Newsweek Profiles Kenyon The Contracted Company Collecting Bodies In NOLA.

[DistressedAmerican]

The Invisible Body Battalion

A private firm's undertaker unit is witnessing the human cost of Katrina. But they're not talking.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9399130/site/newsweek/

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Dirk Johnson
Newsweek


Remains are removed from a house
in New Orleans on Sept. 14

-SNIP-

Updated: 11:12 a.m. ET Sept. 19, 2005
Sept. 19, 2005 - Meet the body handlers. That’s impossible in the field—the private unit deployed to find, package, and transport the dead in the Mississippi Delta shuns the press. Complete privacy is part of a battle plan aimed at treating each corpse with dignity. Or, at least, so says the company, leaving aside the issue of how the reality might affect public opinion. Their mantra—this was somebody's mother or father, sister or brother, or even a child. Therefore the workers even must be sworn to secrecy about what they’re finding.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, about 120 of these grim reapers are now working to recover bodies, a job that becomes more dreadful as the waters recede. Kenyon International Emergency Services Inc. specializes in tending to the ruins of human catastrophe—finding and identifying bodies, embalming, counseling families—the work of an undertaker, squared. Founded in 1929 in England after a British Imperial airline crashed, the company recently has worked on the Asian tsunami and the August Helios plane crash. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana hired Kenyon last Tuesday for $4.3 million to recover the bodies of Louisiana flood victims. "It takes a special breed to do this kind of work," says Jay Kirsch, a Kenyon spokesman. "These are people who are comfortable handling bodies."

They see bodies in rigor mortis, bodies that are decomposing, remains that have been gnawed by rats. But they sign a pledge swearing that they will never talk about it. "They can talk about how terrible New Orleans looked, or how dreadfully hot they were, or how exhausted, but they can never talk about the condition of the bodies," says Kirsch. "These bodies are people. They belong to families who want them back. What if the body was your mother? Would you want somebody to talk about what they had seen?"

Now based in a former Pepsi warehouse in north Houston, Kenyon also has offices in England, Australia and Singapore. It is a subsidiary of publicly traded Service Corporation International, which describes itself as North America's largest provider of funeral and cremation services. Most of its employees work on contract, usually for three weeks at a time, and they are drawn largely from what Hirsch described as "the death industry,"—funeral homes, morgues, hospital workers. Kenyon does not disclose what it pays its body handlers. But Hirsch said simply, "The pay is good."

-MORE AT LINK-

[DemonFighterLives]

1. Not to be even more ghoulish, but has Newsweek found out

if they employ wood chippers or is it straight into the fire?

:grr:

[Mist]

3. Are they ID'ing these remains? Does the "omerta" code include

not mentioning the NUMBERS of bodies recovered? I'm not trusting of the company, as they were involved in a scandal under *'s governorship in Texas.

[madmax]

2. Quite a contrast to 9/11

when every tiny sliver was carried on a stretcher and shown 24/7. Sorry, if I sound a bit crude.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

5. you speak the truth

[mod mom]

4. Now theres a growing industry with * in power. Disgraceful!

[RethugAssKicker]

6. These fuckers are hiding something...

Like the fucking BODY COUNT!!!.. They don't want us to know how many really died. Everything with this administration is BS. secrecy

[snot]

7. kick --nt

[sandnsea]

8. No Albaugh? No Funeralgate?

No Bush crony connection? What an in-depth piece. :eyes:

Bush Cronyism Extends To The Dead
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=1359