Thanks to all of you for your thoughts.

Another week done and another group, this one from Atlantic NorthEast. A fun group but a lot like working with teenagers. They did work hard though and got a lot of work done with an eye for detail. Next week is a group from Middle Pennsylvania and I am supposed to be taking over almost everything except the cooking. It is getting harder to find time to do other things and I can see why weekends are important for the director because the weeks are so full. Doing the bookwork; maintaining the equipment, vehicles, trailers; keeping up with correspondence; keeping on top of all the projects and workers; assigning jobs; balancing the politics between the long term recovery groups, individuals, Parish officials, New Windsor, and Elgin; are made especially hard here because of the work we are trying to do to maintain a community while living somewhat apart in the FEMA trailers. Not as bad as it was before moving to our present location but still work. Things are coming together, though and a lot is getting done. Having five people here is great but it also means that I have four people to keep track of so that I know what they are doing and learn all the skills. Sometimes it is difficult to tell them to let go and let me do things that they are doing. It is also a very difficult task to run the whole show as one person. Teams would work out much better.

We had hoped to have our operation expended for thirty people or so by the end of the month but things work slowly down here and it looks like it will be March before the dorm trailer is done and moved down. I had hoped that Beacon Heights could send more people in four weeks and we would have the room but it does not look like it. We will, however be working here in this area since the Pearl River area is out of work. They picked up a couple houses nearby and are going to start on them next week. It is no farther to drive than many of the other places, about 25 - 30 miles, and it will be in an area that I know. We may have a time to get the two groups together. That would be fun.

John asked me if I would be available to supervise a special build next month that will eventually be our headquarters here. I am already booked up but it would be a great fit for me. I cannot wait until I free myself of all the trappings in Fort Wayne and can be available. There are others that can do it too so they will find someone and perhaps later on I will be available. This build will probably go on for many months. This work is such a fantastic fit for me I am surprised how much fun I am having as well as how much my knowledge base is working for me here.

Another story from Katrina:

We worked with a man who was one of the disaster workers during the storm. His job was to help with evacuation and as he watched Katrina form and the evacuation plan develop he noted that many of the elderly could not evacuate because they were not ambulatory enough to get to the pickup sites. He went to individual homes and took these people in his vehicle to the pickup sites. His own neighbors, in their upper eighties, decided not to evacuate. He told them where they needed to go in their attic if the water rose. When the water broke through the levy, his house was under water up to his waist on the second floor. He and his family survived by having the kids sleep in the attic, and his wife slept on top of the armoire in their bedroom. He swam over to his neighbor’s house roof and opened up the air vent that he had told them to be near. He said when he opened it up, two hands reached up and grabbed his ankles and all he heard was their screaming. He then realized that the opening, which was about 12 inches across was not big enough to get them out. He said he stepped back and the screaming only got louder. He said he prayed because he realized he needed a miracle to save them. The water was up past their neck and only their faces were above water. Just then, he said that a 2 X 4 floated by and he grabbed it and used it to pry the roof back on the house. Luckily the house had the old 1 X 3 slats instead of underlayment and the roof popped open so he could rescue them. He then swam them back to his roof.

They were eventually evacuated to the court house where they spent the night sleeping in the jail. A couple of sad footnotes are that the man died of a heart attack six months later. Also, this gentleman was infected during all this from the toxic water that covered this area for 14 days. He spent more than a week paralyzed from the neck down and is on disability even now. During the weeks after Katrina, a group of people came to his house and offered to tear out the old drywall and redo his house so he could get back in. He said he bought the drywall and they came in and started to put it up, although they put it up over outlets, switches, and did not do it well. He stopped them saying he would not pay them for such a poor job. They got mad and left, taking his drywall, tools and other things from his house. He is still fighting them in small claims court which are backed up because of all the claims. He says that that was when the St. Bernard Project came in to help him, he called them his Angels. We were there to repair his roof which was damaged by tornados that were spawned by Hurricane Rita. He lives about two blocks from the armory and he said when the tornados came he could see them hit the armory and throw Humvees in the air. His roof had also been put on by one of those unscrupulous contractors and when we went to fix it we found that the shingles had only two or three nails each in them instead of the 5 that are required in a high wind area. This is one of the problems with an area that is so trying to recover that there are no inspections other than for electrical.

There are so many people here that are working to recover and to get their lives back together but have run into roadblocks because of the slowness of government, people out to rip them off, or contractors who only want the money, not to help people. If you followed the link on the last email, you may have read some of the comments about volunteers taking work away from contractors who are trying to make a living. If you are a contractor and cannot find work down here, there is something wrong. They are begging for people to come down and help with the for profit work that is available. We are working for people that do not have the money to pay because they are on fixed incomes, underpaid jobs, disabled, or just plain poor. We are about trying to get peoples lives back together and get them back into their homes one family at a time. It takes a long time and a lot of work. With volunteers, it can take a month or two to finish a home. We are only a small cog in a bigger wheel but everyone is important. We hope that everyone has a chance to come and volunteer and see what this is all about.

