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New Orleans, Louisiana
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New Orleans, Louisiana
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I took a red-eye flight from San Francisco passing through Houston and arrived in New Orleans at 10:00 AM, Sunday, May 7th. After renting a car, I drove out to Chalmette where I checked in at FEMA Camp Premier. This is a tent city built by FEMA which houses up to 2000 volunteers from numerous charitable organizations involved with clearing debris from the 27,000 homes in St. Bernard's Parish destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last August. As a federal facility, there is a high degree of security and strict rules as to what you can and can not do here at the camp. The camp is impressive. One 3-ring circus size tent houses the dining facility at one end and a couple dozen sleeping tents, each with 16 cots, at the other end. The tent within a tent concept provides additional protection from the rain which was coming down in buckets as I went through the registration process. Dozens of additional 16-cot tents surround the large tent. There is considerable controversy about the camp and the alleged $20 million FEMA paid to two competing companies to set up and manage the camp. FEMA is anxious to close the place, but faces considerable ridicule when they do. After getting my ID badge and taking a group tour, I helped myself to some lunch before a 90-minute orientation given for the 100 or so volunteers who arrived today. Although a large percentage of volunteers are with Habitat for Humanity, there are numerous other groups here including Samaritan’s Purse and several college groups. Organization of the various groups is provided by Americorps. The orientation covered numerous subjects, the most memorable being the discussion of four types of poisonous snakes and two types of poisonous spiders which we will want to avoid at all costs. Most of the parish was covered with 12 feet of water for over a month, so the muck which has permeated the contents is a great breeding ground for nasty creatures. We received instruction as to how to best kill a snake with a shovel but were also urged not to kill the non-poisonous snakes as they are helpful in killing rats. We were also warned to expect to find remains of pets in the houses, but all places where we would be working have been checked by cadaver dogs and it was highly unlikely we would discover remains of the some 90 people still unaccounted for in these neighborhoods. St. Bernard's Parish is about 30 miles long, but only 2 miles wide. It is located next to the Ninth Ward of New Orleans Parish which was also heavily hit by the storms. Working in teams of 10 volunteers, our job will be to remove all furnishings, carpet, appliances, sheetrock, insulation and personal effects from the houses. Items which may hold some value to the homeowner we will set aside. After a house is gutted, if a house can be saved, and is at least 3 feet above sea level, it may be rebuilt. Otherwise, it must be raised at least 4 feet or demolished. We need to wear protective goggles, gloves, respirator masks, steel toe/shank shoes and helmets. It is hot and humid here and I dread how I will feel with all that protective gear. We had dinner in the mess hall and then met to organize our work teams. Our group leader is Paul who has been here for three weeks. Aside from myself, there is Larry from Pennsylvania, Jennifer from Chicago, Krystal from Los Angeles, Tim, Karen and Stephen from Oregon and Carol from Washington. Larry and I are assigned to making sure our cooler has 60 bottles of water each day. Monday morning I was up early after a poor night's sleep on my cot. After breakfast our group boarded a bus with three other groups and headed off for our first day's work at 7:30 AM. We drove about three miles through neighborhoods that have debris piled 10 feet high. Surprisingly, 9 months after the hurricane, there are only a handful of businesses open in the whole parish. No restaurants, grocery stores or bars. There are lots of FEMA trailers, some in large groups set up in parks or Wal-Mart parking lots and others set up in front of individual homes, but we did not see many people. The parish is a ghost town. We arrived at our destination and each of the four teams was assigned to one house. The house our team, Black 5, will be clearing is 19 Queen Circle. This
neighborhood was built about 25 years ago and was a prestigious place to
live. Although close together, the houses are huge - I would estimate our
house is 3,500 sq ft - 2 stories. The first thing you see as you break down
the front door is insulation covering sheetrock covering furniture.
The
work was very dirty and with the humidity, we welcomed every hourly water
break. We saw no snakes, but Jennifer and Krystal saw the tail of a rat in
the kitchen.
Tuesday morning after breakfast I collected the water and added some soft
drinks I had bought. We loaded the cooler onto the bus and rode 10 minutes
back to our house on Queen Circle to start a second day of debris removal.
I
finished moving the appliances out in the morning and then went to work on a
couple of the rooms we had not touched yet. Although the hurricane and
flooding took place last year, there are still containers which hold swampy
water which can fall down from closet shelves, usually when you are standing
directly beneath. I cannot remember ever getting so dirty. The bus picked us up at 2:00 PM again today and I learned that we typically work a 6-hour day. I also learned that FEMA charges the local government for the services it provides, but that the local government can get a $15/hour credit for work done by volunteers off their FEMA bill. Tuesday night, Larry and I took Paul to dinner in exchange for a tour of the Ninth Ward. Paul has been working for three weeks now and this is his first week as a team leader. He has an interesting lifestyle, traveling the country in his van, while offering his cooking and maintenance skills to Yoga and Meditation Centers. Most recently he worked at Woodacre in Marin County, California. The Ninth Ward is the section of New Orleans which was hit hardest by the flooding. The water did not get as high here as it did where we are working in Chalmette, but the houses are more tightly packed and many more people in each block were affected. We came across a large school yard where new houses are beginning to be built. This turned out to be a Habitat for Humanity project where 106 homes are being built. The new houses are built on four foot foundations, a new building code in this area to avoid future flooding. We continued on to the French Quarter where we walked around a bit and then had dinner at The Gumbo Shoppe. Most restaurants and businesses in the French Quarter are closed or operating on a limited basis. We inquired about rates at a Holiday Inn and found that a room which probably normally rents for $200 is now available for $79. We will probably move here this weekend after we finish working. We were pretty tired so decided to head back to Camp Premier and call it a night.
