Day 5, continued

Jorgensen residence at 3908 Evangeline Dr.

The St. Bernard Recovery Project is partially coordinated by Americorps, and our Americorps team lead was Amata. She was wonderful and did a fabulous job managing 10 people older than her (she’s 21!). Since we had about 1.5 hours left in the day, she asked us if we’d like to check out another finish-up house; we said okay. It was just across the street. On our way over, she said “now, the last team refused this house…you have that option as well”. We all gave each other worried looks.


[Here’s why: the homeowner must have had tubs of grease in his garage/storage area that all exploded. Haz Mat situation!]

We decided we would clean every room in the house except the one with the grease. And, we decided to make it fun. We made a two-part ramp so we could run the wheelbarrow up to the top of the pile of debris. However, it was easier said than done…


[(L) best pic of the week: Sarah loses momentum after ramp #1. Notice the wheelbarrow on the far left, also falling over. (R) My aim sucks – (the wheelbarrow was lopsided!)]


[(L) Patrick eases onto ramp #2. (R) Sarah’s triumph!]

We didn’t get too far in that house before it was time to leave. During dinner, Sarah and I volunteered at a soup kitchen operated by a Baptist church which was just down the road from camp. The camp had been providing meals for residents for 7 months. It was incredible to talk with and meet some of the locals, most were homeless and/or living in FEMA trailers until they’re told what’s next. 7 months later. 7 months.

The nighttime consisted of a girls slumber party in the tent, lots of girls talk, deep conversation, and junk food. We were all POOPED and needed a night off from the action!


[will explain this pic if you’d like, just let me know].

Day 5 - 04.05.06

3917 Evangeline St., continued.

The action continued in the two-story house. We still had a lot of floorboard left to go. One interesting thing about this family is that they wanted the kitchen to stay. Although it was on the 2nd floor, it was pretty damaged. We didn’t get to know much more about this family, although when we called to verify about the floor, he just said over and over ‘God Bless You all, thank you. Thank you’.


[(L) Raelene tosses some debris out the window. (R) Floorboard, Insulation, and Sheet Rock, Oh My!]


[(L) Sarah pulls down the sheet rock. (C) Sarah chucks the sheet rock. (R) The aftermath.]

Just after lunch, we finished the house. It’s such a great feeling to know that because of our hard work, they’ll be able to visualize rebuilding their houses and lives.


[(L) Oops, we forgot the pool…filled with Katrina leftovers. (R) Me with one foot on the 2ND FLOOR balcony and the other on the story-high pile of debris!!]

I must interlude here with some hilarious things that happened/ were said. Because truthfully, we’ve been keeping our spirits really high. We had to – being surrounded by this devastation all day can really get to you.

1. I made up a cheer for our team, which was Gold #1. We renamed it ‘The Solid Gold Muckers’ and here is our cheer:

We’re Solid Gold (clap clap)
We don’t like mold (clap clap)
Or leaving people (clap clap)
Out in the cold! (clap clap)

We don’t like FEMA (clap clap)
We can't stand Bush (clap clap)
We’re here to give (clap clap)
That extra push!! (cheer)

2. Donal, who grew up on a farm and is a macho kind of guy, is weirdly a vegetarian. He unknowingly grabbed the wrong lunch out of the cooler, and thought he got gypped and angrily threw the turkey from his turkey sandwich on a pile of debris. The lunch ended up being his girlfriend’s (also in our group, also weird)! Dan, our team leader, offered her his sandwich, and she didn’t even thank him. Everyone else felt awkward.

3. Teri cannot get people’s names right. So she kept calling Patrick, our ‘tool guy’, “Peter”. Eventually, we all ended up calling him Peter.

4. Extending on our ‘musical’, we made up dance moves for the choreographed dance. They were all inspired by our tools and our movements while mucking…we had the wheelbarrow, the chisel, the hammer, and the shovel.