Quake Funeral Grants Exceed Official Toll

The official death toll for the Northridge earthquake was 58, yet the state has received 374 requests for grants to pay funeral expenses for quake victims, records show.

The state already has awarded disaster-related funeral grants for 117 people, including one man who hanged himself over the loss of his job from the Jan. 17 quake and another who died of valley fever more than two months after the temblor.

The deceased for whom grants were given ranged in age from a prematurely born baby to a 94-year-old heart attack victim. More than half the deaths were caused by heart attacks that followed the earthquake or aftershocks.

So far, the total bill to taxpayers is $431,129, and 138 requests for funeral grants are pending.

Under a little-known disaster relief program, anyone--regardless of personal income--can receive up to $6,000 for burial and $2,500 for cremation of family members whose deaths were directly attributable to the quake or hastened by the disaster.

The program, just a small part of nearly $12 billion in federal quake relief, is administered by the state.

If a doctor determines the death to be disaster-related, “we don’t question it,” said Liz Brady of the state Department of Social Services.

Funeral grants are available only to those without other financial aid, such as private insurance or assistance from the Red Cross, which helped pay for 14 quake-related funerals.

State officials, citing privacy laws, refused to identify the dead or the doctors who certified the deaths as quake-related.

But interviews and documents obtained under the California Public Records Act show that the families of about half the 58 quake victims identified by coroner’s offices in Southern California received funeral grants.

Among these victims were people killed in car accidents and trapped in collapsed buildings, including the Northridge Meadows Apartments, where 16 perished.

Many quake victims whose families received grants were in fragile health and died of “earthquake-related stress,” officials said. Among those afforded government-paid funerals was a man who hanged himself May 17. His doctor said he was despondent because he lost his job after the quake, state officials said.

A grant also went to the family of a woman who died of cancer in March in Arizona. The 83-year-old woman was in Northridge the day of the quake and suffered broken ribs and a crushed spine. Because of the cancer, “she apparently wasn’t able to heal properly,” Brady said.

One grant was paid to the family of a truck driver who died April 3 of valley fever. Some health officials have said the quake may have churned up the fungus-laden dust that causes the respiratory illness.

But a local health official said the truck driver’s death was more likely caused by his frequent travel to the San Joaquin Valley, where valley fever is endemic.

“The doctor certified it was earthquake-related,” Brady said. “We’re not in a position . . . to refute a doctor’s statement.”

The government also paid the funeral expenses of a person who died of exposure after refusing out of fear to go inside after the quake. And it paid for the funeral of a person who died when his kidney dialysis machine failed during a blackout.

Most of the deaths occurred in the San Fernando Valley, but they were scattered throughout Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner said that he was surprised at the number of funeral grants but that his office is in “no position to refute” a doctor’s finding that a death was quake-related.

“Who are we to say?” said spokesman Scott Carrier. “We’re not here to police the doctors.”

The Los Angeles County coroner counted 57 casualties from the quake--a figure also used as the official death toll by the state Office of Emergency Services.

The San Bernardino County coroner’s office reported one quake-related death--a woman who was “scared to death,” said a coroner’s official, but that death does not qualify for a funeral grant because the presidential disaster declaration is limited to Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties. No quake-related deaths were reported by coroners in Orange and Ventura counties.

One explanation for the difference between the official toll and the number of funeral grants given is that the coroner’s office does not investigate every death. The coroner is required to investigate deaths of people who had not seen a physician for 60 days or died as a result of trauma, such as being trapped in a collapsed building.

But deaths from natural causes, such as heart attacks, are not routinely subject to coroner’s review, and determination of whether the death was quake-related is left to the attending physician.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s list also does not include any deaths that occurred after Jan. 25. “We had no other cases reported to us,” Carrier said.

After Hurricane Andrew, Florida officials limited payouts to deaths that occurred within 48 hours of the hurricane. They issued a dozen funeral grants.

California has never placed a time limit on funeral grants for disaster-related deaths. State officials noted that a body was recovered from a collapsed freeway more than 48 hours after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. The state issued 41 funeral grants in that quake, which claimed 63 lives.

Not all requests for funeral grants have been approved. One was denied to the family of a man who died on a golf course shortly after the Northridge earthquake. “The doctor wouldn’t certify it was earthquake-related because it was a pre-existing condition,” Brady said.

In addition, state officials said they received a number of requests for funeral aid to bury pets.

“At least we denied the request for the horse funeral and dog funeral,” said Scott Gregerson of the Department of Social Services.

Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides the bulk of the money for the funeral grants, said they were satisfied with the state’s administration of the funeral grant program.

FEMA officials said they leave it up to states to determine who qualifies for grants, although the agency later will review the payments.

Eligible expenses include funeral home costs, purchasing plots, transporting the body or ashes, death certificates, one spray of flowers and memorial markers. Ineligible are special clothing, transportation for family members and reception expenses.

A state official suggested that perhaps the state should refer its list to the coroner “to decide if they should revise the death toll.”