[StBernard] Parish struggles to honor its dead

[Westley Annis]

Parish struggles to honor its dead
St. Bernard revising Katrina monument 
Sunday, March 16, 2008
By Paul Rioux
St. Bernard bureau 
Stephen Mosgrove's children sprinkled his ashes in the waters off Shell
Beach near a monument listing his name along with those of more than 130
other St. Bernard Parish residents who died during Hurricane Katrina and its
aftermath. 

"He loved to hunt and fish," said his ex-wife, Lela Mosgrove. "It seemed
like a fitting tribute to lay him to rest on the water." 

So it came as a shock when Stephen Mosgrove's relatives recently learned
parish officials were considering removing his name from the monument
because there was no evidence he had died during Katrina. 

"He was in the attic with the water rising when our daughter called him on
his cell phone," Lela Mosgrove said. "His body was recovered almost three
weeks later." 

She faxed the parish a copy of the death certificate, which indicates
Stephen Mosgrove, 60, drowned in his Meraux home the day Katrina made
landfall, flooding virtually every structure in St. Bernard Parish. 

The documentation will prevent Mosgrove's name from being sandblasted off
the granite monument, but the confusion highlights the problems parish
officials have faced in identifying Katrina's dead. 

The parish government began reviewing the 137 names on the monument two
weeks ago after learning that a 76-year-old man listed as having died during
Katrina was actually alive. 

Uriel Little evacuated from a senior living center in Meraux with relatives
before the storm and now lives in a New Orleans nursing home. It is unclear
how his name came to be included on the monument, which was unveiled on
Katrina's first anniversary. 

The parish has released a revised list of 156 St. Bernard residents believed
to have died because of the storm. Based on extensive research by parish
coroner Bryan Bertucci, the list, posted on the parish's Web site,
www.sbpg.net, will be used as a starting point for correcting errors on the
monument. 

"If we're going to have a memorial, we need to make it as accurate as
possible out of respect for the victims and their relatives," said Karen
Turni Bazile, executive assistant to St. Bernard Parish President Craig
Taffaro. 


Identification more difficult 

Bazile said she has received a few dozen calls about the revised list,
mostly from people reporting misspelled names. She added that a half-dozen
people have submitted death certificates as evidence that their loved ones
should be included on the monument, even though they are not on Bertucci's
list. 

In all, more than 20 names are expected to be added to the monument while a
few names will be removed, including that of a Chalmette woman who died days
before the hurricane and whose funeral had been scheduled for the day
Katrina made landfall, Bazile said. 

The difficulties in identifying Katrina's victims are far from unique to St.
Bernard. 

The state Department of Health and Hospitals has pegged Katrina's death toll
in Louisiana at 1,464, but it stopped releasing names of the deceased in
2006 after having identified a little more than half of them. 

The poor condition of many of the bodies and the dispersal of relatives
across the country made the task of identifying Katrina's dead more
difficult than for other disasters. 

All 168 people killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing are identified at a
memorial and museum. And the 2,974 people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks will be listed on a planned memorial. 

In contrast, the St. Bernard monument is the only Katrina-related memorial
that names victims. 

"St. Bernard is such a close-knit community, and the hurricane had such a
devastating impact on the entire parish that it's important to try to
identify all of the victims," Bazile said. 


Symbolic content 

The monument sits near a 13-foot-tall crucifix pounded into the shallows of
the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, which many St. Bernard residents blame
for causing Katrina's catastrophic flooding. 

Bazile said it's unclear how the corrections to the memorial will be made
and who will pay for the changes. She said the donated granite monument has
room for a few more names, but not enough space for all of the expected
additions. 

Bertucci said he compiled the master death list from several sources during
the chaotic days and weeks after the storm. 

"This isn't as simple as people might think," he said. "I don't know that
you will ever get a 100 percent accurate list of who died, because there are
missing people whose bodies we will probably never find." 

Bertucci said he hopes people will look past a few errors on the monument
and focus on what it symbolizes. 

"To me, the memorial represents the faith and endurance of our community,"
he said. "St. Bernard is a place where many families have lived for
generations and everybody seems to know everyone else. When people read the
names on the monument, they can see the faces." 

. . . . . . . 

Paul Rioux can be reached at prioux at timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3321.