First published in USA Today May 11, 2020

COVID-19 moves from the hospital to the grave, And cemeteries scramble to bury the dead

Angelo Cheminto dropped his backhoe bucket to the dusty brown earth. The tines sank into the grass. The machine clawed the ground, exposing moist topsoil the color of milk chocolate. Working the twin sticks by his knees, Cheminto swung the laden bucket clockwise and dumped the loose dirt in a pile.

Claw, swivel, drop. Return. In less than an hour, Cheminto dug a hole 8 feet deep, and wide enough for three individual graves.

Other workers laid timber across the hole. They covered the plywood in green carpet. One plot remained open: Section 22, block K, row A, grave No. 22.

It was Tuesday at 8:08 a.m. The first burial at East Ridgelawn Cemetery in Clifton was scheduled for 9.

By 11, all three graves would be full.

By day’s end, the remains of seven people would enter the ground.

“I’ve never in all my years experienced anything as bad as this,” said Gary Sciarrino, 64, who has managed the cemetery for more than 30 years. “It’s just too much for us.”

A moving crisis

As hospital leaders in North Jersey cautiously predict that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic may be over, the crisis has moved to cemeteries. Typically about 6,100 people die in New Jersey every month, according to the state Health Department. That includes about 920 deaths per month in Bergen and Passaic counties.

This April, the number of deaths statewide soared to 14,755, more than twice the average. In Bergen and Passaic counties, deaths nearly tripled, to 3,070. Most of that increase is related to COVID-19, according to the Health Department.

Cemeteries lack the staff to manage such an inundation for very long.

“It’s hard,” said George Harris, 64, the fourth generation of his family to manage Hackensack Cemetery. “This is overwhelming for people.”

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.

The soil above recently dug graves tends to sink as it settles. Workers must add topsoil and grass seed to fill the indentations and keep lawns looking neat.

Sciarrino managed to keep up with the work into March. The surge in coronavirus-related deaths caused him to fall behind.

“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.”

In repeated phone calls to more than two dozen cemeteries over the last two weeks, many cemetery leaders said they had no time to talk to reporters. No time to do anything but bury the dead.

“Especially in New York and New Jersey, many of our cemeteries are overwhelmed,” said Poul Lemasters, an attorney with the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, based in Sterling, Virginia. “It’s all hands on deck.”

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.

Some cemeteries are more restrictive. Hackensack Cemetery allows four people to attend a funeral, Harris said. Others allow just one, said Jonathan Bender, a funeral director at Allwood Funeral Home in Clifton and president of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association for Passaic County.

Many people forced to attend a funeral alone use a phone to record the ceremony and share the video with loved ones, Bender said. During a pandemic that brings so much isolation, such a burial is especially lonely.

“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.”

Speedy lamentations

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. all five were hot, and together they emitted a constant low thrum.

A cardboard box sat on a steel gurney beside furnace No. 1. Inside the box was a body. The body would be loaded into the next available furnace within the hour, Sciarrino said. 

Normally the cemetery performs about 40 burials and 190 cremations a month, Sciarrino said. This April, workers here buried 148 people. They cremated 448. To keep up, Sciarrino added another shift to his crew. Now the furnaces start at 5 a.m. Some nights they run till sunset.

“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.”

Curt Urban, who operates the crematorium on the early shift, opened the door to a furnace. Inside, embers glowed bright orange. He inserted a brush with a long metal handle, adjusted the embers, and closed the door. Over his clothes, Urban wore a yellow hospital gown.

“I’m really low on smocks. I think I have four left,” Sciarrino said. “If you know anybody with Clorox wipes, let me know. We’re low on those, too.”

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.

With attendance limited by state order, Sciarrino decided to dig graves as close to the front gate as possible. From there, loved ones barred from the cemetery at least can witness the ceremony.

“I’m trying to help people,” he said.

The first funeral ended at 9:19 a.m. Cemetery workers approached. They moved the timber and the carpet to cover the first grave and reveal the next, one plot to the west. Ten minutes later, the front gate opened again. A second hearse drove in. Five cars followed, packed with dozens of people.

They were met by Chris Adamo Jr. Normally the cemetery’s mechanic, Adamo has been reassigned during the pandemic to police the front gate. Adamo placed his girth in the procession’s path and ordered the drivers to stop.

“You can’t all drive in. Only ten people at once,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

The cars parked in front of the cemetery. Eight people entered. The funeral started at 9:35 a.m. Outside, on the sidewalk, mourners gripped the black iron bars and wailed. Father Reyes read from the Book of Lamentations.

“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall,” he said. “I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.”