Officials in Suffolk County have had to make difficult decisions during the coronavirus pandemic, including what to do about the growing number of bodies.
The county, which comprises the eastern half of Long Island in New York, has seen a deluge of coronavirus cases and deaths. The county includes enclaves such as the Hamptons, which has seen an uptick in people fleeing their homes in the New York City area and elsewhere to hunker down and weather the coronavirus pandemic in their Long Island homes.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone told CNN that the area’s morgue facilities were filling up and that various options about where to store bodies were discussed.
“At the early stages of this crisis, we were having conversations about suggestions of using ice rinks and stores with refrigeration to store bodies,” Bellone said. “I made the decision that I was not going to tell families that we need to convert their children’s iceskating rinks and turn them into morgues because that is not who we are.”
Bellone said that the decision was to store potential overflow at the Suffolk County Farm.
“I’m having conversations I never imagined having in this position,” he said.
Jason Elan, Bellone’s spokesman, said that one of the buildings at the farm has an unused refrigerator system that can be used should the morgues and refrigerated trailers from the state reach capacity.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Suffolk County has had almost 15,500 cases of the coronavirus and at least 237 deaths, according to a count by the New York Times. It also has a high per capita infection rate of more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.
Neighboring Nassau County, which makes up the western side of the island and is closer to Manhattan, has about the same number of infections and at least 535 deaths.
The federal government has deployed refrigerated trucks to act as interim mortuaries in New York City, which is grappling with thousands of coronavirus deaths. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has denied a claim from a member of the New York City Council that bodies might be temporarily buried in parks amid the pandemic.
“I have heard nothing about that. I have heard a lot of wild rumors, but I have not heard anything about the city burying people in parks,” Cuomo said during a Monday news conference.
