Tennessee experts help identify those killed by Katrina

Three Tennessee residents are working with a DMORT team on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, which was left in ruins last month by Hurricane Katrina.

“We are called in to assist when local resources are overwhelmed. We’re here working for the coroner of this county, Harrison County (Miss.),” said Kim Plunk, a Camden resident.

Plunk is normally a dental hygienist. Teammate Roger Balentine is a funeral home manager in Waynesboro and Bobby Wyatt is a Union City factory worker, who learned mortuary skills in the Army and is still a licensed funeral director.

During disasters, however, they and other team members from the Southeast are called on to assemble and work to give unidentified bodies their names back.

“We do everything we can to make that identification using fingerprints, dental records, X-ray records. We look for anything that will tell us who the person is: tattoos, scars, evidence of implants,” Plunk said.

People with missing loved ones help in the identification process, by bringing photos, dental records and other information to several centers set up in the region.

The DMORT team members are working 12-hour shifts in a temporary morgue near the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, spending their time off sleeping on cots and in sleeping bags.

The bodies are stored in refrigerated trucks as the work to identify them goes on.

Though their task is an unpleasant public service, the team members said the fact their work helps survivors during a tough time is rewarding.

“It can be stressful work. We work hard to help the families,” Balentine said. “I think we all came to this because we want to help.”