With all this focus on property damage, you would think
someone would mention a cemetery here or there. That’s where I come in. It
happens to be Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead, see link below) as I write this (hence the sugar skull cake in the photo above –
hey, cakes rise, don’t they? Get the clever irony – “And the Dead Shall Rise?”
… all right, that was pretty weak).
Coffin rising from the ground, Crisfield, MD (ref) |
At also happens to be the Christian All Souls Day. As Hurricane Sandy’s waters recede, the U.S. death
toll continues to rise. Let’s remember those fifty-five souls today - along with
the sixty-nine people who died in the Caribbean prior to Sandy making landfall in the United States.
So, as I was mentioning, cemeteries, like any other property,
can incur storm damage. Note the expelled coffin rising out of the ground in
the photo above, from Crisfield, Maryland. The image was borrowed from the news article,
“Hurricane Sandy forces coffins of the dead to rise up from the ground” (www.dailymail.co.uk). "Coffins of the dead ...?" As opposed to coffins of the - living? Whoever wrote that is being a bit dramatic, wouldn't you say?
Anyway, cemeteries suffer damage right along with the rest of us. I imagine that Atlantic City Cemetery looks much worse
right now than it did this past summer when I took the photo above. (Ironically,
a mausoleum might be the safest place to be during a hurricane!) A storm had
obviously ripped through the place, which one might assume happened just before I arrived.
Truth is, such damage may go uncorrected for quite a while. Under some circumstances, cemeteries, like any other business or private entity, must wrangle
with their insurance companies to be paid for storm damage!
Toppled headstones |
Notes:
The headstones in the photo above were not toppled by Hurricane Sandy. I just inserted the photo for effect (so how did they fall?).
The headstones in the photo above were not toppled by Hurricane Sandy. I just inserted the photo for effect (so how did they fall?).
The "sugar skull" cake at the beginning of the blog was in window of Brendenbeck's Bakery, Chestnut Hill, PA (http://www.bredenbecks.com/). Looks luscious, doesn't it?
Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead
Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead