‘Surreal’: New York Funeral Homes Struggle as Virus Deaths Surge

Brooklyn funeral home owner Pat Marmo walked through the basement of his business which is currently lined with approximately 20 bodies awaiting their final destination. “Every person there, they’re not a body,” he said. “They’re a father, they’re a mother, they’re a grandmother. They’re not bodies. They’re people.”

Many funeral homes in New York and around the globe are in crisis as the businesses try to meet surging demand amid the coronavirus pandemic. Marmo’s company is equipped to handle 40 to 60 cases at a time, but on this particular day, it was taking care of 185. Funeral directors are being squeezed on one side by inundated hospitals trying to offload bodies, and on the other by the fact that cemeteries and crematoriums are booked for a week at least, sometimes two. New York City hospitals have been using refrigerated trucks to store the dead, and his is trying to find his own. One company quoted him a price of $6,000 per month, and others are simply refusing because they do not want their trucks used for bodies. He is also hoping that the Environmental Protection Agency loosens the regulations on what hours crematoriums can operate.

The surge in deaths is coming when there are tight restrictions on gatherings, making saying goodbye a lonely process for loved ones. Some were hindered from a chain and were able to throw roses at the grave site, while others had to say their goodbyes from their cars. At one cemetery in the Bronx, where visitors were barred entirely, a funeral director stood over the grave and took photos to send to mourners.

See ‘Surreal’: New York Funeral Homes Struggle as Virus Deaths Surge, Associated Press, April 3, 2020.