Damaged Grave Sites

There were many things that were damaged when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke. House’s, jobs, lives were destroyed. Many families lost other family members, and for many the search is not over. There are many families in New Orleans that came back to find there already deceased family members not where they should be. When the levees broke it destroyed and damaged many grave sites in numerous cemeteries throughout New Orleans.
What I want to photograph is the mausoleums and grave sites that have been damaged. Over the pass week or so I have been calling cemeteries and talking to the care takers. I have been asking if they would be willing to tell me their side of the story and let me photograph them as well as photograph the grave sites. My plan is to interview them and ask questions such as “What is the cemetery doing to fix the damaged sites?” “What is the city doing to help you fix the grave sites and get the bodies back to their original resting place?” “Or is it simply the families’ responsibility to get this handled?” Now these questions are not the only questions that I am going to ask and I am not even sure if these are the right questions that I should be asking. But I am going to brainstorm some different questions so I have a couple of ways to go with this project.
I have talked to St. Roch Cemetery and I talked to the care taker there named Jack. He was really nice telling me that the famous arm and leg had been damaged. He also told me that the cemetery has a lot of damaged grave sites and mausoleums. After talking to Jack at the St. Roch Cemetery I called New Orleans Archdiocesan Cemetery where I talked to a Jody. He was another caretaker who seemed more than welling to help me out. He told me that at that cemetery there was not much damage done. He told me that pretty much all that was there were water lines. Which when he told me that I thought that would be a good tie into the end of the story, something to the effect that not everything was damaged because of the levees braking.

Contacts

Caitlin and my self have called two cementeries and have full permission to photograph. We also have permission to get things unlocked that is not normally open to the public. Each of the caretakers are willing to let Caitlin and my self interview them as well as photograph them.

Caitlin booked a tour at one of the cementeries to see where the Voo Doo Queen of New Orleans is located. That tour will be March 25th at 9:00am.