Graves at a Lakeland cemetery are in conditions so bad, you can actually see the remains inside.
Around the African American Tiger Flowers cemetery in Lakeland it's not uncommon to see cracked gravesites and holes so big anyone walking by could see a skull and a full set of teeth.
Gregory Smith has several members of his family buried at the site, and says the poor conditions have been around for years.
“Why let those gravesites decay like that?” Smith said.
Last week his family got together to give the graves of their loved ones an upgrade, which he says needs to be done to the majority of the graves here.
“We want their memories to live on so in order to do that we must beautify the graveyards to bring life back into the gravesites,” he said.
This graveyard is like many others--it leaves it up to the family to take care of the head stones and the vaults. That could prove to be difficult for some of these graves that have been here since the early 1900’s and some family members just may not be around.
City officials say they have a solution to that problem, they just have to be alerted of it first.
“If we are notified of the situation we have a cemetery crew that goes out there. One of our divisions of parks and recreation goes out and we either patch the concrete work if we can or we put them under ground,” said City of Lakeland Spokesperson, Kevin Cook.
The city plans to inspect graves like this one on Monday, so hopefully the graves will be repaired and the people buried here can rest in peace.
City officials say they inherited this historic cemetery several years ago. They say the economy doesn’t allow them to monitor the cemetery but if there is a problem, they will fix it.