Some Things You Never Forget
Funeral director Pete Burke helped identify victims of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina
By Rich Reece
Pete Burke’s compassionate brown eyes have seen things that most of us, fortunately, never will. A member of St. Andrew Parish in Apex, Burke is a funeral director by profession, and since 2001 has also been a member of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS). The NDMS is a cooperative program among federal, state and local government agencies, private businesses and civilian volunteers to provide medical services following a disaster that overwhelms local health care resources. With his background in mortuary science, Burke has assisted in identifying human remains and returning them to bereaved families.
“I’d toyed with the idea for a year or two, I knew it was good work, but I wasn’t sure about the time commitment,” Burke says. “But I joined in June or July of 2001.” He shakes his head and smiles wryly. “I couldn’t have timed that much better.” The Towers fell in September. Then on November 12th a jet crashed in Queens and Burke got the call to head for New York. “I had joined too late for the program’s summer training session,” he recalls, “so I was going with people I’d never met to do something I’d never done. When we pulled up to the New York City Medical Examiner’s office – it was 5am – I was about as frightened as I’d ever been.” Burke’s job was to prepare tissue samples for DNA determination, and when his team had processed the crash victims they were assigned to identifying remains from the World Trade Center. “There was a great sense of duty among the people working there,” Burke recalls.
Over the next few years Burke was called to other disaster sites. In 2002, the remains of more than 200 discarded bodies were uncovered at a crematory in rural Georgia. Burke was unable to make that trip, but in 2005 he went to Florida, which was battered by eight hurricanes in one season. Then there was Katrina.
Burke was summoned to Mississippi. “The NDMS employs a task-force concept,” Burke explains. Teams from various regions are summoned to deal with different sectors in the disaster area. Once on site, the teams, through their commanders, are under the direction of local authorities. “We were on alert on August 28,” Burke remembers. “The storm hit on the 29th. We stayed at a military base near Hattiesburg, and we arrived in the dark. The next morning we drove to Gulfport. I won’t forget the first sight of the damage. It was like another planet, completely obliterated. You saw two-story buildings where the storm surge had completely taken the first floor and left the second floor standing on naked support beams. Empty ground where beach bungalows had been.”
In a parking lot outside a disabled hospital, the team set up a “family systems center,” a place where people could report missing family members, and where urban search and rescue teams would bring remains to Burke and others to be identified and embalmed. “We hadn’t thought about where we would sleep,” Burke recalls. “Some of us slept in cars, others on wooden slabs that would be used eventually to support the bodies of victims.”
The interactions with families could be heart rending. Burke saw anger, shock “and a sense of complete helplessness. I’ll never forget one family who lost five members. I don’t know if they were ever found. The last I followed up, they were still missing.” Of the more than 200 victims who were recovered in their sector, Burke’s team identified all but two.
What draws someone into a profession where encounters with grief and violent death are routine? Burke smiles like it’s a question he’s heard often but can’t quite answer in words. “I was nine years old when my grandfather died,” he says, and I remember talking with the director at the funeral home. When I was older I worked part-time as an apprentice, went to mortuary school and got my license in 1979.” He has always loved funeral work: “I think it was something about the traditions, the ceremony. The Catholic funeral service, with the incense and music, is beautiful and truly comforting. Funeral direction also gives you an opportunity to help people at a moment that’s really, at that moment, the worst thing that can happen to them. It almost seems selfish, but there is satisfaction in helping people through that time.”
Funeral work takes a serious toll on family life, though, and Burke, originally from New Jersey, moved with his wife to Connecticut and worked for years for IBM. Today he is a part-time director at Apex Funeral Home, and also works as an Associate Director for Finance in the University Housing Department at NC State. At St. Andrew, he served eight years on the Pastoral Council, two as chairman, is a Eucharistic Minister and chair of the lectoring program, and is heavily involved in the Columbarium Committee.
Even when he is not working with a disaster team, Burke’s work brings him face to face with tragedy on a regular basis. “Especially when a family loses a child,” he says, “it’s impossible to forget.” So how can God let bad things happen to good people? As a believing Catholic who sees calamities firsthand, what is Burke’s answer to the age-old question?
He pauses before answering. “Now,” he says, “I wonder why they haven’t happened to me. When I was young, this was always stuff that happened to ‘other people.’ Now I know tragedy can strike anyone. I’m constantly warning my own children to watch out for this or that, look what could happen.
“At the same time, I believe God doesn’t let us suffer burdens we can’t handle. I know that sounds like a cliché, but what I’ve seen makes me believe it’s true. Meanwhile, it’s beyond my understanding. In my work, I think, ‘Maybe these people didn’t die in vain. Maybe something good can come of it. And maybe I can be a part of that.’ My assignment is to comfort when I can, to help people through this.”