Wednesday we continued clearing out the house at 19 Queen Circle.
At quitting time, it was unclear if we would finish this house by Friday. We had been planning to skip the garage, but I knew that if we didn’t do it now, the owner might have to pay to have it done in the future so I beat the garage door off with a sledge hammer, revealing five feet of junk which perhaps I can work on tomorrow.
Thursday we were able to finish most of the first floor.
One of
the homeowners in the neighborhood invited all the volunteers who were
working in the area down to his house for a barbecue after work today. His
house was gutted a month ago and he is in the process of rebuilding. Judge
Jacques Sanborn cooked for about 50 people and entertained us with stories
of the hurricane which he rode out with his son in the courthouse.
After
an hour we left the barbecue and returned to camp for dinner. St. Bernard’s
Parish started bulldozing the first of 3500 homes which have been slated for
demolition today and I wanted to drive through some of those neighborhoods
which were up near where a levy broke.
Thursday was Karen, Stephen and Tim’s last day and Larry had
given them a ride down to the French Quarter where they will spend their
last night before flying home on Friday. This will leave us a little
short-handed, but I think we should be able to complete work on our house if
we can put in a full day Friday. On Friday morning, Larry and I decided to drive out to the site an hour early and start clearing out the garage. We found another piano under the rubble and were able to remove five feet of debris before the rest of our team arrived at 8:00 AM. Then we moved back up to the second floor where we continued removing the sheetrock. It is so unusual to see anyone in the neighborhood that when I saw someone walking through the house across the street, I thought it might be the owner so I went over to talk to him. Gerry had lived in the house for 30 years and retired 2 years ago. He spent the first full year of his retirement renovating his home and buying all new furnishings. His insurance settlement was $125,000 for the contents of his house and $19,000 for flood damage – about $200,000 short of the actual damages. Now he has gone back to work so he can get a mortgage to rebuild or buy a new place. We talked with him for half an hour and he was very appreciative of the help the volunteers were providing. He knew the woman who owns the house we are gutting and said she is older and had rented rooms to college students after her husband died. By
2:30 PM we had finished 99% of the house. Another team will probably come
in next week and deal with the sheetrock in the pool room. Before leaving
we signed our names to the house with the dates we had worked. Back at Camp Premier, I showered quickly, packed my belongings and drove with Larry to the French Quarter where we checked into The Holiday Inn where we could sleep in real beds instead of the cots provided by FEMA. This weekend is Tulane University’s graduation and both former Presidents Bush and Clinton are in town for the ceremony. On Sunday I turned in my rental car and flew to New York where I plan to spend a couple weeks hiking on the Appalachian Trail. My stay in New Orleans was very satisfying and I am planning on returning here in the near future to continue with the restoration effort. |
By the end of April I was feeling antsy and decided to head down to the Gulf
Coast to spend another week with Habitat for Humanity. Instead of the
construction work I had helped with in Beaumont, Texas last month, this time
I went to New Orleans where I would be helping to clear debris from houses
in St. Bernard's Parish.
This is the 10 foot ceiling which fell after soaking in water for a month.
The furniture floated around inside the house for a couple weeks before
becoming waterlogged and is jumbled is all positions. Beneath the furniture
is anything else which may have floated or crawled into the house during the
last nine months. It appears that no one has been in this house at all as I
must crawl over 5 feet of debris to break out windows to get air into the
place. Upstairs, the water line is about 2 feet up the wall, but it was
enough to ruin everything. After breaking out the windows, we started the
long process of clearing debris.
The house has two kitchens, each with a large
refrigerator, and three pianos, one of which is a grand piano.
We ate lunch at noon and then continued working until about 
The pile of trash is six feet high now and runs the length of
the property. 
Paul wants us to stack it even higher, but twice
today I fell off the top of the heap while running wheelbarrows up the ramps
so I think I will stick to the lower levels. We found a coin collection and
a fur coat amongst the rubble today. It is hard to believe that the owners
have not returned to claim some of the stuff which is clearly salvageable,
but they have not. Anything which we think may have personal value we are
setting aside in a pile which we will return to the house when we are
through, but we are afraid that looters will come by before the owners.
At about 10:00 AM, a big front end loader and a smaller bobcat
arrived and began to load our pile of trash into dump trucks. It took three
trucks to cart away the stuff we had thrown out so far and we still had a
long way to go. But with our pile gone, it was much safer to start a new
pile, than run up ramps on the old pile.
I
ripped the carpeting up from the second floor and Larry and I were able to
start on the sheetrock. We decided to remove only the lower four feet as
the damage does not extend beyond that point. From a second floor window I
noticed that there was a 2-foot fish which had been caught in the chain-link
fence out behind the house.
The Judge told us that he knew five of his neighbors who were
definitely planning to return, but much will hinge on the elevation of
individual slabs. This neighborhood is 0-2 feet above sea level and the law
now requires 4 feet. Some houses will have to be raised up if the owners
want to get flood insurance. The Judge’s brother owns the house next to the
one we are gutting and has a grand piano upside down in the living room. As
the water rose, he put plastic bags around the legs of the piano, but when
the water continued to rise, the piano was lifted up and flipped over. His
brother’s house will be torn down.
In a
couple places the road was blocked by houses which had been lifted up on
their slabs by the water and washed down the street several blocks in tact.
In another neighborhood, a 65-foot shrimp boat blocks the road.
