I am a caretaker for two local cemetery’s. I call them the gardens, after the movie Gardens of stone. The big garden, and the little garden. I have asked the grave digger how many he can plant in a day and he tells me about eight. but that’s just him digging the holes. That’s not to say that the guy that delivers the vaults can do eight in a day. Now, what if the guy that drives the backhoe to dig the graves is….. out sick, dead, too scared to plant infected bodies, ect. ect. Who takes his place? I found a post about the morgues in baghdad overflowing with bodies. Granted they are mostly trauma, but dead is dead. What do we do with the bodies?
It’s all under control……at least it is here, mass graves in public parks, and a suitable memorial later. Cremation is out, it takes too much wood.
To quote Tonto when he and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by Indians: “Who is this “we,” paleface?”
If it’s bad, and true to my vision, they’ll toss ‘em over the cemetary fence and/or lay them out in parks. If it’s really bad, it’ll be like Rwanda and the unfortunate will weather away over the months in the fields and beside the road.
On the BBC Horizon programme, they mentioned the use of commercial refrigerated trucks. And that’s quoting a US physician.
See Mass Fatality Plans, threads 1,2,3,4… A few good papers in there, (from Canada, and Ken West, and a 2006 NORTHCOM event, IIRC) and some rather wordy and lacking in mortuary detail US state plans. (from South Dakota to the end of the alphabet, so far)
Another problem point communities would be happier with if they discussed it and decided what to do themselves, now, rather than let officials plan for a 1968-or-easier pandemic and get overwhelmed after two weeks of H5N1 and the unprepared and overwhelmed public is stuck with piled-up bodies, or, the military gets to it, eventually. No thanks. But for the public to be ready to pitch in, so to speak, the officials better change the rules and not go by the book who is allowed to make death certificates, and the local health officials don’t even want the public to understand pandemic could start at any time, there are no vaccines now, and young people are going to die.
Can’t make good contingency plans for mortuary surges if you don’t want the public to beware pandemic, even if it would motivate many of them to prep and not be part of the problem. They also won’t want to follow many of tptb’s poorly planned scenarios, and I guess that’s why it isn’t being discussed. Public might start looking after itself too well?
They talked about hockey rinks in Canada, found in all communities. If electricity stays on, that is.
Anon_22 at 18:45
As long as the diesel fuel lasts anyway, and isn’t needed for food and supplies transportation. On the other hand, if the bodies are in the reefer and the diesel runs out the smell will be contained. Good Lord! What a thought.
Mass Fatality Management Plans
Please read the threads, and add in any local plan details you know. (Mostly, I think all planners have their eyes on the same few fridg.trucks and local ice rinks, (who they haven’t told)imagine uninterrupted fuel for the duration, or, H5N1 just going away and never be a pandemic, or, getting overwhelmed (just saying, they had no idea it would be that bad; point at the CDC starter spreadsheets they never adjusted for the public) and just waiting for state help, DMORT, military, Halliburton, ect, and, they’ve all been pretty sketchy what they told the gravediggers, who aren’t prepped at home, and, I bet they haven’t alerted the faith communities, who they may expect in the local plan to help pick up the, uh, slack…)
On a similar note, Ruby posted something interesting yesterday in the Lone Star thread.
Texas A&M Univ (well-known for vet/agriculture, for those who may not be familiar) has now begun a National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense - FAZD - which is under Homeland Security. The FAZD now has an Avian Flu School.
The FAZD is having a workshop Nov 13–14 in Austin on “Carcass Meta-Disposal in Texas.” It will cover the “science, policy and environmental impact of proper mass mortality disposal” of large numbers of dead animals. The seats are completely sold out. A lot of people feeling the need to be informed on this issue right now, apparently.
In an absolute worst case scenario, I can imagine TPTB deciding the approaches from this (whatever they are; am hoping the website will be updated w/info) may be employed….elsewhere.
http://tinyurl.com/ymhnb6 (same link as FAZD )
See also the FluWiki Index for
Correction… Corpse Management
The above link by fredness should be: Corpse Management (fluwikie.com, not fluwikie2.com). (I know about this mistake because I’ve run through it often. :-))
LOL :)
This is a scary topic to discuss. But, it is important. What rights do families have? I hope this something that most will not have to deal with.
I read the book, The Great Influenza, and it left me hoping things are different the next time a pandemic strikes.
Argyll.
Cremations are done with wood? I guess I assumed they were done using gas furnaces. I figured if they did do them with gas that cremations would be the way to go.
