YORK COUNTY, Pa. — A picture taken at a York County cemetery made its rounds on social media. Heavy rain and flooding brought a burial vault, and now, more deep-seated issues to the surface.
The burial vault in question at Lebanon Cemetery in North York is now covered with dirt and flowers.
However, a picture posted on social media shows what it looked like Friday, after a quick rain storm made it's way through York County. The vault had been raised and surrounded by water.
The woman who snapped it, Angela Ramsay, told us after the person had been laid to rest, the burial vault remained uncovered and unfilled for four hours before the storm started.
Ramsay said after the storm passed, someone from York Burial Vault was back to fill in the grave by hand.
"A board should've gone over the grave, over the vault, when they were finished if they weren't going to fill it in," Ramsasy said. "Is there a law stating that? Probably not. But is it common sense? Yes."
The owner of York Burial vault told FOX43 over the phone they did nothing wrong - they had several jobs that day, and came back to close the grave once the water had receded.
The blame game though is far from over.
Leaders of the Facebook group Friends of Lebanon Cemetery said the upkeep has been poor over the years, citing problems with overgrown grass and broken headstones.
"The main problem is that the families of people that are interred there are not aware of what's going on," Tina Charles, Vice President of the group, said. "And a huge part of that is because of the lack of record keeping."
The group is confused about legal ownership and management. Carol Hill-Evans is on the board.
"We operate according to our bylaws," Hill-Evans said. "We reviewed the bylaws that were given to us by some of the same people who are saying we aren't legitimate. These are the folks who gave us the bylaws, who uncovered them, and did the research."
Hill-Evans is also aware of the concerns regarding compliance, and said the board is working to address them. In the meantime, she said the photo of the burial vault should've never been posted.
"I don't know what the goal was, but certainly there was no culpability, there was nothing anybody did wrong," Hill-Evans said. "And if you were going to blame anybody, you can only blame Mother Nature."
The board did have an emergency meeting Monday night with the burial company and determined nothing was damaged. Its annual meeting will be held virtually on August 27th.
Members or those who think they might be a member should contact JoAnn Henderson at 717-845-6124 or Joannh265@gmail.com