Bucknell Katrina Recovery Team

First Impressions

Last night we flew into New Orleans. I was a little disappointed since we didn't get in till night time, so I didn't get to see the city in day light. After we landed we went straight to Camp Hope, settled in, and rested up for the next day. On the ride to the camp I was taken aback. We drove through the lower ninth ward to get to Saint Bernard’s Parish. The lower ninth ward was very unsettling. Block after block was abandoned, and only a few lights could be seen in houses here and there.

On Saturday we left New Orleans and Louisiana and headed over to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi where we visited Chris Legarde. Chris is an aid to one of the congressmen in Mississippi and one of the leaders in his community. He first introduced himself and then explained his experience and some history about his community. Bay St. Louis is situated right on the water, but it sits on top of a bluff. This was not enough to protect it from the storm surge that Katrina created. As we drove to his house, concrete slabs could be seen everywhere and steps leading to nothing. In all of these places houses once existed.

Today, Sunday, we went back to the French Quarter where we had the day off in preparation for our 4 day stretch of gutting houses. First we went to a museum next to the famous cathedral where there was a display of photographs taken of the damage after hurricane Katrina. The pictures were very moving and well done.

The past two days we have been back to gutting houses. Yesterday we started on a zero percent house. This means that nothing has been done to the house and its still how it was right after the hurricane hit. This was the first house like this that I have done. We walked in before starting to work to inspect and the sight was unbelievable. The water picks up all of the items in the house and then drops them randomly when the water diminishes. Everything was thrown about. To us it was all stuff, but to the owner it’s all of her possessions. The work was hard and it took all day to almost finish the house. We even stayed a hour late. At lunch we had the chance to talk to a few residents in the neighborhood. Our talk was very interesting. They said that almost their entire neighborhood was moving back in, unlike most. Also, there was a woman, her son, and her grandson that lived in the house we were working on and they had not been seen since the storm. The most surprising thing was that they were surprised we weren't getting paid and thought we were crazy to be down there.

Today we came back and finished the house in the morning. Quickly we moved on to our new house. We were supposed to work at a home but half the front wall was caved in and it was unsafe to work at, so we worked in a house down the street. The neighborhood was desolate, with gutted house after gutted house sitting there. Very few FEMA trailers were there, which means not many residents are moving back. The house we started work on was a two story house, and it was huge. The inside was a mess and we had to shovel out a mix of the owner's possessions and mud. This was the hardest work of the trip and by the end of the day we had only cleared half of the house. It’s frustrating that we can't do more, but we are all working as hard as we can.