La. to pay Kenyon $119,000 a day for body recovery

[UpInArms]

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2005-09-14T174247Z_01_N14659343_RTRIDST_0_KATRINA-KENYON-RECOVERY.XML

BATON ROUGE, La., Sept 14 (Reuters) - The state of Louisiana will pay Kenyon International Emergency Services almost $119,000 a day for two months for the job of recovering, documenting and handling the bodies of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to documents released by the state.

The contract between the company and the state's Department of Health and Hospitals runs from Sept. 12 to Nov. 15 at a daily personnel rate of $118,980, after a 10 percent discount. Kenyon also estimated expenses of around $639,000 for the first 31 days of its mission, covering everything from body bags to trailers to laundry services for its staffers.

Kenyon initially said last week it had been hired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recover bodies in New Orleans and elsewhere.

But on Tuesday Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the state had signed a contract directly with the company because the recovery work was going too slowly and Kenyon was threatening to pull out for lack of a written contract with FEMA.

...more...

[napi21]

1. That all depends on how many people they have working

on this job. I'm not making excuses, but I don't imagine you'll find anyone willing to do that job for $10.00 an hour! I also don't know just what kind of experience you have to have to do it right. All these bodies have to be examined by the coronors for ID and exam to state cause of death.

[Child_Of_Isis]

4. I have read

that there were plenty of volunteers.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

5. just got off the phone with a friend who is with the Kenyon group in NO

and is working recovering bodies in the downtown area near the armory and the superdome neighborhoods today ....he called right from a house he was recovering bodies from....my god it is awful..he and his son have been there for 7 days and will be there for the next 21 days. He is in a group working with the 82 airborne just back from Iraq and i heard one soldier in the back round say "fuck this shit...i ain't doing this fucking shit...i would rather be back in Iraq killing people"....

Jim told me the bodies are so decomposed that he can't even tell the sex of them and that their scalps and some skin sticks to the floor when they lift them up to place in the double body bags... :puke:

one man(?) whose watch was still running and he had a bottle of water in his pocket ...jim said that perhaps he tried to swim down from the attic to make it to a door or window but didn't make it...dear god

he called me back twice already today and just leaves the phone open for me to listen in...he said the press is banned..he will keep caLLING THROUGH THIS TIME THERE AND I WILL POST WHAT I HEAR AND WHAT HE REPORTS (sorry bout the caps)

it was eerie listening to the sounds of the trucks and the Soldier's talking about killing and wishing they were back in Iraq instead of where they are now <shaking head wondering what it must be like>

[UpInArms]

8. thanks for the post

ElsewheresDaughter.

That is quite an eye-opener.

Keep us informed and tell you friend to hang in there.

[Helga Scow Stern]

10. Thank you! Please keep telling us what is going on.

[barb162]

18. I cannot imagine doing this kind of work.

It's gotta scar a person for life.

[Pirate Smile]

2. FEMA will have to reimburse La.

"FEMA said it offered a contract to Kenyon, which the company declined. It also said the state's contract with Kenyon was eligible for reimbursement under various federal relief programs."

[JDPriestly]

3. How many bodies are they recovering?

I hate to be crass. The loss of just one life is tragic. But, I'm wondering how many bodies they are recovering a day?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. the admins. official count is 690 something but you and i know it is

much much higher

[pitohui]

7. there are thousands left to recover

it is going v. slowly but i won't judge because of the awful conditions & the need to carefully identity the lost

[lindisfarne]

9. Kenyon: implicated in body-dumping scandals (rawstory.com)

Has this been posted in another thread?
FEMA, La. outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping scandals

Miriam Raftery

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.

Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.

Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco subsequently inked a contract with the firm after talks between FEMA and the firm broke down. Kenyon's original deal was secured by the Department of Homeland Security.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.html

[buzzsaw_23]

11. More on Kenyon's Services & connections to Bush

FEMA has relieved volunteers of their emergency mortuary services in Louisiana only, and contracted out to Kenyon, a "wholly-owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International" of Houston, Texas.

