Family's Agonizing Odyssey Submitted By: N.O.V.A December 2005 Source: Times Picayune 11-04-2005 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Althea Lala's family eventually learned that she had died trapped in the attic of her Lakeview home. But that was just the beginning of the family's agonizing odyssey to recover her body. Trapped in the attic of her flooded Lakeview home with little more than a box of chips and a water bottle, Althea Lala, 76, died not long after Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29. Mistakenly thinking the hale and feisty grandmother had been rescued, her family searched evacuation shelters across two states before learning that her body was at a special morgue in the town of St. Gabriel. What happened next is a story of false hopes, faulty assurances and an exasperating series of delays before the morgue turned over Lala's body to her two daughters Thursday. That was 66 days after the storm, 44 days after the body was removed from the house, a month after the morgue said Lala would soon be released, and 13 days after the state's supervisor at the morgue told the daughters they could immediately collect their mother's body. "It's been a nightmare," said Jane Estopinal, one of Lala's daughters. It is a nightmare shared by potentially hundreds of other families who lost loved ones from Katrina. Slow identification process Of the 874 bodies examined so far at the St. Gabriel morgue, a temporary holding center for Katrina deaths operated by the federal government with state oversight, only 238 have been released to families. The state health agency says it is trying to find the families of about 300 others who are ready to be released. Morgue officials say they are seeking definitive identifications of the rest. By contrast, many Louisiana parishes and cities in other states that have recorded Katrina deaths, many of them elderly or frail evacuees who died from the stress of the move, have released nearly all of their Katrina dead to families. State, federal and Orleans Parish officials say the process at St. Gabriel is slow because of the challenge of identifying victims and finding their families, including many who fled their homes in New Orleans. There was, however, no mystery about the identity of Lala, whose body was found in her home, where she lived alone, and whose two daughters were constantly seeking help from the public agencies involved. Vowing to ride it out Described by neighbors as sweet with a lovably tough exterior, the white- haired "Alley" Lala, as she was called, was seen daily in the garden of her one-story Lakeview home where she had lived 48 years, sometimes trimming the small front lawn with hand shears. She usually wore tennis shoes with holes cut out to relieve pressure on her bunions. "She was fit as a fiddle," said Fran Vallette, who lived about a block away. Lala rode out Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and refused to leave her home as Katrina approached, despite the repeated pleas of Estopinal, who also lived in Lakeview, and others. "If my house goes down, I'm going down with it," Lala told one friend. Lala spoke with her daughter by phone about noon the day of Katrina and said she felt safe. Then the phones stopped working. "We never heard from her again," Estopinal said. Estopinal, who had left town with her children, called the Fire Department and other emergency numbers that afternoon for help. She said she was told that someone had been dispatched to rescue her mother. A couple of days later in the deep floodwaters of Lakeview, a friend with a boat found two cats on Lala's roof. He called down through the air vent and got no answer. He notified the daughters, and everyone assumed Lala had evacuated. Instead, what occurred was tragic. With shocking speed, Lake Pontchartrain had started draining into the city via breaches in two nearby canals. Kim Borge, a friend and neighbor who also stayed at home about three blocks away, said she saw a half-inch of water on her first floor about 1 p.m. Thirty minutes later it was up to her waist. She was one of dozens of people in the area who escaped by boat. Lala was not so fortunate. The floodwaters had filled Lala's home, which became a dark and stinking tank of floating, jostling furniture and debris. The water inside rose 7 feet, right up to the pull-down doorway of the attic in the hallway ceiling. That's where Lala escaped. The attic heat was brutal, maybe 130 degrees by some estimates. "I can't even think about that part of it," Estopinal said. Tortured path to the truth In the days that followed, Estopinal, her children and her sister, Susan Cole, scoured shelters and hospitals in Houston, Lake Charles, Lafayette and Baton Rouge. They distributed a flier with their mother's photo. At Cole's house in Houston, friends took turns making calls to police, nursing homes and anyone who might have a clue. "It's been a blur," Estopinal said. "I can't even believe that's what we went through." Their discovery of Lala's death came through a time warp caused by the hurricane's disruption of phone service. On Sept. 1, Estopinal's friend Kim Stubbs went to the west -- or Metairie -- side of the 17th Street Canal, as close to flooded Lakeview as authorities would allow. She found a man with a boat and gave him a piece of paper with Lala's address and Stubbs' cell phone number. Two men in their 20s, with "Volunteer" on their T-shirts, knew the area and jumped in the boat, Stubbs said. Emergency medical technician Stacey Becker later joined the crew. When they got to Lala's house, they axed a hole in the roof and found her body in the attic. Becker was there to save lives, not pick up bodies, so the crew moved on to search for stranded storm survivors, Becker said. She did not call anyone to pick up the body, but she tried many times to reach Stubbs on the cell phone, leaving voice messages, Becker said. Becker assumed the messages got through. But it wasn't until