'I’ve never in all my years experienced anything as bad as this,' said Gary Sciarrino, 64, who has managed a New Jersey cemetery for more than 30 years. 'It’s just too much for us.'
Seasonal and part-time workers have been pressed into full-time work, cemetery leaders said. Some cemeteries added a second shift. Maintenance and groundskeeping have been delayed. At Hackensack Cemetery, workers are cleaning up debris from trees shaken loose during storms in March, Harris said.
“I have so many graves that have sunk over the last couple weeks with the heavy rain that we’ve had,” he said. “So we’re catching up. That’s part of our responsibility for perpetual care.” Perhaps the most difficult moment comes when cemetery workers must bar family members from attending a funeral. Patrick Callahan, New Jersey’s emergency management director, issued an order on March 24 banning public gatherings larger than 10 people. Since most funerals require the presence of a funeral director and a priest, minister, imam or rabbi, that limits attendance by loved ones to a maximum of eight.
“Many of them weren’t allowed to see their family member in the hospital,” Harris said. “When they got to the funeral home, there was no traditional viewing. Then they come here, and we tell them no more than four people. That’s tough to take when you lose somebody.”At East Ridgelawn Cemetery, Sciarrino drove his black pickup from the fresh graves to the crematorium, a building that resembles a small warehouse. Inside sit five retort furnaces. By 8:35 a.m.
“Normally, funeral directors don’t have to wait” to schedule a cremation, Sciarrino said on Tuesday. “Now we are booked. We’re taking orders for Friday.” Sciarrino drove back to the cemetery’s main gate in time to watch the first hearse arrive at 8:56 a.m. Eight family members walked to the grave, accompanied by the Rev. Eider Reyes, a Catholic priest from St. Anthony of Padua Church in Paterson. Thirty feet away, outside the gate, 30 mourners gathered on the sidewalk.
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