MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22 BLOG
Keith and Pete's Team
The home of Will and Velma
Off to Covington we go! Starbucks first! We are a combined team of two, working on the home of Velma and Will. They were hurt in a bad motorcycle accident two years ago that put them both in the hospital. While they were in the hospital someone broke in and stole all their supplies they were using to fix their home after Katrina.
When we arrived today they were right there to welcome us to their home. It is a very large home with lots of work to do. Today we put in a window, started working on a staircase, digging ditches to drain the water, mudding, sanding, hanging wallboard and putting up siding on the back.
Sweet Velma made us lunch; red beans and rice, chicken salad and garlic bread with her homemade garlic spread.
What a great day!
Ellis's Team
Louis Larche
Comments by Ron
Vini
Vici
Velcro
We came
We saw
We stuck around
It's frustrating to want badly to work when you don't have what you need to get the job done. But we stuck with the job anyway. We did everything we could to keep things moving forward.
Tore down the porch ceiling tiles and insulation. Could not find the leak. Wanting to properly frame the new roof we could be installing, we scraped the trim and painted the first coat. Had rice, beans, ham, bread pudding for lunch. Don, Colin and Chris left for 3 hours to tear up a floor.
George's Team
The first stop on the road to recovery would obviously be Starbucks. No one can possibly work for almost 10 hours without their fix of coffee. Joselyn Hall lives alone in a beat up old trailer down a hidden dirt road. She has two daughters and three granddaughters. Jocelyn is a charming older woman with the soul of any youth. She's quite a character.
When the storm hit 5 years ago she was with her daughter. Outside of the broken, drafty window they could see trees swaying as if God were pushing them himself. There was thankfully only about an inch of standing water.
Not so lucky were the people only four miles away where Lake Ponchartrain flooded enough to completely devastate the surrounding area.
Though clearly the storm was terrifying one could only imagine the fear that would come with lighting outside the door. I'm certain when lightening struck the tree outside her house and sparked a fire the fear would have taken over. Although, a blessing in disguise appeared in the form of rain. The fire that could have destroyed the Hall's home was put out by the rains that flooded others.
I would imagine that the worst fear of all would be the feeling of being completely trapped. With only one car that broke down 3 days before the storm, they weren't able to go anywhere. Not even to get food. Hungry tired and scared they met their good Samaritan from North Carolina, who got them some food.
Frank's Team
Dumas Road
James Garrett, the homeowner, arrived mid-afternoon with his father, Vernell, smiles as wide as the Mississippi River. "Y'all were makin' all this noise we had to come see!"
James told us the bayou is normally very quiet. He grew up here on Dumas Road with his family, including his grandmother who passed away last year at 104 years old. She had silver hair down to her knees and was spry until the very end. Indeed, we were making quite a bit of noise reframing interior walls, hanging sheetrock, nailing, taping, installing corner bead, and mudding. Like many other hurricane victims, James had moved to Atlanta for the two years following the hurricane. He and his family have been slowly "chipping away" at the damage to their families' homes along this quiet stretch of Dumas Road for the last several years.
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