Is it unthinkable that folks would take care of thier own dead? I can’t imagine leaving my loved one out on the road, or dumping them in the cematary. But I guess it would be harder for someone living in a city to do take care of it themselves.
If the unthinkable happens to one of my family members they will be burried right here on our land. That way I can still take care of them.
And, if you don’t have a legal death certificate? Will cause many legal problems.
There are currently laws in place about who is allowed to pronounce death, when an autopsy has to be done - by the state medical examiner, who is allowed to make a death certificate, who is allowed to transport/bury ect; depends on your area.
deborah, gas cematoria were projected to have to run 24/7, and the bodies would still outpace the process, until it overheated, or the fuel delivery ran out. They also need healthy staff, and, people delivering the bodies from places of death.
Please take a look at the Mass Fatality Management Plan threads linked above at 19:02. Worth a read and passing along to locals.
pdf Preparing for the Pandemic; A guide for cemetery and crematorium managers Ken West April 2006. Institute for Cemetary and Crematorium Management, UK
and the White Papers pdf from a Pandemic Influenza meeting with USNORTHCOM, HHS, and Cremation Association of North America March 2006. (8 pages; key issues) DHS, DOD, Red Cross, US Senate in attendance, and “for the first time” the Private Sector was invited”, such as NFDA, ICFA the international trade association for the cemetery, funeral, cremation and memorial industry, Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest owner of funeral homes, and Batesville Casket Company. “With the potential of a PI event on the horizon it is critical that deliberate planning and prior coordination affect a synchronized approach … Conclusion… mass fatality/mortuary operations must move to the forefront of disaster planning rather than continue as a topic no one wants to address for all levels of government.”
Ask your local/state officials; they are already “making plans” and you may find that under a state of emergency or martial law you don’t like what their fatality management plans are, and they don’t seem to want to talk about “what if their plans fail, then what happens during the rest of the pandemic?” Communities need to be making plans themselves that they can emotionally buy-into now, or it will just cause more trauma and outrage and PTSD later.
I think it will be okay, for sanitations sake, to bury a contaminated body. When the crisis is over there will be time to show TPTB the graves and resolve any paperwork. I can’t imagine millions of bodies piling up and someone getting in trouble for buyring Granny. It may save lives.
And who wants to be disinterring millions of bodies? Or, catching up on death certificates for that many? Do it “right enough” the first time. Survivors will have a lot of other things more important to do.
More to risk from live people than dead bodies, as long as those are not in drinking water sources. But we can make better body processing plans than current ones, which are using the stupidly-low fatality and attack rates, and, not taking collateral damage, a whole pandemic not one wave, ect, into account.
Plans assume they can get refrigerated trucks and people to pile bodies into those, and powered ice rinks, and then a doctor can make all the death certificates, and then somehow the bodies will have staff and fuel to be transported and buried somewhere, by functioning people, who currently haven’t even had full disclosure. (I bet they don’t even have enough paper ready for the death certificates.) Current plans are “planning to fail” since they insist on hoping pandemic won’t be anything like what H5N1 looks like now, won’t disrupt the JIT economy and grid, despite scientific and common-sense warnings to the contrary.
If people would try and get their communities talking about this now; and they should, because they are supposed to be preparing to cope during a pandemic year without outside aid; the more communities are ready to try and handle contingencies the fewer people will die of all causes.
TPTB are going to have to give up some authority to the people; they certainly now have time for authorizing measures that don’t have to be applicable for anything less than pandemic (though letting people help who showed up after Katrina would have made more sense than going by-the-book).
(Burying people with no witnesses would miss a lot of homicides, I’d imagine, for one thing. Also, the cities are going to have many kinds of problems…and, what about places the ground freezes solid?)
The current plans (go find your area’s) are trying to tell people the sick will be cared for in schools or other venues turned into special pandemic wards. Some mention either sending worst to hospital (as if those will still be functioning), or others back home.
All three kind of locations need plans (and staff) for what happens next when people die.
Detailed plans; show us they are doable. Even if it gets down to neighborhood people making the rounds every day to collect the dead, writing eveything down as best they can, that is better than letting things pile up until an “authority” gets to it. Feds and state said they cannot help everywhere at once.
Better to get two people (check each other’s work) from different depts. and empower them to do what needs doing during pandemic as far as Pronouncing Death, filling out a Death Certificate, (and making every effort if there is no id, to be able to figure out later who that was; photos, or if not possible, detailed descriptions, ect). At hospital or flu camps; first responder and clergy, a HCW and a municipal employee, out in the neighborhoods; two unrelated people. Whatever gets it done.
