Rebuilding New Orleans

I spent my spring break working in New Orleans. We spent one day gutting out a church, the next day gutting out a home and the next day walking the streets. The first day was very hard and overwhelming because the church was such a big task to overcome in just one day. Our group from Westgate Church of Christ worked with a group from Southern Hills Church of Christ so there were about 60 volunteers. It was dark, wet, stinky and incredibly mold infested. We tore out all the floors, sheet rock, furniture and tile. We had to carry it all out to the front and back of the church lot and throw it on the curbs so the city would come pick the junk up. The point of ripping all but the wooden posts, is to let the church dry out so they can come in with mold killing machines, and then eventually start to rebuild. After the day came to a tired end, we felt we had accomplished something great.

The second day, though not as physically exhausting, was for me, more emotionally strained. We gutted out a house. When we walked in the stench nearly kicked us out; we later found out it was from the fridge that had fallen open and had stunk it up. Remember that it has been a good 6 months since the waters resided. This day was more personal than the one before because there were family photos and keepsakes on the floors. The couch that once held a happy family had been torn and covered in black mold. The water line reached about 7 feet, so the walls, and everything on them were warped and spotted with green mold. The master bedroom suit was turned upside down, and the mom's shoes and clothes were all over the house. Of course when I first walked in I just had to look around and take it all in for a moment. I have to admit a few tears ran down through my mask when I picked up a frame with a streaked family photo in it. That was a hard day for me.

On the street-walking day, we went through some areas around the Carrolton Avenue Church of Christ inviting them to a cook out later that evening. I'd say there were only people living in 1 out of every 5 homes. I guess some could have been at work, but most are just living somewhere else with all of their water damaged belongings still inside their homes. We met several families who were living in their cars parked in front of their homes as they're slowly cleaning up and rebuilding their homes. Some have gotten hold of a little trailer and are living in that parked on their front lawn. We saw dead dogs on porches, and drunk people who'd lost their loved ones in the flood. However, there were some with hope. It was a sad day, but also a very revealing day because we got to spend it listening to each person's story. I found most are just desiring to be heard.

Here is the link to my full album with captions, but make sure you notice that there are two pages of New Orleans pictures. Just follow the blue next button on the bottom right.
I want to highlight two specific pictures on here.

This picture shows the water lines on the houses in this neighborhood. Most of the damage in the majority of New Orleans wasn't caused by the hurricane, but rather by the flooding due to the levees breaking. So there are blocks after blocks of abandoned mold infested homes. The number in the top of the X is the date the people came to check the house for bodies, the bottom number is how many they found, and the other letters are codes for the groups that went in.

Here is the 9th ward in view from a big bridge over a large canal. This area used to be one of the poorest on New Orleans. Most of the pictures in my album are from this area. It was completely demolished. Their only hope here is to just bull doze it and never build there again. It's too low and shouldn't of been built on in the first place in most people's opinions. You can see that there is only one house still there in this picture where there used be blocks of homes. The rest were demolished by the powerful rushing waters when the levee broke. The dark brown dirt is what they've recently added to keep the water in the canal. It used to be concrete slabs that were crumbled by the pressure from the rising water. You can see that they are working on that area where they're soon to be adding huge slabs of steal as barriers that will become the new levee. Let's just pray they finish before the new hurricane season begins.