How Louisiana deals with cemetery flooding

This article is part of The State of Science, a series featuring science stories from public radio stations across the United States. This story was reported by WWNO’s Eva Tesfaye.

Emily Dalfrey lives across the street from Niblett’s Bluff Cemetery, where generations of her family are buried, in Vinton, Louisiana.

In 2016, a period of prolonged rainfall caused flooding so severe that people were able to drive boats through the cemetery. The water exerted so much pressure on the graves that some of the vaults, which are on the surface, burst open. Some coffins of Dalfrey’s own relatives were taken away and deposited in her garden.

Unsure how to restore the cemetery, the community turned to Gulf Coast Forensic Solutions, a company that helps people locate and rebury loved ones after natural disasters damage cemeteries.

“We really wouldn’t have gotten it done if we hadn’t had that guidance and that help,” Dalfrey said of Gulf Coast’s help. “Because when you bury your family, you think they’re going to be there forever.”

Louisiana has been dealing with flooded cemeteries and caskets washing away for decades, but the problem is getting worse — and more widespread. With climate change increasing the likelihood of weather-related disasters, many other states are now struggling with damaged cemeteries. And they’re looking for help in Louisiana.

Hurricanes, floods and mudslides

Charlie Hunter, the CEO of Gulf Coast Forensic Solutions, began this work during his time at the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office, where he worked on death investigations. Normally such a job involves investigating murders and car accidents, but Hunter found himself spending a lot of time restoring serious sites after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

He started his business in 2020 and repaired more than 75 cemeteries in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes in southwest Louisiana after Hurricanes Laura and Delta. He eventually left his job at the coroner’s office and expanded the company in 2023.

“It’s about ultimately giving families some peace of mind,” he says, “and I think that’s what’s really important. It’s a never-ending job.”

Working in a state so frequently ravaged by hurricanes has made him an expert in his field.

“With cemetery damage and restoration being such a big issue, people are contacting us from all over the country, whether it’s about hurricanes, floods or mudslides,” he says.

Hunter says he has helped people in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and even California. One of them was Eva Kenner from Port Charlotte, Florida. She manages Charlotte Harbor Cemetery, the oldest marked cemetery in the province. It was hit by Hurricane Ian in 2022, resulting in 26 fallen trees and nearly 100 damaged headstones.

“I’ve been working at the cemetery there for 20 years and we’ve never had headstones damaged by a storm,” Kenner said.

She hired Gulf Coast Forensic Solutions to help repair the cemetery and says the company repaired about 80 headstones in one week, but those beautiful trees can’t be returned.

“The 26 trees just took away the whole atmosphere. There were big, gigantic old oak trees, hundreds of years old, dappled by the sun,” she says.

But the repaired headstones have held up, she says, even after other storms tore through them, leaving debris on the ground.

The Louisiana Cemetery Response Task Force

The flood that damaged the graves of Dalfrey’s relatives in 2016 affected more than 800 graves in 74 cemeteries in Louisiana. After that event, the Louisiana Cemetery Response Task Force was formed.

“We’re the only state that has that,” said Ryan Seidemann, chair of the task force.

The task force is activated when a disaster declaration has been made and reports of damage to cemeteries have been made. It is currently activated and has been active since Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Seidemann says the task force was created to fill a gap in federal support for cemetery restoration and because many storm-prone places have no one left to care for the cemeteries.

“Many people have moved in recent years. There weren’t really many people who could speak for the descendants who had taken off and drifted away with the storm surge,” he says.

Like Hunter’s company, the task force helps find, recover and identify lost chests. Reburials can cost thousands of dollars, but family members of the deceased can obtain funding for this through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Individual Assistance Program. Because the process of obtaining that money can be difficult, especially if people are already dealing with the effects of a disaster in other parts of their lives, the task force also helps people apply for it.

And like Hunter, the task force is getting calls from other states where communities need that kind of cemetery restoration expertise — usually along the Atlantic Coast, but sometimes even in the West.

“Strangely enough, the requests for help have come from places like New Mexico, where you wouldn’t think there would be flooding problems with cemeteries,” says Seidemann, “but apparently because they’ve had problems with wildfires and then rainstorms, the undergrowth that is keeping funerals and dishes in their place.”

Prepare for extreme weather

Climate change shows how unprepared cemeteries are for extreme weather events, said Jennifer Blanks, a doctoral candidate at Texas A&M University who studies cemetery conservation and management.

“Climate change shows that there really isn’t a good protocol or procedure to help with these types of issues, when it comes to mitigating cemeteries from disasters, and how to restore them afterward,” Blanks said.

This is especially true for cemeteries for black people and other minorities. In her research, Blanks has found that black cemeteries in Louisiana are more exposed to flooding hazards and proximity to hazardous chemical sites.

“Traditionally, black residents and non-white people are forced to settle on land that is unwanted for a variety of reasons, whether it cannot produce any type of crop or product, or the value of the land is low because it is located in a floodplain, ” says Blanks.

One solution is to bury caskets underground instead of in the surface vaults common in Louisiana. Niblett’s Bluff Cemetery now requires new burials to take place underground, although there is some debate as to whether graves in New Orleans are largely above ground due to tradition or the high water table.

Having good documentation of who is buried where is also very important for recovery.
If a casket becomes loose and a deceased person cannot be identified, if the next of kin cannot be contacted, or if that person cannot pay, the casket will not be reburied. Hunter says in those cases his company is just trying to get the coffin out of public view.

This is exactly what happened at Charlotte Harbor Cemetery in Florida. It couldn’t get FEMA help, and Kenner says finding and contacting relatives of people who died so long ago would be an impossible task for a cemetery that was established in 1879.

Even in Louisiana — where identification on boxes became mandatory after Hurricane Katrina — the lack of documentation is still a problem, Seidemann says.

“Enforcement has been spotty at best,” he said.

Blanks said those who manage cemeteries should work with the community to gather local knowledge about graves and consider creating maps.

“It’s one thing to protect the physical landscape,” she says, “but it would also be a disservice if we don’t preserve or restore the cultural heritage that is in the landscape itself.”

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