, 75% of the 2,000 square mile area of Cameron Parish was underwater. Thirty-eight of the parish’s 40 cemeteries were breached, disturbing virtually all the surface vaults and approximately 30% of the mausoleums and in-ground gravesites. Thanks to a joint effort by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), DMORT (Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team), SI® Funeral Services, Johnson and Hixson Funeral Homes of Lake Charles, Louisiana and hundreds of volunteers, all the cemeteries have now been restored.

While none of the nearly 10,000 residents in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, were killed by Hurricane Rita, 38 of the parish’s 40 cemeteries were breached and over 340 caskets and bodies were torn from the ground and scattered into tree tops, marshes, pastures and canals as far as 30 miles away.

Retrieving the remains unearthed by Hurricane Rita was not a simple task. Since over 340 caskets were scattered up to 30 miles away and 60% of Cameron Parish is marshlands and waterways, marsh buggies (large tank like barges with tracks and draglines attached), helicopters, boats from several sheriff departments, air boats and any other equipment they could beg or borrow were used to recover the caskets and remains.