A Dire Situation is Happening at Cemeteries Due to Climate Change

A cemetery in the town of Brighton has experienced the effects of climate change first hand, resulting in the catastrophic flooding of graves and headstones. While families of those laid to rest in the cemetery just want peace for their late loved ones, unruly weather conditions have been anything but cooperative.

This seems to be the case in Brighton, Alabama, where intense rain has wreaked havoc on a local cemetery. The scene is bleak at Brighton Memorial Gardens as grave markers and final resting places of the deceased have been continuously disrupted.

Large amounts of rain have submerged graves and headstones, creating an unsettling scene at cemeteries. Floods have caused headstones to wash away and slopes to erode in otherwise scenic cemeteries. Graveyards across the world have essentially turned into swamps, leaving families of the fallen in various states of disbelief and dismay.

The ‘predominantly African American cemetery’ has been flooded in the past but nothing nearly as bad as it has been today. Johnson, a city councilwoman, revealed that the flooding has submerged the graves of her parents, siblings, and children. The unfortunate circumstances are sad, leaving few options to spare the graves from being engulfed by water.

Laying the deceased to rest is meant to be a point of comfort and closure for living relatives. Now that the gravesites have been disturbed and destroyed, families are left feeling helpless and heartbroken over their inability to intervene.

“Wild storms and sea level rise are threatening more so than in the past,” she said. As warming temperatures create the perfect storm for ‘extreme’ weather, the problem of gravesite flooding continues to grow.

Orrin Pilkey, an author and emeritus geology professor at Duke University, offered his opinion on the increasingly concerning climate change conundrum. “We had erosion before global climate change, but now it’s happening much more rapidly, and shorelines are eroding almost universally because of sea level rise,” said Pilkey. “The magnitude and frequency is a heck of a lot more.”

Ursel Forbes, whose grandparents have been laid to rest in Oaklawn Memorial Cemetery in Mobile County, recently visited the burial ground to clean up his family plot. “There are beautiful stories under all this,” he said. “What you can see is kept up by families and volunteers. So much of the rest is hidden or probably long gone.”

Coffins have been exhumed from the ground and have been washed away. Skeletal remains have been exposed to create a harrowing scene. Allen Gontz, a professor of applied geology at Clarkson University, spoke about how the weather poses a problem for burial grounds. “Trying to keep things buried that you want to stay buried is often a really big challenge,” he said.

Mike Trinkley of the Chicora Foundation, an organization that specializes in ‘archaeological research and cemetery preservation,’ said, “It is absolutely a problem.” He further added that the cost of relocating and reburying the deceased can be costly, with prices ranging from $8,000 to $10,000 per grave.

As she and her husband were boating along the water, she noticed the casket and several pieces of gravestones scattered on the shore. She hoped that by sharing the upsetting picture she could raise awareness for the concerning conditions that Catching Cemetery has been faced with due to climate change. Mississippi has been experiencing record numbers of rainfall since the 1990s. “No telling how many graves have already been lost to the river,”

Andrea Roberts, associate professor at the University of Virginia, explained that cemeteries are a crucial part of the cultural history of Black communities in particular. “Cemeteries are often the only way we’re able to establish a historic Black settlement ever existed,” she said.