mid-September, as Stubbs drove across the Texas line on a trip to Houston, that her cell phone lit up with the old messages. Then she knew what the family had come to fear: Lala was dead. On Sept. 23, Estopinal and Stubbs bluffed their way past police and into Lakeview by pretending they were secretaries coming in to clean an office for Entergy. The floodwaters had receded, leaving the neighborhood filthy and desolate. On Lala's large front window they saw a spray-painted X, indicating that soldiers had inspected the house. A "1D," meaning one person found dead, was written in the lower corner, and a piece of tape with the phrase "body removed 9/20" was stuck below. In despair at the sight, Estopinal smudged the letters from the window, stripped off the tape and threw it behind the blighted bushes. Difficult communication It was at this point -- with both daughters emotionally exhausted, Estopinal's home ruined, her family displaced, the children upset over the loss of their grandmother -- that new trials of grief began. Althea Lala's body had been taken to the St. Gabriel morgue. Just downriver from Baton Rouge, a special team of forensic and medical experts had taken over a town hall complex for the purpose of identifying most of Katrina's dead. It is run by the federal government to catalog fingerprints, personal effects, X-rays and DNA, and then to attempt to match them with records collected from doctors and families. Dr. Louis Cataldie, a state health official, has general oversight of the operation and makes key decisions about the release of bodies and information. The morgue quickly picked up a reputation as a place slow to release remains or even to confirm to families whether bodies were held there. Officials in coroner's offices in several parishes reported that they sought to keep their victims from going to St. Gabriel, and that communication with the morgue had been difficult and sparse. "Cell phones just don't work at St. Gabriel," said Melissa Walker, a spokeswoman for the state health agency. It wasn't until late September that Lala's daughters got confirmation that their mother was at St. Gabriel, partly because their dentist had provided information to the morgue. A nurse called in early October to say Lala's body would be examined soon and released. 'Unacceptable' wait Like all victim's families, the daughters were told to seek their mother's release through the Family Assistance Center in Baton Rouge, a federal liaison agency that collects information on people dead and missing from Katrina. The daughters each filled out the center's survey, and each time they called back with more information, they said, it was as if they were starting the process all over again. Cole visited the center Oct. 7 to supply her DNA sample to match with her mother's. When she asked how long it would be before Lala would be released, she was told maybe two weeks or maybe six months. "I said that was unacceptable," Cole recalled. She said it was unclear who was in charge among the sea of yellow staff shirts at the center, or who would contact her. When she asked for details, the staff kept trying to assign her a chaplain. "I wanted my mother. We didn't need anyone praying over us," Estopinal said. On Oct. 21, a reporter asked Cataldie why families were unable to get release of their loved ones, particularly if the person had died at home. Cataldie asked for an example, and the reporter noted Althea Lala and gave Cataldie a phone number of one of the daughters. Within an hour Cataldie had spoken with the daughters, matched information about Lala's teeth and noted the bunion holes cut out of the one tennis shoe still on her foot. Cataldie told Estopinal that the body could be released right away. According to Estopinal, Cataldie said no autopsy had been performed and none was needed. Estopinal was overjoyed. The Jefferson Parish funeral home engaged to handle Lala's remains started calling the morgue, but days passed with no release of the body. "Again we're getting the runaround," Estopinal said. Lala's case was now being handled by Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard, who had set up shop at St. Gabriel because his city office was damaged by the storm. He was in charge of autopsies and other coroner duties for Orleans and several surrounding parishes. The same reporter spoke to Minyard on Oct. 31 and asked about Lala. Minyard said he did not know who Lala was and asked an assistant for information. He said it was the Family Assistance Center's job to contact families and funeral homes, and that the center was a slow-moving bureaucracy that faced serious challenges finding family members spread around the country. At the end of the interview, Minyard said Lala was ready to be released. He said his assistant had just called the funeral home and had gotten an after- hours answering service. He did not say whether an autopsy had been done. The body was released to the funeral home Nov. 3. Prolonging family's grief Lala's home is still filled with wall-to-wall wreckage and mold left by the flood. The top waterline can be seen just inches below the ceiling. The attic ladder is still pulled down in the hallway, where a rusted saw and maul rest on the floor. At the top, just over the ledge in the attic, sits a can of Pringles Cheezums, a water bottle and a hammer. Even on a recent cool day, the attic was uncomfortably hot. Lala's daughters picture her there, looking down at the water just inches below the attic opening, and dying of a heart attack. To heal from such troubling images, they wanted the closure that comes with finally putting their mother to rest. They cannot accept that their long wait was inevitable, or that St. Gabriel, the assistance center, the state and the coroner couldn't somehow do a better job. "They don't realize what they're doing to the families on the other end," Cole said. Per Lala's wish, the family will have her remains cremated and sprinkle them on Lake Pontchartrain.