Day 3 - 04.03.06

8404 Benjamin St.

OMG, everyone in our tent was up at 5:57am. I think all of you know how much I LOVE getting up early. Before I forget, here is a *forbidden* picture of our tent. (no photography allowed on campsite. I don't know.)



We met in our teams (GOLD #1!) at 7am (!) and boarded the busses for our worksite. Our team leader, Dan, informed us that we were going to be finishing up a house that was started last week. Typically teams get through 3-ish houses a week. Dan did a quick assessment of how long it would take us to finish the house: "about an hour". Yeah, RIGHT!


[everything is water damaged. All of the houses on this street were covered w/flood water. (L) Dan starting in on a bedroom; behind the archway was the bedroom which was untouched! (R) the closet in the bedroom; the clothes were still wet. You can imagine the smell.]

Around 10am, when we thought we were finishing up, someone looked up: "Is that an ATTIC?! full of STUFF?!" Goodness.

[(L) Sarah, myself, Susan in full PPE - Personal Protective Equipment. (R) Sarah in the attic.]

Around 2pm, I reminded everyone that it's GW's fault that we were breaking our backs down there. (he cut the funding for N.O.'s levees, so...). Pretty much everyone down here is Anti-W, so shouts of agreement echoed in the house. It was pretty ridiculous that things looked like this 7 months after the disaster...especially with hurricane season looming nearer and nearer...



A few hours later, drenched, drenched in sweat, we had stripped the entire place down to studs and nails. The project is to strip the houses so that the homeowners can rebuild. However, many of the houses have for sale signs (we're hoping they decide to stay after they see it was cleaned and rebuilding is possible), and no place in the Parish has yet been declared 'liveable'. And, as you can see above, the trash hasn't been removed yet. This is because...drumroll...FEMA cut the funding for the waste removal. Great. The Parish government is working on getting money flowing again. The Feds suck.


[(L) the 'after' shot of the closet!! (R) the 'after' shot of the bedroom!!!]

[(L) some valuables survived the flood! (R) Sarah and I in triumph at the workday's end.]

Tonight, we are going into the city for a couple of cocktails...I definitely need one, as I heard some not-so-good news re: something I will not post on *THIS* blog...