Governor Cuomo is forced to hire extra undertakers as New York’s Hart Island ‘temporary burial’ site fills up
Governor Cuomo said more funeral directors were being brought on to cope with New York’s coronavirus death toll as NYC’s “temporary burial” site on Hart’s Island fills up.
The deadly bug has killed more than 7,000 New Yorkers as of April 9, putting an immense strain on morgues and funeral homes – especially in the densely populated city.
Workers in protective gear were pictured digging death trenches Thursday on the strip of land in Long Island Sound, dubbed “Potter’s Field,” where over a million souls lie.
A boat carrying a truck loaded with bodies was also spotted journeying to the “Island of the Dead” earlier today as death rates skyrocket during the 2020 pandemic.
“[We’re] bringing in additional funeral directors to deal with the number of people who have passed,” Cuomo told reporters.
“I couldn’t even contemplate where we are now … 9/11 was supposed to be the darkest day in NY for a generation.”
Currently, coronavirus victims can stay in the morgue for no more than six days and in a refrigerated truck for no more than 14 days.
NYC’s Pandemic Influenza Surge Plan in 2008 states that the historic Hart Island may be used if “NYC does not have access to additional cold storage units” amid rising death rates.
City officials said Monday they have explored the possibility of temporary burials on the 101-acre strip of land that has become the final resting place of over one million people.
People in hazmat suits were apparently filmed burying coffins there last week.
Drone footage taken by The Hart Island Project last Thursday appeared to show workers preparing for temporary burials at the mass burial plot in the Bronx borough of New York City.
Earlier this week, The Hart Island Project told The Sun inmates help employees from the Department of Corrections (DOC) with the digging.
A city official also told The Sun inmates at Rikers Island will assist in the burial of coronavirus victims there.
Employees use machines to dig burial areas and are usually inmates are tasked with raking dirt over the burial boxes.
About 25 caskets are buried there each week on Thursdays, but that number has nearly tripled to 72 since March as the virus rages on.
Bodies at the massive plot are laid to rest three deep in wooden, unmarked caskets, the rep said.
But the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced last week all inmates will be essentially on a 14-day lockdown in their cells or quarters to mitigate the spread of the virus behind bars.
Hart Island wasn’t the only prospective burial ground.
Manhattan councilman Mark Levine tweeted that “trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line” in NYC parks as the final resting place for coronavirus patients Monday.
But De Blasio’s office dismissed this as “totally false,” telling NY1 “there will never, ever be anything like quote on quote mass graves or mass interment in New York City — ever.”
“If God forbid we ever had to get to the point of a temporary burial, it would be individual by individual so that families could reclaim their loved ones when the crisis was over,” the mayor said.
However, families have complained about the accessibility of the secluded Hart Island in the past, with infrequent ferries and bookings to visit loved ones’ graves having to be made months in advance, the New York Post reported.
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Due to erosion issues, dozens of skeletons were also left exposed to the elements two years later when officials had to collect 174 bones which had tumbled onto the nearby shoreline.
The desolate site has also hosted facilities like a drug rehabilitation center, a Cold War Nike missile base, a yellow fever quarantine zone, a prison, a women’s insane asylum, and a TB hospital, according to Untapped Cities.
Over the weekend, De Blasio assured reporters the City could handle the increasing death toll but declined to go into detail about COVID burials.
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