Enough for now. I will try to get back mid week. It is supposed to warm up by then. I am sitting in a cold truck and writing. It is in the upper thirties with strong winds. For this far south it is cold. I have resisted bringing out my Midwest gear but it is almost that type of weather.

Yours in peace,

Steve

Thanks for your good thoughts.

Just a quick update. We are continuing to work on houses but also continue to find that a big reason that people are not back in their homes has to do with politics and control. There are people here who are organized and have a good track record but no one wants to give them control because they are afraid of loosing their job. They also don't want the process to go smoothly and easily because then it might seem like they are not needed. I believe that the money is there, the work is available, there are people willing to work, but everyone wants to do something for themselves rather than for the greater good. If this were another time in history when we could trust people's word and sign a deal on a handshake, then much more would have been accomplished and everything would be further along. No one trusts anyone in this whole mess. Granted, there are many people that are ripping off whomever they can but there are also lots of good people out there that are really trying to help and are running into brick walls. For instance, Red Cross has some 12 million dollars that it needs to spend but cannot seem to trust anyone else to get involved in the spending of it and does not have the organization to get it to the people that need it. The local people and the state people have funds and they cannot agree on where to spend it. Road Home money is sitting there but the bureaucracy is such that no one trusts anyone to have it. And FEMA wants to look good so is pouring money into New Orleans and ignoring the other areas (such as St. Bernard Parish) that are actually rebuilding. We were in the lower 9th ward a week or two ago and they are patching the sidewalks and the ADA corner ramps on streets where there is not a single house and the lots are grown up in weeds. All this is in addition to the problems with supply that plagues the whole rebuilding process. The people of New Orleans, however are not bitter and everyone I meet seems to be taking the attitude that we will do what we can and will eventually make it. They are all so friendly and always express their thanks that we have come down to help. Since we are in Carnival/Mardi Gras season, they also are in a mood to celebrate and have a good time. I think that one of the most telling items is what is important in the listing of each of the nearly 100 parades that go on at this time. It is not what it costs, because it is all free, It is not rules and regulations or warnings, it is a list of what the throws are, what the organizers of the parade are giving away to the spectators, that is important and everyone tries to outdo the other guys in giving things away. What a wonderful philosophy and competition. One of the churches that I have been going to down here is going en-mass to the parade on Sunday just to greet the other people and make new friends. The wild side of Mardi Gras is reserved for Bourbon Street and certain other areas, most of the celebrations are family rated and just a spirit of enjoyment and having fun before Lent.

I don't want to sound cynical or depressed about what is happening down here. There is a lot of good going on in spite of the politics. It just seems like so much more could be done if people in government and authority had an attitude of how can we help instead of being cynical themselves and fighting the process of helping.

Yours in Peace,

Steve

Only one more week (actually two until I leave) and we continue to hear more stories. Yesterday we heard from someone that was a Councilman at the time of Katrina. He said that this area flooded in about twenty minutes. Another person nearer the levy said today that it was ten to fifteen minutes at his house. The difference was that in between in a railroad that served as a secondary dike. It gave this area almost ten more minutes. Some were even warned by people who lived nearer the levy and phoned when the water was rising. Most people in the lower ninth ward near the levy that broke had water rise so fast that they had no chance to escape. Most of these were also poor and many could not swim. Finally the water went down and two weeks later Rita hit and gave them another eight feet of water. Talk about your double whammy.

The attached photo may give you some idea of what it was like for two weeks after Katrina. Let people know that it was not the Hurricane that caused the damage and why so much is to be done. It was a series of events that led to the breeching of the several dikes that hold back water, not from the Gulf or from the Mississippi but from the Canals that are important to the commerce of the area and to the economy of the country. I cannot imagine what it was like coming back after the storm to find that there was not a single business, school, center, doctor, hospital, store, restaurant, or even a car wash that was operating or even that could be brought up to speed without having to completely rebuild not only the inventory and the equipment but the very building itself.

One of the survivors told us today how eerie it was to look back toward New Orleans that first night and see no lights, hear no normal sounds. There were helicopters flying above and he could hear people firing guns into the air to let rescuers know that someone was stranded and alive. He, like many, suffered from Post Traumatic Stress from the events of the storm, the screams of the people waiting to be rescued, the bodies floating by, the total loss of everything you have. At the same time he said he has become more religious because the very fact that he is alive makes him grateful on a daily basis. After three days stranded on rooftops, just being a survivor was a moving experience. This was a very self-sufficient man that was used to doing everything for himself who found himself infected by the water and unable to physically do anything. This type of story seems to be told over and over again. Only because of volunteers from Americore, college students who take their vacations and volunteer, and Brethren Disaster Ministries is he able to fix up his house and move back in. It has been two and a half years but within another few months he should be back in.

More later.

Yours in Peace,

Steve