|
LDS Disaster Relief Saturday morning we got our work orders and contacted several people and setout to begin. The biggest need in the area is to either gut the home, or remove trees and debris. Our first location was a house that needed gutting. That means take out everything that had gotten wet except the outside walls and framing. This first house had already had much of this done by two brothers who were the children of the homes owners. We helped them to finish up and were done somewhere around 1:00. The next home was just down the street. This one was being worked on by the son of the owners and his wife. He had grown up in this house. They and their sons were living in a trailer in the driveway, their own home also having been flooded. They had already mostly gutted the house, but there was a lot of tree debris in the back yard that needed to be removed. Some of us helped finish up the house while the rest cleaned up the back. It was heart wrenching to watch the wife go through the remains to try and find anything that was salvageable. There was one memorable moment while I was inside working that she came in and showed her husband a small wooden box with a baby spoon it and a note that identified the spoon as belonging to his grandfather. This was one of very few items that were found that were worth trying to preserve. At 4:00 we finished up and some of our crew still had some energy left and were wondering what else they could do. The neighbor had a different LDS crew that had been working there so I went to see if they could use some more help, it being too late to really try to start a new location. That crew had already left, but the home owners were glad to have any help they could get. This was another gutting job that we spent two hours at. At 5:00 the Red Cross food truck came by with dinners for everyone; homeowners, volunteers, and anyone else that needed it. Sunday morning we got up and went back to the same area. The first house was just tree removal from the backyard where two large trees and come down, and a third tree in the front that was smaller but leaning at 45 degrees. After finishing the trees we went to our final location where we worked for the first time on the home of a member. Again, we were gutting the home. The area we worked in was most damaged by the flood, though there were many trees that were down, the greatest need in that area was removal of water damaged walls. In some areas the mold was already over an inch thick, or had covered the entire interior surface of the walls. The insulation was completely wet and the sheetrock just fell apart when it was pulled out. This area was three miles from Lake Pontchartrain, pictures cannot fully convey the feeling of depression that one gets actually seeing what has happened to these people. There is no way to describe the ray of hope that is in their eyes when you introduce yourself and say "I have a crew of volunteers ready to help with whatever you need."
David Angell |
