It’s a race against time to save the Salvo Day Use area cemetery
Efforts to help repair and save the Salvo Day Use Cemetery – also known as the Midgett Cemetery – are heating up as community members recognize the current dire state of the site, as well as the devastating effects the next major hurricane or storm could inflict on the already troubled area.
The cemetery, which is located on National Park Service land within the popular Salvo Day Use Area just south of the tri-villages, has been battered by storms and erosion, particularly for the past five to 10 years, and has rapidly deteriorated to the dismay of the descendants of the islanders who are buried there.
Headstones have broken, washed away, or have been removed by concerned family members who worry they could disappear altogether, and tombs are becoming exposed as the soundfront area steadily recedes from a regular battering of high water and waves.
Tri-village community members have been fighting for a long time to address the issue, but it’s quickly becoming a race against time to raise the roughly $120,000 required to protect and save the site.
(Island Free Press, 5/5/2016)