Climate change is an issue that has affected everyone around the world, both living and dead. Global warming due to human action has caused a rise in ocean water due to melting of ice at Earth’s poles.[1] Though we’ve heard of these threats for decades, the little boy is now actually crying wolf.
Louisiana has been notorious for their history with flooding, but because of the higher temperatures, the harsher and more intense coastal storms have wreaked havoc on neighborhoods north of Baton Rouge.[2] The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina put in place many provisions in their landscape to prevent another flood from happening, but it wasn’t until recent events that Louisianans have begun to take a new look at how to work with the inevitable issue of flooding.[3]
Instead of reinventing the wheel, Louisiana is now waving the white flag and working with the floods rather than against them in incredibly unique ways – especially when it comes to graveyard cleanup.
Louisiana’s most recent flooding in Baton Rouge had been the worst flooding residents had seen since Katrina, and in some areas, even worse than the 2005 catastrophe, which make flood-tossed tombs nothing new.[4] Hurricane Rita in 2005 revealed coffins and vaults that had gotten lost in Hurricane Ashley over 50 years earlier in 1957.[5] What is the difference between then and now? We’ve created a market around the travelling dead.
After causing a stir around not being able to place people back into their graves without “popping the top” and the morbidity found inside, funeral homes and burial sites have attempted to keep better track of their maps in addition to hiring “cemetery recovery consultants”.[6] In an attempt to identify corpses in their caskets, records have now been intricately kept of whether or not someone was buried with an identifying tangible item such as a golf club or a unique rosary.[7]
In addition to change in business practice, caskets have been engineered to include a small tube where a death certificate or another type of identifier can be placed in the event of a flood-tossed tomb.[8]
The most intriguing innovation yet is an app created to track down roaming tombs where the casket has a chip that can be tracked using GPS technology and barcodes to identify the person inside without having to take off the lid.[9] Though the app is still in its early stages, the main issue being fleshed out is how to keep the batteries alive along enough to track their inevitable travel.[10]
In addition to this new market for tracking tombs, this may also change the way we plan our deaths in the legal world. While doing the rest of our estate planning, will we now execute a new document of how to keep track of us after we’re 6-feet-under along with our last will and testament? If this new technology comes to fruition, it has the ability to make changes the Medicaid law in the sense that this new technology could be associated with and included in burial plans.
This GPS has incredible potential – especially in the estate planning area of law.
With the rise of sea levels and increased temperatures due to global warming, this issue will worsen among coastal burial grounds. With the threat of fiercer storms and heavier flooding, this technology will only become more desirable.
[1] Justin Gills, Global Warming’s Mark: Coastal Inundation, N.Y. Times, Sept. 4, 2016, at A1.
[2] Id.
[3] Campbell Robertson, Louisiana Sharpens Its Skills in Tracing Flood-Tossed Tombs, N.Y. Times, Sept. 19, 2016, at A1.
[4] Campbell Robertson and Alan Blinder, Flooding Compounds Pain of Tragic Summer in Baton Rouge, N.Y. Times, Aug. 18, 2016, at A13.
[5] Robertson and Blinder, supra.
[6] Robertson, supra.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Roberston, supra.
[10] Id.