Communities making preparations how they could have neighborhood watches, finding out who needs help, knowing when someone dies and keeping records, and getting the body to a place of burial; these difficult conversations need to happen now, as Dr.Nabarro said - it will not be possible to leave everything until they are sure pandemic is happening and then be able to come up with very workable solutions.
Public outrage, and future PTSD, if it comes to garbage trucks and bulldozers, or just piled up in the street, too, especially when they learn we have wasted over a year of warning.
If the public waits for others, “the government” to do everything for them, it will be far worse than what we saw after Katrina or the tsunami.
Admit there is no top-down solution and tell the public they need to buck up; life is going to get harder. Country will have a better chance at Recovery than current “they can’t handle the truth” course.
crfullmoon:
If I leave a loved one unburied for one day’ the vultures will “pick the bones clean”. They will have no body unless it is buried to be exumed at a later time. Then the vultures might carry human bf. It is not possible to leave a body unburied where I live. 100% humidity most every morning and warm temps year round. For proof of death and preservation of a body, sometimes burial by family members is the best thing to do. If left unburied, a body is likely to disappear. Eaten by hungry animals. Paperwork lost by gov. workers clearing dead. In the ground, it is not going any where. For a death certificate, you need to produce a body. In my case, burial is best, then coroner, gov. worker can come to exume, pronounce dead. file paperwork..ect. Meanwhile I know where my loved ones body is.
Never said you had to leave it out. I’d like you to be able to get some other person/people to come by, and y’all do the legal paperwork then and there, and get the body buried; same day as death.
As much as one would like to be capable, one may be sick or weak and unable to bury alone. Ain’t gonna happen without community awareness and prep now, and, tptb agreeing the grassroots will need to be considered “legal enough” during pandemic/system collapse.
We also don’t need officials coming around in force with a truck (that first week the rate spikes and they still have fuel and staff, at least), and carting bodies off to the ice rink. Nix that in public, now, and get people prepping. (I don’t think there will be enough govt workers left to come around after and be able to catch up, either, given current unpreparedness, and cfr, looking to kill so many. More important to deal with food, grid, order, ect)
So much work; make the legal papers and burial same day as death; don’t put it off until later. Don’t some religious groups already practice burial as soon as possible? Can that model be expanded?
High-population density, high ammount of paved surface regions need to have workable plans, brainstormed by the public, now, too. Too bad the govt doesn’t want people to know pandemic may happen at any time.
If they would send someone the same day, that would be great.I think they are going to be too busy with the bodies laid on the sidewalk in front of city hall to even think of driving 20 minutes out of town. Ofcourse your senario is ideal. I don’t think where I live they will have the man power to go out to every house with a death every day. If they do, I will wait to bury my dead. I really don’t think they will be able to, though. I think it was a problem in 1918 and will be a bigger problem now. I hope you can get some people in control to start thinking about this, but all I have read about officials is that they feel like it is not unhealthy to leave bodies around for a few days. And mabe it isn’t in some parts of the country. So, it appears that is is going to be acceptable to plan for body pick-up days after death. Visions of myself with baseball bat swinging at 9 foot alligator that wants to eat my childs body. Do I bury her and have tptb dig her up later, or try to explain why I have no body? Uh’ It was a big gator, He went that way. It would be easier to prove death without foul play if they can dig up a body and do an autopsy. The burial would just be for safe keeping. Like some officials said, it is not a public health concern to have bodies around for days after an “event”. Meaning they can take a few days to clear the dead. But, I think they don’t live here. They do not realize there would be no body to collect. A huge problem to get a death certificate with no body. At least if buried, you would always have “remains”. I realy don’t think they will have the man power to pick up all bodies on the same day of death. At least not in my world. If you can get people to think about it though in places where it would be possible, that would be a great service and something worth accomplishing. You are right, it is not going to happen anywhere if they don’t prep now. Good luck to you. I have said it before.. you are amazing. I bet you will make a difference.
crfullmoon: ^
If the snow plows cann’t run, the death wagons cannot get here. And when the ground is frozen how do you bury a body?
