St Bernard's Parish. You've likely heard of it on CNN and every other news organization around. It was one of the worst hit Parishes in Louisiana. (The other was the Lower 9th Ward.) Davis Park had the privilege of being asked to be one of two teams from Hilltop Relief and Rescue here in Slidell to go in and "beta test" a couple of sites to determine if this organization wants to duplicate its efforts in that Parish.
Our task was to clear out a party store. Balloons, Mardi Gras beads, party hats, everything imaginable for a party, and then some. I was told in the planning meeting that the store was 1200 square feet. No problem, I thought. The DP wreckers could do the job in half a day and go help team 2 with the other site, a 3000 plus square foot house that needed to be mucked out.
Well, unfortunately, the information given to me was wrong. WAY wrong. What was supposed to be a 1200 sq foot place ended up being a 12,000 square foot party warehouse!! Man, a factor of 10 is a big mistake...y'think?? The party store had a front entrance with a handicap ramp and the wheelbarrows had a hard time making the sharp turns. A couple of the guys took the sledghammer to the wrought iron gate and railing and pulled it out so we could make a ramp out of plywood for more of a straight shot out to the parking lot and curb. The owner's son, Frank Jackson, made another ramp and he used a large supply of party bells (thousands!) to prop up and support the back door ramp. How very Martha Stewart!
After our crew got settled in at the party store, I drove over to the Roberts' house about 1.5 miles away where team 2 was working. They had a Chevy half ton truck outside blocking the path to the yard for the debris. Our solution? Hook up the puny half ton to Darin Ruskamp's brawny 1 ton, put it in 4 Low and pull the beast out of the muck. Great times. Great times. Wish someone would've taken a picture of that. I'm pretty sure we're going to have to wash and decontaminate Darin's truck before we get it back to him!
Back to the party store. DP wreckers had a problem with the work site. It was as dark as a cave. Because it was in a warehouse style building, there weren't any windows, so there wasn't any light. The team worked for half the day in the dark until I was able to bring back two generators, our stash of 1000 watt halogen lights, and some fuel and about 200 feet of electrical cord. We lit that place up like a stadium. I was also able to recruit 8 more volunteers to the site, bringing the party store team total to 22 people. And we still didn't finish. We were only able to complete about 85-90% of the project. Frank calculated that it would have taken him and his brother 21 straight working days to do what we did in about 6 hours of hard work. What a blessing.
About St Bernard's Parish. It suffered badly in Katrina. Floodwater 20 plus feet, winds to 195 mph, flying debris, crashing buildings. Destruction like I've never seen. I drove around and most people in the Parish had not even come back to claim their belongings. Houses still boarded up, 6 inches to 3.5 feet of muck in the yards and driveways. The only people around were disaster relief workers or official services for the community (telephone, electricity, police, fire, and the like). If you weren't on official business, you weren't even allowed into the Parish; the Sheriff's Dept. checkpoint ensured this. To make matters more interesting, two military choppers flew overhead constantly, "keeping the peace", or something like that. I spoke with two men from the utility company that rode out the storm. These were hard Cajuns, tough as nails. His quote? "I ain't never seen nothin' like that, and I ain't nevuh want to see nothin' like that agin. I was sho' nuf scared! I was." He says he'll never ride out another storm. Somehow I believe him.
Who knows what tomorow will bring? Only God knows.
Gotta Sleep.
Glen
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Pics from Slidell
This is Party House in St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans. We mucked this 12,000 sq foot business.
This is Waldrens house when we finished - down to the studs, baby!
It's not just a rumor, Glen does sometimes, do work.
All Waldren's belongings were placed on the curb.
Here is our team with T.A., uncle of Waldren Joseph whose house we "mucked."
This picture shows the mold on the walls and the muck on the floors.
This is an example of how a house looks when it has been first opened (after Katrina). Most all contents are wet, smelly and looks like they have been picked up, spun around and dropped in a jumble.
Waldren Joseph
Couldn't post last night because of satellite internet problems...
