The previous day’s rain had made the headline of the local papers.
Despite the expected continued storm, the weather was on our side. While it threatened all day long, it did not rain. We were able to get our third house of the week clean enough to be ready for the power wash crew to take over next week. Without the Nashvillians our numbers were much diminished. However we did have four new hands on deck. Steve Lear (one of the founders of Nechama) and three of his kids joined us. This was the kids’ first deployment. The trash pile that had been waist high yesterday we increased to shoulder height.
“Our” house had what seemed to be a kumquat tree in the backyard.
I couldn’t get close enough to check because of the water that had accumulated from the previous day’s rain. (What is it like to have a swamp develop in your backyard on a moment’s notice?)
We’ve learned some of the codes that we see on far too many houses wherever we’ve been. The number above refers to the date the house was checked (in this case September 15 (though it’s not clear what year… I’ll presume (and hope) 2005)). To the left is the team that did the check and to the right are any biological or chemical hazards. On the bottom is the number of bodies found.
Some owners have expressed different messages on their homes.
We’ve seen similar signage everywhere we’ve been, but this is the largest collection I’ve encountered:
And this is the largest sign (it gives an indication of what our efforts are worth… though we’ve seen it as inexpensive as 85¢/sq. ft. also):
Every day, as we drove back “home” to camp I enjoyed seeing these pylons in Lake Pontchartrain.
After a quick cleanup back at camp, Seth Gardner
the always cheerful and indefatigable coordinator of volunteer services of Nehama returned us to the New Orleans airport to catch our flight to Houston.
We were here barely a work-week.
We cleaned three houses.
Our efforts were deeply appreciated by those we helped, yet
this is barely the beginning of what needs to be done to restore these houses to livable condition,
and, we drove by hundreds, if not thousands, of homes that don’t even seem to be on anyone’s list.
Please do not forget the people of New Orleans (the population of which is still (as of this writing) no more than 41% of its pre-hurricane number) and all those who suffered from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Support the efforts of Nechama and other organizations that work to alleviate their suffering.
Over 13 weeks in the summer, we worked on 26 homes (that's 1 home every 3 days — we only had one team working, as opposed to the 3 we had this past week). In our initial trips to Mississippi last year, we worked on over 100 homes. The reason for the disconnect is that gutting homes always takes at least a day, usually more than that. In Mississippi we were cutting up trees, and could to several houses a day.