Caskets filled with human remains are still scattered around a Louisiana town weeks after Hurricane Ida ripped through the region as it made it's way inland.
Families have lived there for generations in the predominately- black community of Ironton, which has a population of 175 and sits on the west bank of the Mississippi River in lower Plaquemines Parish about 25 miles southeast of New Orleans, according to CNN.
And nearly four weeks after the category four storm devastated the area, Haywood Johnson, the pastor of the town's St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, says the caskets he personally buried have been carried away from their final resting places by flood waters and are still spread throughout the community.
Johnson pointed out to a pair of caskets, a father and daughter, which had ended up beside each other in someone's front yard; with another casket currently sits upside down against a nearby levee.
Caskets filled with human remains are still scattered around a Louisiana town weeks after Hurricane Ida ripped through the region as it made it's way inland
Haywood Johnson, the town's church pastor, says caskets he buried have been carried away from cemetery grounds and spread throughout the community
The search for the caskets, which are bound in above-ground tombs and made of cement and other heavy materials, has been further complicated by mud, high grass and snakes
Meanwhile, a funeral vault weighing thousands of pounds moved nearly three thousand feet away before ending up right in front of the church.
'It caused people to be in disarray,' said Johnson, who told the outlet that he is still currently looking for the caskets of his own mother, uncle and sister.
'They're shocked by the magnitude of the destruction, but they're even more so overwhelmed by their loved ones floating and ending up landing in the streets and people's yards and on the side of the levee and out in the field, and it's just, just overwhelming.'
'One of the things that bothered me is that I was the one that buried most of those people, most of the deceased, and it was like pulling the scab off of a wound,' Johnson added.
