Team 7 Monday Report

Everybody had a good full day today. Some joined the Dayton contingent demucking houses in Chalmette. They report it is still a ghost town. Street after Street of unattended houses that have been flooded up to the roof. They built “Kevin’s Mountain” (pic to follow) on the narrow front yard of the one they were clearing today next to the resident’s FEMA trailer. Named so because Kevin was in charge of carting wheelbarrows of soggy, moldy stuff out onto the pile. He built up high using improvised ramps (doors) to keep from overstepping the property.

We had a crew of 10 working for “Miss Ella” and her son Brian. She stayed with friends in Dallas for the Hurricane and couldn’t come home to Slidell till three weeks after the storm. She walked into her house and went immediately back out again under her carport crying. A marine put his hand on her shoulder and asked what she needed them to do. He gave her an hour or so to go through the house that had flooded 3ft deep to get what she wanted to keep and then his men stripped the place of everything under the 4ft drywall seam.
We got the pleasure of meeting her at Home Depot with a Penske to haul her drywall, insulation, base cabinets, and other supplies home to start rebuilding. Home Depot… you don’t want to have to go there… three trips…
Overall someone was there or en-route all day where it takes 2hrs minimum to get things like drywall and shingles. Hopefully by tomorrow, with help from our new friend Anthony Ongyod from Annapolis Maryland there will be drywall up and a first coat of mud on the walls (the good kind ;-)










I also wanted to share some pictures with you of Ella’s neighborhood. The initial piles of debris that were as tall as the houses have been removed there, though Brendan tells me that isn’t the case closer to the lake. Many people on her street have trailers plumbed into their house systems to live in while they rebuild and PODs sitting in the driveway for storage.

Tim from New Life, who’s always up early was at the back in the “kitchen” frying sausage for our breakfast for Karen, the full time cook. Since she just returned yesterday after a few weeks sick, she had a lot of reorganizing to do and Tim stayed with her the whole day helping to take care of that need. Tim’s the man!

The rest of the volunteers worked at the new warehouse today building the new volunteer accommodations into the end of the warehouse. They are enhancing the supporting structure of the dorm section and hoping to put up some drywall there this week. Two of the guys in the picture are Mike and Matt from Boston (really true accent these two!)

This effort really needs a couple of skilled guys to spend a week or two down here. There are three electrical panels to be built out and certified. Three zones of HVAC that need installed, and a lot of plumbing work to do in the kitchen and bath areas of the new relief center. Spread the word around to anyone you know and anyone they know that meeting this need is becoming a critical factor in the effectiveness that this great group of people here can put forth.

So I started this at lights out and was out to get a power cord 15 minutes later and I found evidence we have resolved that intolerance issue that created the snoring and non-snoring sections ;-) The entire crew must be asleep and happily sawing logs from the sound of it.

God bless you all for our support and Lord please bless those we are serving in your name. Amen.

John McGuire
Servants Unite!