Atlanta Cemetery Repaired After Tornado
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Nov. 10, 2008
In October, workers from Superior Rigging & Erecting Company reinstalled the fallen Gramling obelisk in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery.
Credit: Dinny Addison
Restoration work has begun inside Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery, where devastating winds generated by a tornado damaged more than 100 trees and thousands of monuments on March 14, 2008. Last month, a team of experts began picking up the pieces, re-erecting four of the cemetery's largest stone memorials.
On Oct. 10, a crane returned a seven-foot-tall sculpture of the angel Gabriel, carved in 1873 and broken in half during the storm, to its pedestal.
"Watching the angel go back up was pretty amazing," says Beth Shorthouse, business developer for the historic preservation studio at Lord, Aeck & Sargent. (The firm's Atlanta offices are near the National Register-listed cemetery, which opened in 1850.)
"[The four monuments] are really symbols of recovery," says Kevin Kuharic, director of restoration and landscapes at the Historic Oakland Foundation. "We deliberately chose to start with major monuments to set a tone for the rest of the effort."
It will take another year to complete repairs to the rest of Oakland's grave markers, Kuharic says. The foundation's next step is to prop up 284 small markers that the wind toppled.
Although FEMA will reimburse the foundation for 75 percent of the repair costs, the Historic Oakland Foundation is trying to raise $15 million for repairs and another $10 million for an endowment so that the cemetery never falls into disrepair again.
"We have many cases of damage that don't pose health and safety threats to the public, so we'll have to raise money to repair those," Kuharic says. "We're actually finding more damage as we spend more time on the ground."
Despite the visible effects of the storm, it was business as usual at the cemetery last month, when visitors arrived for Oakland's popular Halloween tours.
"The whole place looks so different," Shorthouse says of the cleared landscape. "[But] for those of us who walked through it and know how much damage was done, the place looks great."
Read more about the March 2008 tornado
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Comments
Submitted by Joni at: November 21, 2008
In following the progress of Oakland's restoration of landscape and landmarks over the years, I sincerely believe kudos should be given to Mr. Kuharic for his passion and commitment to the overall and ongoing task of preserving the invaluable history of Oakland Cemetery. I doubt that any of the progress over these past few years would have been possible without his dedication to personally researching and fighting for the restoration of each discovered artifact found within the confines of that beautiful property. The property, also, is also, vastly improved, bringing it back to its park-like setting of days gone by. I am certain that Mr. Kuharic's workload has more than tripled as a result of the devastating tornado and then trying to "beg" for the additional donation to repair once again the pieces that were left mutilated. Hats off to you, Mr. Kuharic; Oakland is indeed blessed to have someone of your caliber and expertise!