NOLA Day 2: Putting up the Foundation

After two days of construction work, filled with frustrations and success, we put a face to the service we are doing. The woman is a young native of Chalmette, Lousiana with two daughters and five dogs. During the storm of Katrina, she evacuated but her husband stayed behind to rescue the dogs and wait out the storm. In the end, he swam around the attic, saving the animals, punching out a hole in the roof, and rescuing nearby neighbors with a neighbor's boat. She comes by cheery, filled with hope for the future. Meeting this courageous woman helped all of us step back and reflect on our own fortunes. Personally, I cannot picture myself feeling lucky that I live in a relatively spacious trailer when I previously owned a two-bedroom home. However, even three and a half years later, such accommodations are almost luxurious when considering the fate of many. Only two doors next to this woman's house lives a man whose life is still far from recovery. Twenty years ago, when he bought his house, he put the deed under his mother's name without knowing the fate that lay ahead. Since his mother's house was also deemed uninhabitable, she did not have enough insurance to cover both houses. Thus, this man has received no form of aid to rebuild his home. Furthermore, to keep the local government from tearing it down due to abandonment, he has moved back onto the land in a very small trailer. Fifteen of our group have been struggling for three days to insulate and dry wall a house, but the thought of one man trying to accomplish all this and much more is truly astonishing. These are only two stories on one street of a large metropolis, but they are representative of many. New Orleans is a unique city where one block is lined with plantation-era mansions and the next holds mainly dilapidated houses, but despite these vast socio-economic discrepancies, they are all united by a disaster much bigger than themselves. The estimated time for a full recovery is 20 to 25 years, but if we continue to remember and support this community, perhaps we can shorten this road to rebuilding.