When will the dead be released?

After calling around, searching for friends and family who have not been heard of since Hurricane Katrina, some New Orleanians are making one last call in desperation - to funeral homes.


"We get people calling every day because they can't find out what's going on," said Belva Pinchon, a funeral director at Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home. "I can't tell you the number of calls we get every day."

But funeral home directors can't give them the answers they are looking for.

I know people who cannot claim relative's bodies, because of more FEMA snarls and paperwork. FEMA seems less than useless, they seem determined to hinder cleanup, recovery, and now the return of bodies to their kin.