Yesterday was an excellent day of hard, bust your tail kind of work. We were at the same site for the second day. 3 rooms left to clean out of debris and about half the house left on drywall removal. Our team made short order of the task. It was like a colony of ants, all working, carrying, hauling, loading, smashing. Fun times! Everyone's attitudes and spirits have been upbeat and encouraging. Any amount of hard work is made easier when the crew you are around is positive. And DP is definitely positive. Amen!
Waldren Joseph, the owner of the house, came by the house while we were working and what a blessing that was! I had the opportunity to interview him and his uncle, T.A., who lives next door. Waldren described his experience of boarding up his house and fleeing before Hurricane Katrina hit. Living on the road between Atlanta, Florida, and Louisiana, running from the storms and trying to place his children in safe places around the country with loved ones who would help provide care for them. His home has been his trusty Jeep Cherokee with a luggage carrier on the roof rack to store what little belongings he has left.
If I could describe to you his gratitude and his story, I would. But to hear him tell it was just phenomenal. He has been tired, worried, distraught. How am I going to clean out that house? How am I going to do it with all of those memories? It's going to take me "just about forever" to clean out my house. My mama is back in Florida worried sick and I don't want her to see all of this. It would just kill her. The week before Katrina hit he had gone out and purchased a couple of outdoor propane burners and big kettle pots to make up some gumbo, red beans and rice, and cornbread. He was preparing for a family gathering. To hear him tell it, "I was going to have me a real big picnic." What day was the party? The day Katrina came to town.
As he processed what was destroyed and what we were doing, and as each wheelbarrow and diesel truck bed full of his belongings went by him on the dusty driveway out to be dumped on the growing trash heap on the curb, I understood clearly and vividly that we were dumping his memories, his life as he knew it, his security, and his stability as well. "I'm trying to be strong, but sometimes I just can't take it." We encouraged him, hugged him, took pictures, made him laugh. Ministry happens in unusual places. Yesterday, it happened on a dusty road, on the Louisisana bayou, with a hurting soul.
Glen
Yesterday was an excellent day of hard, bust your tail kind of work. We were at the same site for the second day. 3 rooms left to clean out of debris and about half the house left on drywall removal. Our team made short order of the task. It was like a colony of ants, all working, carrying, hauling, loading, smashing. Fun times! Everyone's attitudes and spirits have been upbeat and encouraging. Any amount of hard work is made easier when the crew you are around is positive. And DP is definitely positive. Amen!
Waldren Joseph, the owner of the house, came by the house while we were working and what a blessing that was! I had the opportunity to interview him and his uncle, T.A., who lives next door. Waldren described his experience of boarding up his house and fleeing before Hurricane Katrina hit. Living on the road between Atlanta, Florida, and Louisiana, running from the storms and trying to place his children in safe places around the country with loved ones who would help provide care for them. His home has been his trusty Jeep Cherokee with a luggage carrier on the roof rack to store what little belongings he has left.
If I could describe to you his gratitude and his story, I would. But to hear him tell it was just phenomenal. He has been tired, worried, distraught. How am I going to clean out that house? How am I going to do it with all of those memories? It's going to take me "just about forever" to clean out my house. My mama is back in Florida worried sick and I don't want her to see all of this. It would just kill her. The week before Katrina hit he had gone out and purchased a couple of outdoor propane burners and big kettle pots to make up some gumbo, red beans and rice, and cornbread. He was preparing for a family gathering. To hear him tell it, "I was going to have me a real big picnic." What day was the party? The day Katrina came to town.
As he processed what was destroyed and what we were doing, and as each wheelbarrow and diesel truck bed full of his belongings went by him on the dusty driveway out to be dumped on the growing trash heap on the curb, I understood clearly and vividly that we were dumping his memories, his life as he knew it, his security, and his stability as well. "I'm trying to be strong, but sometimes I just can't take it." We encouraged him, hugged him, took pictures, made him laugh. Ministry happens in unusual places. Yesterday, it happened on a dusty road, on the Louisisana bayou, with a hurting soul.
Glen
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