Katrina's Dead Deserve Utmost Respect
Submitted:	N.O.V.A. November 2005
Source:		Times Picayune 09-15-2005

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I'm trying to picture Alcede Jackson in my mind. Until a couple of weeks ago,
he lived on my street, just about three blocks down. I drove by his house
every day on my way to work. I'm trying to remember which house. Did he used
to sit on the front porch and watch people pass? Did he wave, and did I wave
back? I hope so.

I never met Mr. Alcede, as I imagine he must have been called, but I know a
few things about him. From public records, it looks like he had a wife named
Violet; that he was at least 79; and that, before he moved to the 4700 block
of Laurel Street, he lived around the corner on Bordeaux. And I know for a
fact that he had a front porch, because I've seen pictures of his body there,
wrapped in a plastic bag and covered in a blue blanket, just as it was for
nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina blew through town. Without the
benefit of a computer database, the person who laid him out - a Baptist
chaplain who had stopped by to check in on the elderly couple, according to
press reports - couldn't even say when Mr. Alcede's life had begun. But he
knew exactly when it ended. "Alcede Jackson," the hand-written sign in the
window said. "B _____, D Aug. 31, 2005. Rest In Peace In The Loving Arms of
Jesus."

Our street largely ducked Katrina's wrath. But the storm must have been too
much for him. Or maybe it was just his time. We'll probably never know.

What we do know is that his horrible, long wait is a scar on our
neighborhood, and our city.

Even though they lost a loved one, Mr. Alcede's relatives are luckier than
some. Thanks to the efforts of that chaplain, and the happenstance of dying
in a dry neighborhood heavily traveled by reporters, his relatives do not
have to wonder about his fate, and they will be able to give him a proper
burial at some point. Newspaper readers all over the world know at least a
sliver of his story, and mourn him. Of the many images from Katrina, perhaps
the most haunting are signs like the one on Alcede Jackson's window, fighting
against the chaos for dignity in death. They practically scream out their
message: that this is a person, not a body. That the storm's victims matter -
each and every one. It's the same impulse that led neighbors to construct a
makeshift grave for Vera Smith on Magazine and Jackson, with the spray-
painted plea: "Here lies Vera. God Help Us." It's what prompted people
stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to pin notes to relatives
who didn't make it and who would be left behind in abandoned wheelchairs,
telling anyone who bothered to look that this person had a name, and people
who cared enough to write it down. It's why I jotted down as much information
as possible about my friend's father - where he worked, what his sons do for
a living - after I went to check on him a week after the storm, and a kindly
cop who showed up to help found him dead of an apparent heart attack. Alcede
Jackson, Vera Smith and my friend's father died on the city's highest ground
along the Mississippi River, not in Lakeview, eastern New Orleans or St.
Bernard. There were people around to bear witness. How many others died
anonymously, their bodies so disfigured by floodwaters that even their loved
ones wouldn't recognize them? There's been some recent squabbling between the
state and federal government over the slow pace of body retrieval, but nobody
wants to see more finger-pointing. You just have to think about the signs,
the hand-scribbled notes, to know what's at stake. After the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, the painstaking task of identifying the victims was a top
priority, and it was handled with the utmost respect. Like them, the people
who died in the New Orleans area had neighbors, friends and loved ones. They
deserve more than bureaucracy. They deserve all the closure the government
can muster.