Hammers and Shovels and Nails, Oh My!

Tuesday morning the WV Rhino team showed up at the designated site, 9320 Olive Street, promptly at 7:45 a.m.   We saw the beginning of some foundation work.

After some discussion 5 stayed at this site--Allison, Brenda, Mark, Dan, Marcus and Doug. Their tasks the rest of the day including digging, removing the wood frames that held the concrete until it had hardened and pulling nails out of boards.  The digging out of the wood was an almost impossible task until Mark and Doug ran to Loews and came back with a Spud Bar.  For a more technical explanation you will have to talk to those who were there.  Maybe some pictures will help.

Mark Miller attempts using the power of his mind to bend the shovel back to its original shape.

The rest of us moved a few blocks down the street to 8800 Olive Street.  We joined a group from Stevenson College, near Baltimore.  As you can see the basic framework had been completed so most of the day was spent putting up the sheathing.  Have you ever heard the sound of 50 hammers, hammering?  Quite overwhelming at times with hammerers inside, outside, on the ground and up on ladders.  

Bob and Jim Carrano with help from Cam and whomever happened by spent the day measuring and cutting and measuring and cutting again to get the sheathing ready for the front and back trusses.

Tired and sore, the weary home builders were fed by the wonderful people of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church. The evening's menu: New Orleans style red beans and rice with sausage, served with salad and fruit, with peach cobbler and ice cream for dessert.

Wasn't Katrina 5 years ago?

Yes. Katrina happened the end of August in 2005.  New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have still not completely recovered.  We see flood, mudslides, fires, earthquakes every year, sometimes very close to home.  People and communities pull together and life it seems goes on.
Katrina was not just any storm.  It was the costliest natural disaster in our nation's history, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes.  Then the failure of the levee system and the failure of government at all levels to respond magnified the disaster.

We saw today a neighborhood that was flooded to about 6 feet of water.  Our Rhino group was a part of two new builds in the neighborhood.  Walking around we saw new homes, brightly painted with well kept lawns and Mardi Gras decorations still up.  We also saw homes in the process of being rebuilt.  The saddest were the homes that still bore the signs of the flood.  Clear water lines on the outside, rusted fencing, and plants growing from the inside out.  We saw the spray paint designations left by National Guard units as they combed the neighborhoods after Katrina.  And we saw city workers surveying a lot and marking it for destruction.

So the city has not recovered, signs of hope are mixed with signs of the past pain. I am reminded of the  crocus at home that often comes up through the snow, proclaiming against the evidence that spring is on the way.
If you want to learn more about New Orleans and Katrina here are some suggestions:

PBS created a website companion to its NOVA feature "Storm that Drowned a City"--http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/

Dave Eggars novel, ZEITOUN, is based on the real life Katrina experience of one family.

One Dead In Attic, by Chris Rose is a collection of the columns the author wrote for the New Orleans Times-Picayune in the year after Katrina. He captures the despair as well as the lunacy of the days immediately following Katrina, and the impossibilty for many of ever returning to normal.

For a history of New Orleans, I recommend The World that Made New Orleans:  From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, by Ned Sublette.