Brett
08-31-2005, 01:14 PM
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- When Xavier Bowie died in a flooded New Orleans neighborhood, his wife did the best she could in a city so preoccupied with saving the living that no one can deal with the dead.
She wrapped his body in a sheet, laid him on a makeshift bier of plywood boards, with a little help, and floated him down to the main road.
For more than an hour, Evelyn Turner waited along Rampart Street outside the French Quarter, her husband's body resting on the grassy median as car after car passed, their wakes threatening to wash over the corpse.
"This is ridiculous," Turner, 54, said as she sobbed into a dirty washcloth.
Bowie, 57, a truck driver who had been with Turner for 16 years, had advanced lung cancer and could not be easily moved. When Turner could find no one to take them out of the city, she decided to stay home and hoped the storm would spare them.
"I've got electric and stuff right now," Turner told herself. "I can keep going. I've got oxygen. I can keep going."
But Hurricane Katrina left her neighborhood under several feet of water. By Tuesday, with no phone and only a small tank of oxygen left, Turner slogged out into the streets for help.
By the time she got back, Bowie had died.
Grief-stricken, Turner walked 2 miles to a neighborhood police precinct and asked someone to come get the body. An officer told her a truck would be along.
When more than an hour passed, she started down the road again. When she got to the station this time, there were no more promises.
"There's nothing we can do right now," an officer said. "We don't have any equipment."
"So what I'm supposed to do? Sit with the body until you get somebody?" Turner asked.
"Unfortunately, yeah," the officer replied. "That's the only option I can give you. Because we have no way of getting to him."
With hundreds, if not thousands, of residents still stuck on roofs and in attics across the city, officials have concentrated on saving survivors of Katrina and floodwaters. "We're not even dealing with dead bodies," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday.
When Turner got back to the corpse, she collapsed onto the plywood sheets and wept.
Curtis Miller, a former city employee, helped float the body down the road, hoping a passing military truck would pick Bowie up. He was disgusted.
"I'm hurt to my heart with this," the grizzled man said. "To see the city stoop this low. It shouldn't be, mister. It should not be."
Finally, about three hours after Bowie died, Miller flagged down a passing flatbed truck filled with downed tree limbs. After some heated words and an offer of $20, he persuaded the driver to take the body to Charity Hospital, where the police had directed them.
Turner helped load the body into the truck bed, then climbed aboard.
The truck turned and made its way into the French Quarter, where jazz bands are known to lead joyful funeral processions through the storied streets. But the streets were deserted Tuesday, and there was no music for Bowie, just the whirring of helicopter blades above.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
She wrapped his body in a sheet, laid him on a makeshift bier of plywood boards, with a little help, and floated him down to the main road.
For more than an hour, Evelyn Turner waited along Rampart Street outside the French Quarter, her husband's body resting on the grassy median as car after car passed, their wakes threatening to wash over the corpse.
"This is ridiculous," Turner, 54, said as she sobbed into a dirty washcloth.
Bowie, 57, a truck driver who had been with Turner for 16 years, had advanced lung cancer and could not be easily moved. When Turner could find no one to take them out of the city, she decided to stay home and hoped the storm would spare them.
"I've got electric and stuff right now," Turner told herself. "I can keep going. I've got oxygen. I can keep going."
But Hurricane Katrina left her neighborhood under several feet of water. By Tuesday, with no phone and only a small tank of oxygen left, Turner slogged out into the streets for help.
By the time she got back, Bowie had died.
Grief-stricken, Turner walked 2 miles to a neighborhood police precinct and asked someone to come get the body. An officer told her a truck would be along.
When more than an hour passed, she started down the road again. When she got to the station this time, there were no more promises.
"There's nothing we can do right now," an officer said. "We don't have any equipment."
"So what I'm supposed to do? Sit with the body until you get somebody?" Turner asked.
"Unfortunately, yeah," the officer replied. "That's the only option I can give you. Because we have no way of getting to him."
With hundreds, if not thousands, of residents still stuck on roofs and in attics across the city, officials have concentrated on saving survivors of Katrina and floodwaters. "We're not even dealing with dead bodies," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday.
When Turner got back to the corpse, she collapsed onto the plywood sheets and wept.
Curtis Miller, a former city employee, helped float the body down the road, hoping a passing military truck would pick Bowie up. He was disgusted.
"I'm hurt to my heart with this," the grizzled man said. "To see the city stoop this low. It shouldn't be, mister. It should not be."
Finally, about three hours after Bowie died, Miller flagged down a passing flatbed truck filled with downed tree limbs. After some heated words and an offer of $20, he persuaded the driver to take the body to Charity Hospital, where the police had directed them.
Turner helped load the body into the truck bed, then climbed aboard.
The truck turned and made its way into the French Quarter, where jazz bands are known to lead joyful funeral processions through the storied streets. But the streets were deserted Tuesday, and there was no music for Bowie, just the whirring of helicopter blades above.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed