Day Ten: Saturday, January 14
As a general report on our sleeping habits, we have adjusted pretty well to each other's snoring. Things fall into quite a symphony when we are all asleep, and there are only a couple of people who really rip loud snorts into the night. We are cooking up plans for a great invention for one of them: a sound-activated rotisserie that will rotate him 1/4 turn whenever he passes a certain decibel level. He is a quiet little angel once he has turned; we want to make it so he can turn without any of us having to leave our pillows.
But back to our activity journal: our 42 degree morning gave way to a beautiful day. We headed back to the Ninth Ward, where we joined Sarah Mercadel at her house on Bartholomew St., just around the corner from Rosie's house. Sarah had approached us last weekend, saying that she didn't know what to do about her house. She had gotten it started, but she had a few things that she really wanted to save. She wanted to know what agency we worked for, and how she could get on our list. When we told her that we would come on Saturday the 14th, she cried and cried. She had driven down last weekend from Birmingham to try to figure out what to do, and as far as she is concerned, it was a miracle that the answer to her needs was standing right on the street in front of her house. She drove down from Birmingham again to meet us today.
She still had all her large appliances, including an upright freezer that had toppled forward onto its doors. As we all have learned, the most urgent need of all is to keep the refrigerators tightly closed, because the smell is so disgusting (not to mention the bacteria and the maggots) that it makes you fear that you will throw up into your filter mask. This one was going to be nearly impossible. Our team, however, figured out a way to hold the whole thing together as they taped it closed. They were thrilled. Then they tipped it up. And the dreaded "fridge tea" started running out the back. Ugh. We all groaned and ran out the door, and decided to focus on the broken down car that Sarah hoped we would remove from her garage.
We got the keys from the car, and gathered around. It was clear that there was water in the car, but it was unclear how much. We debated for quite awhile whether to make any attempt to open the car at all, because we assumed that car tea would be just as nasty as fridge tea. We decided that the whole job would be easier if we could get the car into neutral and roll it out. So we tried to use the key to get in through the doors and even through the trunk. No luck, as the locks were completely uncooperative. When we realized that they would never work, we took advantage of a 25-pound weight on the garage floor and made a move that runs completely counter to our primary goals: we smashed out a window. We discussed it before we took action; the conversation sounded something like this: "Should we smash the window?" "I don't know; we don't want to be the ones destroying things." "But this car is already ruined; what difference does it make?" "It is sort of intact, though, even if it's ruined." "But Sarah wants us to move it; how else can we move it?" "Can we drag it with the truck?" "It would be easier to push it if we can get it out of park." "But then we have to smash the window..." "Okay, smash it."
We smashed it, and found that we couldn't get in through the door, couldn't get the key in the ignition, and couldn't get the car out of park. Justin got the truck, tied the car to it, and dragged the car out to the street. Sarah was overjoyed (she didn't seem to notice or mind the smashed window), as she hoped that we would then be able to find a purse that she kept in her trunk, and the title to the car that she hoped was in her glovebox. She needed the title to prove to FEMA that she owns the car. We didn't find it, but we found a document from the Department of Motor Vehicles that might serve the purpose. (By the way, one of the oddest sights to be seen in New Orleans is the number of new cars that are on the road. We marveled over this at first, then realized that this is not such a shocking state of affairs after all, just unfamiliar.)
Speaking of FEMA, Sarah was especially interested in having us contact the debris removal company reps that we met last week. She feared that the debris would sit in front of her house for too long, and that FEMA would withhold her trailer because of it. We will call our contacts tomorrow, and have them go remove her debris. The way Sarah talks, the arrival of the FEMA trailer will be the moment when her new life can begin. She expressed no clear plans about how to address the reconstruction of her home, but only told us that she had heard that private contractors charge between $2500 and $3000 to gut homes, and that she didn't have that amount of money to spend on this job (we later heard that the cost might actually be as high as $8000-10,000; we can't imagine how any of these families could produce sums of money like that).
