Last week, John Horan left his comfortable Denver office and flew with some friends to Biloxi, Miss., bringing clothing, cash, home-improvement-center gift cards and sweat equity to help people whose independent funeral home business and residential homes were ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Horan, who owns Colorado’s Horan & McConaty Funeral Home, recently learned that his friend Jeff O’Keefe lost two of his five Bradford-O’Keefe funeral homes during the storm.
Katrina also leveled the homes of 10 Bradford-O’Keefe employees.
Meanwhile, the demand for Bradford-O’Keefe’s services skyrocketed, leaving the staff torn between despairing mourners and their own anguished families.
“It’s one of those things where it’s such an unbelievable mess that it’s hard to know what’s the most important thing to do first,” said Horan, a fastidious man who customarily wears a three-piece suit and immaculate shoes.
“It’s one of those things where you look around and think, ‘This is too big for me to do something about.’ And then, you think, ‘Yeah,’ but I can do something for these 10 people.”
On Wednesday, he and his sister, Debbie Horan-Griffin, his brother Mike Horan and his friend Aidan McGuire began mucking out one of the salvageable Bradford-O’Keefe buildings.
They shoveled muddy debris into wheelbarrows, used chain saws to clear fallen trees and bushes and hauled sodden carpeting to the curb. The relentless Mississippi humidity left their T-shirts sodden and sweaty. Mud caked their boots.
“There’s not a square centimeter on us that’s not moist,” Horan said by telephone, using his professional instinct to find a diplomatic description.
“We’re just shoveling muck and doing our best to try and make it possible for the local funeral directors here to care for and focus attention on the families they’re serving, and on their own families.”
The three relatively unscathed funeral homes are constantly busy.
Bradford-O’Keefe vice president Arthur “Bubba” Lang said some families facing long waits for formal funerals are opting instead for cremation or graveside services.
“We are busy,” Lang said. He laughed at his own understatement.
“It’s changing the way we do business. Visitations are happening an hour or two before the service, because there’s no place for out-of-town family to stay, no motels or hotels. ”
When Horan and his crew leave, others from the funeral home fraternity will replace them, catching a few hours of sleep in O’Keefe’s relatively unscathed home between shifts.
“It’s going to take year and years to bring Biloxi back,” Horan said.
“But the people here seem resigned – and dedicated to doing what it takes to clean up and get on with their lives again.”
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