Are the alarms sounding yet? LightUpTheDarkness reminds us why they should be:

You may remember Service Corporation International, SCI, as it was part of the case against confirming Alberto Gonzales due to his involvement in the Texas and Florida scandals known as Funeralgate. As we covered back in February, Service Corporation International was "recycling" graves, removing the bodies that were there originally and throwing them in the woods to use the space to house new customers at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida . Service Corporation International, the world’s largest funeral service company, is headed by Robert Waltrip, a longtime friend and generous financial patron of the Bush family. Eliza May was head of the Texas Funeral Services Commission when it began receiving complaints about unlicensed embalmers, and sued when she was fired. Gonzales kept Bush from testifying in this case and was also under scrutiny when a memo surfaced that was sent to his office when he was Bush’s gubernatorial counsel. The memo suggested possible improprieties by two funeral commissioners with ties to SCI and Joeseph Allbaugh, Bush’s former chief of staff in Austin, 2000 presidential campaign manager, who now serves as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The case was suddenly settled in November 2001. The Menorah Gardens case in Florida, involving 72 families, was settled in Oct of 2004.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/09/drowning-by-numbers.html#comments



Funeralgate Hits Texas

by Robert Bryce

What began as a citizen's complaint against SCI in January 1998 has since grown into a scandal revolving around campaign contributions, and the influence they may buy. All of the politicos who intervened on SCI's behalf received major contributions from SCI's political action committee, or PAC. Did that money convince them to help SCI -- the world's largest death care company -- and to punish the agency that investigated SCI? Whether that was the reason or not, the state officials took positions that may hurt consumers. SCI's prices are routinely among the highest in the funeral business. One consumer advocate, Lamar Hankins, the president of the Funeral & Memorial Societies of America, says the company routinely engages in "price gouging." But campaign cash, not consumers, is at the heart of this scandal. And the scandal promises to grow as the lawsuit -- filed by former TFSC director Eliza May -- works through the discovery process. The suit alleges that May was fired because she "repeatedly and in good faith reported violations of the law and conduct that she reasonably believed to constitute violations of the law."

<snip>

Five days after issuing the document stating that Waltrip talked to the governor about the letter, Waltrip's lawyers changed their story. In a second, "supplemental" response to interrogatories, filed on June 16, the lawyers said that Waltrip did not talk to Bush about his problems with the TFSC. The supplemental document says that while Waltrip was in Bush's office waiting to talk with Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff, the governor "passed by on the way to a press conference or other appointment," and although Bush "exchanged pleasantries" with Waltrip, their discussion was "not substantive; they did not discuss the content" of Waltrip's letter complaining about the TFSC. The document adds that Waltrip "has never discussed" with Bush his complaints about the TFSC. Perhaps Waltrip or his lawyers realized that implicating the governor in the dispute would damage Bush's presidential campaign.


SCI CEO Robert Waltrip
is the world's highest paid undertaker.
photograph by F. Carter Smith

And why did Allbaugh get involved? Did he, as Bush's chief of staff, simply make his own decision to intervene on behalf of SCI? Could Allbaugh have been persuaded by a $35,000 political contribution? Allbaugh, who left the governor's office on July 1 to work full time as campaign manager for Bush's presidential campaign, hasn't been deposed yet, but he will be soon. And he will be a key witness when May's case goes to trial, as will Bush's legal counsel, Margaret Wilson.

<snip>


Gov. Bush's role in the SCI scandal
is being called into question.
photograph by Jana Birchum

More at:http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol18/issue45/pol...

[Desertrose]

12. If they don't care about the living...they sure as hell don't care about

the dead.

They are so lying about the death count.....

[Lochloosa]

13. I have a question....

Why didn't FEMA already have someone under contract to do this sort of thing. The city that I live in has companies under contract for emergencies such as trash removal (hurricane area)....oh brain fart...the school board has companies under contract for emergency repairs etc. They bid these out and the winning bidder has set prices for everything from repairing sports lighting to repairing a toilet. Why couldn't FEMA have someone already under contract (not to sound crass) for recovering a body at a set price?

[pushycat]

14. FEMA and Asa Hutchinson?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4673929

Just a hunch he might have something to do with this. No facts, just conjecture on my part.

[MiniMe]

15. Why are they being paid that much money per day to recover 400

bodies? At least that was the latest death toll I heard. Of course, as most thinking people know, that number can't possibly be true, but you do have to ask it given the death toll being reported.

[preciousdove]

17. Death toll is not the number of bodies recovered; # of bodies processed

at morgues.

[lindisfarne]

16. How many bodies a day? and how many days? This should tell

us something about how many bodies there are, no?