any reports on the NO cemetary - that place is historic and LARGE

[donsu]

driving by it or training by it, it seems to go on forever. largest cemetary I've ever seen.

how did it do in the storm?

[justiceischeap]

1. Flooded but they were built to withstand flooding

I believe.

[rfkrfk]

6. watch out for Zombies

if travelling on I-10
in the cemetary district

[babylonsister]

2. I've seen pics of caskets scattered about; didn't fare that well. nt

[justiceischeap]

3. I don't know if those came from St. Louis No. 2

but it's possible:

Little is known about the fate of other landmarks located in the flood area, including St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, one of the larger cemeteries known as "cities of the dead," with narrow paths, rusty iron work and sun-bleached tombs built aboveground because the water table was so high caskets would occasionally float away if buried underground;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090300703.html

Maybe the caskets you were seeing were from traditional in-ground burials.

[jobycom]

4. The casket pictures I saw may have been from a funeral home

I saw several caskets floating around in one video, but they looked clean, and not deteriorated. I thought they were empty, from a funeral parlor. They seemed to be floating rather high in the water. But that was just my impression, not any real knowledge.

[jobycom]

5. I don't know which cemetaries are which, but I saw some flood pictures

of tombs in the flood waters. They seemed to be intact.

Keep in mind that many of the cemeteries, especially the ones around the French Quarters and the older parts of town, are higher up. So the ones that flooded didn't get the tsunami effect of the storm surge, they got rising waters. The flooding during the hurricane was fierce, but the flooding from the later levee break was slower, and the water didn't carry a lot of force. So most of the graveyards are probably in decent shape.

Also, the oldest part of town was built highest, and the parts behind the dikes and levees were built later. So the oldest graveyards were on higher ground.

This is all guessing, so it may be completely wrong. This was a huge hurricane, and it did unpredictable damage.

[justiceischeap]

7. A little History on New Orleans Cemeteries

To understand the strangeness of the New Orleans cemetery culture. We must return to the beginnings of the city itself. You see, for the entire length of its existence, New Orleans has known death. Just a few short years after the colony was founded, it was flattened by a hurricane, bringing ruin and destruction. For years after, the impoverished colonists saw their numbers reduced by the grim reaper.

The city was always wet then, as it continues to be today. The original site of New Orleans, which is the French Quarter today, had a water table just beneath the soil. The land sloped back from the river toward Lake Pontchartrain, falling quickly below the level of the sea. The question soon arose.... where would the colonists bury the dead in such water-logged conditions?

The highest area in the region was along the banks of the Mississippi. The natural levees there had been created by years of soil being deposited by the river’s current. This was the first site chosen for burial of the deceased. During floods (which came often) though, the bodies of the dead would wash out of their muddy graves and come floating through the streets of town. Obviously, this was considered a problem.

...

For all but the indigent, above ground tombs were the rule. The reasons were obvious as the wet ground of Louisiana caused the graves to fill with water. The coffins would often float to the surface, despite grave diggers placing heavy stones or bricks on the lids. Such conditions did not appeal to those with the wealth to be buried in style.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/deathway.html