Unknown to most in New Orleans, a strip of land has been chosen as a memorial site for the estimated 1,600 people who died in Hurricane Katrina. It also will serve as the resting place for 85 unclaimed bodies.
Mayor Ray Nagin gave $1 million in taxpayer money to the project during a second-anniversary ceremony.
But few expect the monument to be built by Aug. 29, Katrina's third anniversary.
Some say a lack of follow-up by the mayor is the cause. But New Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard places the blame on his own overburdened office, and the fatigue of a scattered city.
Some families are so overwhelmed by the storm that they've declined to pick up the bodies of relatives. The corner's office says 54 of the unclaimed have been identified.