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Morticians overwhelmed

GULFPORT, Miss. — At funeral homes along the battered Gulf Coast, the bodies are starting to arrive, at last.

Overwhelmed funeral home directors, staggered by Hurricane Katrina's high death count and the loss of funeral facilities and damage to their personal homes, have braced for the surge of funerals with help from volunteer morticians from around the nation.

JENNI GIRTMAN/Cox News Service (enlarge photo) At Reimann Funeral Home in Gulfport, MS, Funeral Director and embalmer, J.D Cook (left) talk to a new caller inquiring about funeral serivices as Chad Reimann (center,) takes a look at the wall of slips, which each represent a person to be buried.

Dozens of Mississippi's 214 recovered bodies remain in temporary morgues, where disaster teams try to identify them and notify relatives. By Sunday, the names of only 35 victims had been announced from the three coastal counties.

"We're working feverishly to turn bodies over to the families," said Cotton Howell, commander of the Gulfport morgue. It is staffed by about 150 members of the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, pathologists and other experts who work with dental records, fingerprints and relatives' descriptions of scars, tattoos or jewelry.

Many of the victims identified so far are elderly, some in their 80s and 90s; at least two are children. Among the dead are a retired plastic surgeon, 92-year-old Dr. Louis Maxey Sr., and his wife, Harneitha, 75, killed when the roof of their Long Beach home collapsed.

The bodies are being released to places like the low-slung brick building housing one of two remaining Riemann Funeral Homes — this one across from Cici's Pizza on the main strip in this devastated town. Four other Riemann facilities, part of a family business started in 1920, were destroyed or damaged.

Inside, beyond a row of neatly trimmed shrubs, past the stately white columns and window shutters, fourth-generation funeral director Chad Riemann has tried valiantly to receive grieving families with dignity. With his co-workers, he has lived at the funeral home for the last two weeks, sleeping on an air mattress and showering with a garden hose.

"We have many employees who don't have anything to go back to," he said. "The only thing they've got right now is the funeral home."

The night the storm hit, Riemann said, a woman came to his funeral home bearing the body of her father, lashed to a ladder with an extension cord. Riemann and his co-workers stored the man's body in a morgue at the funeral home that was undamaged. As other bodies arrived, they were stored there, too.

The staff has struggled for days, hampered by lost buildings and equipment, scattered supplies and days without electricity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent refrigerated trucks to Riemann's and then set up a temporary morgue near the Gulfport-Biloxi airport.

Funeral directors in other states sent embalming fluid, gloves, masks and body bags to a mortuary in Ros-well, Ga., and, from there, to the Gulf Coast. Two tractor-trailers, including one from Georgia, have arrived with supplies that have allowed Riemann and his colleagues to continue preparing bodies for burial or cremation.

"We couldn't have done what we've done without their help," Riemann said.

Wind and water damaged Riemann's own home as well as those of his father, grandmother and uncle.

"All of our employees have a lot of personal issues they're dealing with," said Riemann, president of the Mississippi Funeral Directors Association, "but we also know we've got something important to do."

About 12 hours after the storm hit, Riemann's expectant wife went into labor, a month early. She gave birth three days later. Riemann has had little time to spend with his new daughter, Emma, or help his relatives.

Bob Biggins of Rockland, Mass., president-elect of the National Funeral Directors Association, said his group has dispatched 10 funeral directors to the Gulf Coast and plans to send 10 morticians a week for as long as needed, probably for an additional month or six weeks. They will drive hearses and usher in relatives to relieve their colleagues.

Bryant Hightower, director of Martin & Hightower Funeral Home in Carrollton, Ga., came to the Gulf Coast with four other Georgians. On Sunday morning, he helped recover the body of someone who had died of natural causes, taking the place of a Mississippi funeral director in need of a break.

"They've had to put their personal affairs on hold," he said.

Joining them are retired funeral directors Grant and Donna Zinnecker of Waukesha, Wis., who interrupted a vacation in Wyoming and drove 1,900 miles in their 43-foot RV to help out. Members of the Camping Funeral Directors, they heard of the need for RVs to give morticians a place to sleep.

Bringing hot dogs, tuna and canned beef stew, the Zinneckers gathered outside Riemann's over the weekend, sitting in lawn chairs with two Alabama funeral directors, Bill Perry of Talledega and Nathan Baugh of Fairhope.

"We'll do whatever," Baugh said. "That's what we're here for."

Mark Bixler writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: mbixler@ajc.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report