“they will have the man power “
We are the manpower you, your neighbors, any person out on the front lines; I’d like the ptb to admit we’re screwed before pandemic breaks out, and write blanket deputizations now for whoever’s boots are still walking around on the ground to be able to keep track and go ahead and bury, or, get the public to wake up that they’ve been in a Pandemic Alert period for over a year without being told what the heck is going on, and start making neighborhood plans themselves. Of course by now, it sounds so improbable to people; that they wouldn’t be fully informed by their own town, and, I sound so frustrated, that people just look askance. I’d like to get out of sight, sound, and smell, of this whole thing (and of any officals afterwards) before it goes down, and I probably can’t. When I realized some people at Flu Wiki hadn’t even wanted to look at the Mass Fatality Plan threads yet, despite they’re already being concerned about pandemic and community consequences, I realized most people are so far from being able to deal with mortality/death/whatever, what can I do? Maybe I was like that once, but it was a long time ago. Life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Maybe next time “civilization” better keep control of the means of the production of their food, safety, and health care, and, laying out their own dead. Maybe pandemic survivors will have to do everything themselves, for a long time, as things are.
I was paid $6.50 an hour to haul away dead bodies. Pick them up, put them on my strecher and take them away. Some were fresh dead, some were two weeks old, bloated, purple,yellow and grey. Some were burned to the point of unrecognizable meat. Some were just parts we shoveled into plastic trash bags. most of the time the smell of death isn’t so bad. Other times it takes more than just a strong stomach. I worked with guys that used to shove a glob Vics vapo rub up each nostril, and many was the time we had to borrow the local fire depts. SCBA airpacks. It doesn’t take any special talent to dispose of the dead. just a strong back and a sense of detachment. Death certificates, Doctor’s, official rules, all of these things end as the reality of survival is found in the question, “ what do we do with the bodies”? the original point of my thread was in the link to the baghdad morgues. We must learn from this and plan on being overloaded, and no one in charge. Whatever decision you make will be the only decision that counts. 911 won’t be coming. You must plan what you will do with death ON YOUR OWN. You’ve been told, now you know. “They”, will never get it, and will toe the party line with sound bites and talking heads. You can try to warn them, or you can plan and act to survive. Learn frontier skills snow. You prepped for six months, great, then what? the stores are just going to magicly open up and it’s bussiness as usual? Be as self sufficent as you can, and learn a skill that is of value to others. I am sure I will be the closest thing to a Doctor within fifteen miles of my little village. Unless we get really, really, lucky.
Each person must have some type of plan that you can communicate to your family and neighbors. In the south, unburied bodies will result in waves of other diseases like typhus. You must bury your own dead—take a picture-say the service—and get it over with, this is not the time to worry about cultural or religious considerations. Let the family do it and it’s done right at least from their perspective. It may sound hard-hearted-but it’s what survivors will do.
5% of the population can’t bury the 95% of the population that perishes. I speculate most bodies will be left to decay into nothing but bones. I think the survivors will somehow make their way to new settlements near hydro plants. Naturally, decaying bodies will have to be removed from these settlements. As that 5% of original population grows and expands over the coming decades, they will repopulate the cities of 2007. Instead of having to build cities from scratch, they will simply have to remove skeletons. I would rather dispose of 275 million skeletons than 275 million bloated corpses.
Ant sort of respect for the dead won’t be there.
95% death rate? Are you Stephen King, Writing the Stand Part two? Denver for elevation instead of hydroplants. Very bleak picture you’re painting. Why?
Leo7-
When you expect the worst, You’re not surprised when it happens.
My Vote is for golf courses. Plenty around, and no one will be using them.
Dennis C at 15:59: What to do with a body in winter? Some Native Americans would wrap them and lay them on a platform, or in a tree to dessicate over the winter.
Retired Paramedic MI – at 17:07 I think you’re right on, with your entire posting.
We have already been told…”You’re on your own.TPTB won’t be there to help you.” I don’t understand WHY people can NOT hear that ?!?!?!
I have my elderly mother and me to take care of. If she goes before I do ( from her other medical problems, or the BF ) I have a body bag kit; for her..
If I go first ( being in that target age ) hopefully she can get my body rolled into and zipped into that bag; even tho she can’t get me out of my apt.
We are in apts side-by-side; I can get her out if she passed.
The apartments where we live, have several grass-covered acres ( for future developement ) where I plan on burying her; abet temprarily; after taking pictures of her; pictures of me…Putting ID papers in a glass jar to be put inside the bag….and also to take some type of DNA sample’ for “whoever” needs them later to get a death cert. That’s basically all anyone can do.
