[sinkspur]

In the meantime, the bodies will remain in the unrefrigerated warehouse.

Air causes bodies to deteriorate more quickly.

By the time Nagin decides to bury these people, they will be dark tissue over bone.

[Pontiac]

By the time Nagin decides to bury these people, they will be dark tissue over bone.

Given the high humidity and temperatures in New Orleans I suspect that what will be in those aluminum government coffins will be more of a soup of bacteria, digested body tissue and fluids surrounding the darkly stained bones.

[Kirkwood]

People often wonder about the above-ground family crypts of New Orleans. A corpse is placed in the crypt and within 1 year the corpse consists of only bones. The heat and humidity causes bodies to decay to almost nothing in a very short period of time. The crypts are like ovens on hot days with temperatures above 120 F. The casket is removed from the crypt after about a year and the bones abd skull placed in cloth bags which are them placed on shelves in the back of the crypt along with other family members. This is why the crypt is a few feet or more longer than a casket. The casket is then disposed of. The crypt is then ready for the next family member to die. Many crypts have room for two caskets. If more family members were to die in the course of a year than could be held in a family crypt, you could rent space in other crypts.

A few years back there were complaints about one cemetery that was doing a poor job of disposing the caskets because the smell was bad and not all of the bones were removed before the casket was placed in a dumpster. Any body recovered after Katrina that was not found within the first several weeks was most likely only a skeleton when it was found.