Before we left Sarah's neighborhood, a few of us walked over to the house from which our friend Rosie (from last weekend) was rescued. She had told us about the ordeal of assisting her disabled roommate, Janice, up the 23 stairs on the outside of the house that led to the attic apartment in which they waited for help. We visited the steps, and tried to imagine the urgency that Rosie must have felt as the winds were blowing, the water was rising, and Janice was declaring that she just couldn't make it. We couldn't wrap our heads around it, no matter how hard we tried.
We broke for lunch and headed for our beloved Hippie Camp. Our next host met us there, and led us to what seemed like a very remote rural area. Actually, though, we were still in New Orleans, in a section called Old Gentilly that borders on the somewhat affluent area called East New Orleans. Alca (pronounced "al-SAY") Schexnider and his wife Bernice had connected with us through another one of Rosie's neighbors, Alca's sister-in-law Charlene. The house that needed help was Alca's childhood home, one that his family had built board by board. His father was in construction, so he just recruited his family members as his work crew and asked them to tote boards across the swampy area to help him build a raised platform on which to place their house. Alca could recall stories about every piece of molding and every piece of trim in the place, even though all of it was now ruined.
The house was an unfortunate "shovel job," as everything was tossed far from where it belonged, and the floors were virtually unpassable. We set up a ramp on the front steps, and just started loading wheelbarrows. Once we uncovered the floors, we found that they were buckled into peaks as high as eight inches from level. That is, the entire front room had a floor like an accordion. Alca and Bernice stayed outside, and we circulated all around them, stripping everything but the floorboards (as we were not sure that there was something structurally sound underneath them). Though the house had seemed like an impossible mess, we were able to conquer it quickly, bringing a great deal of relief to the family. We expressed our sorrow that this was the extent of the relief that we could provide to them. They tried to pay us, and we refused. They tried again, and we refused. They tried again, and we refused. In the end, we won the argument.
We intended to gut a third house today, but we failed to reach the displaced homeowner. Thus, on Sunday, we expect to do five houses so that we can fit in all of the people that we have agreed to help. Our first house on Sunday: Donald's, in the lower Ninth Ward.
David found this pink flamingo and decided that it needed to be on display. When we finished Sarah's house, we placed the flamingo at the top of the pile like it was a star on a Christmas tree.
Vanessa puts her hard hat on as she observes and anticipates the work ahead.
Where we saw our first live rat. Jorge hunted the rat with great enthusiasm, but didn't find it again.
Today we spent the first part of the day at Sarah's house off of N. Claiborne, right around the corner from Miss Rosie's three houses. Here are the 23 steps that Miss Rosie climbed with her roommate Janice to get away from the rising water.
Sarah and Shawny.
We made our return to the Hippie Camp, which is technically called the "Made with Love Cafe." This camp is truly filled with smiles and happiness, and continually saves us from lunches of cheese, crackers, and MREs.
The relief station provided a fried chicken lunch. We are very thankful for these people's generosity and excellent location near the Ninth Ward.
Shane, Feke and Justin load into the back of the truck as we prepare to leave the Hippie Camp.
At Alca and Bernice's place, this image emerged spontaneously. The area there is very wet and swampy (their entire road was lined with water-filled ditches), so we had to find a way to suspend our things off the ground. We love the way this image combines different parts of what we are doing in NOLA.
Alca and Bernice offer their autographs on Shawny's hard hat.
Shawny poses with Alca and Bernice. They are glowing with gratitude and appreciation. Most students got autographs on their hard hats.
Despite our initial trepidation about the daunting task of clearing Alca's family home, our team successfully stripped it down to the floor boards in less than ninety minutes. Even though the task was arduous and there were some awful sights and smells (including that first glimpse of a live rat!), we were dancing and laughing in the street at the end of the job. Bernice was snapping pictures and laughing right along.
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