I will not let a family member remain above ground for days, to decay ! That’s just NOT an acceptable thing to do; and as long as I’m able to drag her out to even a shallow grave; it’s better then NOT doing anything. IMO.
We both have life insurance; but quite frankly; when TSHTF; I fully expect any and all insurance companies to dig in their heels and say “ It’s an act of GOD, and we’re NOT paying.” So a death certificate won’t really matter too much on either of us.
I only have 1 body bag kit; mainly because; whoever is left…if/when they die…well, by then, it just won’t matter.
Like the old days, when TPTB weren’t as accessable ( or as obnoxious ) as they are now….the general public MUST learn to take care of things YOURSELF…because , in the end, that’s the only ones you can depend on.
Perth County Influenza Pandemic Plan, Ontario, Canada Chapter 8: Mass Fatality Management
Retired Paramedic MI
Would you please review the plan I posted above and give us your views. Would it work? Thanks.
This is depressing :(
Anyone been to the catacombs under Paris ? Bones are stacked neatly and artisticly by the millions. I think I’ve found my post-flupocalypse occupation.
NW (any lurkers) wouldn’t it be better for communities figuring out what they’d do now, before pandemic breaks out? Depressing to get blindsided, right? Not thinking about it won’t keep communities from having to deal with it.
People will not be at their best physically nor emotionally, and having a little pre-thought as to contingencies, perhaps even some pre-planning and pre-positioning - or getting winter communities to dig those “collective burial” trenches now before the ground freezes; while we have fuel, staff that knows how to run the machines and can drive in to work, ect, rather than “hope nothing happens and then “deal with it then” if the “managed messages” to the public are completely off-base and we start getting hammered by current-cfr H5N1 next month? The public and staff had time to budget for a crisis, but have been deliberately kept in the dark, despite a few token things for an attempt at saying, “but we did tell the public they just didn’t seem interested”…
Public does not think they’ve been told we’re in a Pandemic Alert Period, nor what official assumptions say a pandemic year or two will look like, nor to stock up for as long as tptb did for their families.
On 12/14 there will be a webcast presentation on Managing Contemporary Mass Fatalities given by the University of Albany School of Public Health through the webcast facilities at www.prepareiowa.com. The presentation will probably be available afterwards through webstreaming, but if you are watching live you can submit questions by phone or fax. There is usually a pdf handout available just before the class.
IMHO proposals to keeps bodies in refrigerated trucks is just, well, dumb. These trucks and especially the fuel will ben eededfor otherpurposes-say food, equipment deliveries.
In the PanAmerican HO-a part of the WHO-book on dealing with mass casualties it said that a person who died of an infectious disease is not an infection risk to others, unless the body in in water that is to be consumed by humans (UGH!) They stressed the need for families to have access to as normal as possible funeral services.
Let’s not forget the huge role that mental health will have in dealingwith everything related to a pandemic.
I guess the Mass Fatality Mangement Plans needs a 5th pages started and the 4th one linked and closed; the new links people mentioned can go there (and I will look them over, later)
p155 http://www.ahrq.gov/research/mce/mceguide.pdf
still thinks the darn electricity and web will stay up to do death certificates by the bureaucrats-that-be
Establish a Regional Home Death Management Process stupid… regional hubs fot the Medical Examiner to process bodies in a “temporary holding place awating definite management” …”refrigerated trucks”
Dmmn them all to help; the people who kept lowballing the cfr spreadsheets, and wrote these plans-to-fail, and all the ones who are in positions of authority and ate the “telling the public would have bad outcomes” spin, leaving the not telling the public to prepare = worse long-term outcomes for everyone else to suffer through.
(p 150. provide incentives for health care workers to leave their families “by promsing them priority status for vaccines” Arrgh!)
People don’t want to look through the MFMP threads; well, don’t look at pp 114 - 128, Palliative Care, then either.
So much stuff that would have been better discussed by all stakeholders/members of a community before pandemic breaks out.
AnonYYX-
Thank you for shareing this document with me. It seems very well thought out and workable. A person could “what if” it and pick it apart I suppose, however it adresses the topic in a straight forward and honest manner. It is far ahead of where my county is at. Just remember, as soon as the Pandemic happens, all plans go out the window.
