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Flooding at the Suber Memorial Cemetery in Lake Helen caused a casket to rise in its vault and push off a 2,200 pound cement above ground, Local 6 News reported.
"It's the first time I've ever seen it," Suber Memorial director James Cusack said. "I've seen whole vaults float with the body but never seen the casket push the lid off."
Typically, the concrete vaults that hold the caskets are water tight but a crack caused a leak that flooded the vault and caused it to rise to the ground.
The family of the deceased was heart broken at the news, Local 6 News reported.
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"When you hear about something like this, its kind of devastating to the family," cemetery spokesman Andrew Rogers said. "They don't want to hear this, I didn't want to hear it."
Cemetery staff planned to place the damaged casket into a new vault and place it back into the same burial plot.
Officials don't believe other graves are in jeopardy of being damaged.
Jeanne Unearths Graves In Ga.
Several caskets, some weighing up to 1,200 pounds, floated up and out of their graves in Georgia after Jeanne dumped heavy rain in the region, according to Local 6 News.
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Officials said a flash flood rolled through Mount Carmel Cemetery in Folkston knocking over tombstones, flowers and seeping right down into and filling some graves.
A total of eight graves were destroyed, but another six were so badly damaged that the coffins will have to be exhumed.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency are handling the investigation.
All of the plots at Mount Carmel will have to be inspected to make sure it doesn't happen again.
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Also, relatives will likely be forced to pick up the costs for reburial -- which could include exhuming the graves, replacing the caskets, digging new graves and resealing the vaults.
The investigation could lead to changes in Georgia's funeral industry, according to the report.