YYZ - what is the population of Perth? Is 1000 dead a reasonable figure? i.e. Cobourg I think is about 14000 - if 80% are infected (remember we have NO immunity to H5N1) - and 60% die (just say 60% for figuring!) that is 6,720 peole! I know for sure that our funeral homes could NOT handle that - nor would there be room in the arenas - I think that after the first few weeks there will be no petrol for running refrigerated trucks - I dunno - Perth plan seems a lot on the ‘light side’ to me! Anybody else??
gharris – at 00:50
Here’s the link to the Perth Plan, the numbers are in Chapter 1.
(I hope I didn’t dream looking up Perth county’s pop. 2001 census 73,675 or something and writing a post - maybe I lost it somewhere… I had read the Perth plan; they had 11 mortuary staff, did not foresee ammount of body bags, caskets, whatever becoming a problem.)
Maybe I just gave up, and didn’t post it.
Those low projected numbers, for calm “illustrative purposes”, were always supposed to be adjusted for how any potentially pandemic virus was behaving for planning, not just hoped to be very low until actually proven otherwise, first week of pandemic…when it is too late to mobilize society to be more resiliant against impact.
crfullmoon – at 08:39
I posted in the Finding Other Preppers Ontario thread that the Ontario Health Plan for Influenza Pandemic was plastered with quotes from John Barry’s book for 1918 while the plans were based on 1968 scenarios. The key issue here is not the planning but the commitment of funds to prepare for a pandemic. That is lacking, unfortunately.
In the Perth plan it stated that dead bobies are not considered contageous. I read somewhere else that the avian flu virus can live over three months in dead bodies and feces. Who is correct? Couldn’t it spread in the animal and bird populations if eaten by them?
I am changing my name to crazy lady— the other is to long.
My grandmother was born in June 1919. Her mother had the flu prior to her birth, and she swears she was told that she had it as an infant, maybe in rural Oklahoma they still had some stuff rolling through. Years later, when my grandmother was an adult, my grandfather’s grandmother told her that men in the community had to volunteer to pick up the bodies, and bury the people in mass graves because there were so many. The men who volunteered for this were dead a short time later. It seems to me that “we” decided that bodies can stay infected for a couple of days. I don’t know why the virus would die the second a heart stopped beating.
I wish to God I could get my community planning. I can’t even get them to plan to live, let alone plan to die. I attended a county meeting in June where we were told that the county would set up some kind of community/government committe to begin discussing and planning. I’ve made three phone calls and nobody will return my call.
I think that taking pictures is a good idea, I hadn’t thought of that. I also think it’s a great idea to have a glass jar with the body that contains important information. While I understand that “hope is not a plan”, I do hope that my preprations (including sick boxes) will help us avoid the ugliest outcome. I live in Florida, which is obvious by my name. We don’t have an abundance of ice rinks down here. I would not want to have to dig a grave for my mother or father or husband or sisters or nieces…we have a severe shortage of men in my family and it wouldn’t be easy. On the other hand, I would do it with as much care, love, and concern as I could. Better that than a bulldozer shoving them into a hole.
My ancestors, even 75 years ago handled death themselves. We can too, but it won’t be easy as we’re so removed from it now. It’s almost a sterile action. Not all of us have seen a dead body without a full suit of clothes and make-up. The suburbs and the cities will probably “develop” a more organized ultra-local method once bodies stack up. It will be small groups solving the problem, just like it always is during a real disaster.
keep trying to get this discussed even by people and politicians who don’t see this as part of their job…
pablo escobar – at 18:51
I don`t want to use golf courses. I see golf courses as potential garden spots. Dig up the grass, plant veggies.If running water, already have sprinkler systems, and many already use recycled water.Could be community gardens.
Speaking of well burying the dead, one thing I have done at the insistance of the little lady, on our 2.3 acres is with the tractor dig a rather large grave site, that can be used in an emergency by someone. Hopefully we wont be the ones occupying the space, but the ground is so hard here, no one would be able to dig by hand, and the little lady said if something happened to me, she would have a hard enough time to drag my remains out of the house let alone dig a grave. So I dug a rather large grave (although only a foot or two deep, and have a large pile of dirt next to. Already have on hand some large plastic bags to use. Not a pleasant thought, but if the pandemic causes such a large problem on corpse management, people will be putting in locations in their yard etc. As with all my other planning, this is just one more that is now taken care of.
Golf courses would unfortunately be bad choices for gardens. They have more pesticides and herbicides poured into them than almost any other places on earth.
relevant diary here discussing mass casualties.
http://www.newfluwiki2.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=446
See also
http://www.fluwikie2.com/index.php?n=Forum.MassFatalityManagementPlans4
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