We divided the 14 of us among 3 groups. 3 stayed back at camp do work and fix meals. Six of us went to a site that escapes me at the moment. I along with 4 other people traveled to a house in Violet, Louisiana which is about 15 miles outside of the Big Easy.
The drive took 1 hour and 10 minutes and we drove straight over Lake Ponchartrain and looked at the damage in Louisiana. I'm going to take a quick shift here. There are a few differences between the situations in Louisiana and Mississippi. A lot of the Mississippi coast was obliterated. The houses and buildings just aren't there. The Waveland City Hall is now 4 trailers. In southeast Louisiana, you can still see a lot of remnants of damage. I saw several cars and boats floating in the gulf nine months after the fact!
But back to the house. Another group had been working on it for 2 weeks and their goal was to have it finished by Wednesday morning, because they were scheduled to return to Atlanta that afternoon. They experienced a number of setbacks along the way. For example they did as much work as they could do without electric and waited two full days for the electric guys to show up and inspect. So they needed a boost in morale.
And according to them, that's exactly what we were. We were the answer to their prayer. All I was thinking about was going to a house working hard so a family could live in it. You know, helping those who needed help. I didn't think that might possibly include fellow workers.
For the most part, I painted a couple of bedrooms, which I have a lot of experience with. I also loaded and unloaded some mulch, assembled an outdoor bench, and worked with some sheet rock. Ah the sheet rock. Time for a story. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I worked on this with Jill. We were in this tiny room that's being used for laundry. There's room for a washer, dryer, and about 4 people. In other words, it's small. So Jill was applying the mud to the top corner of this room. I basically came in and held the pail for her. So she decided to take a break and she asked me if I wanted to scrape the mud. I said okay and she left. So I climbed the stepladder and started scraping the gray, wet mixture on this bare white wall. Now there were some bare wires hanging from the ceiling right by me that were going to be used for lights. All of a sudden I hear two loud pops right behind my head. It was like being in a microwave oven and hearing popcorn popping. I spun around and saw two spits of yellow fireworks shoot out of the wires. I jumped three steps down off the ladder and ran towards the door. I was almost out of the room when another succession of loud pops went off. More fireworks shot out. Not knowing what in God's name was going on, I screamed and ran out of the room. It turns out some electricians were in the backyard working on the circuit breakers. Well evidently, they started working because I nearly got shocked. From what I heard, that was a light switch that carried 220 volts.
Now I wondered what this would have done to me so I did some research. Here's what I found. "A 44-year-old male plumber/construction worker (victim) died when a lag-bolt he was screwing into a wooden house foundation made contact with one side of an indoor 220V clothes dryer line (110VAC) and he was electrocuted." I don't know what that would have done to me. There was no water involved, which helped the situation. But since it was a sudden burst of energy, I don't know if it would have been quite enough to kill me. But I'm alive. My team later joked about it with me since I'm the guy who almost got cooked. It was funny, but kind of not funny at the same time, you know?Anyway, we all had lunch together. They brought out some burgers which we were really good. I also tried Tropicana orangeade for the first time and really liked it. Contains 3 percent juice. Actually it was cold and that was all I really cared about with the 96 degree heat. Remember I talked about Alison not being used to an outgoing spiritual event? Well, one of their pastors, in her words, "busted out a guitar" and we sang a few songs and prayed. It was a good way to re-focus and keep us going hard in the afternoon.
I worked so hard and aggressively that by 4:30 or 5, sweat was filling my eyes. My white t-shirt was covered in caulk, paint, mud, sweat, and mulch. And there was zero air conditioning.
We finished a little after 5 and decided to drive to New Orleans and I got to take the wheel. So I'm driving a 10 or 12 seat van in a state I'd never been in before during rush hour! It was a little challenging getting a feel for the van and traffic patterns, I actually passed four traffic lights in a row that did not work. And there was no rush hour traffic to talk about. Most of the streets I drove on in New Orleans, I had no cars following me. I nearly had to parallel park, which I did not want to do. Luckily, I found two open spots next to each other on Royal Street.
We drove through the French Quarter and strolled down Bourbon Street. And all five of us: Jill, Evan, Mary, Alison, and me, stunk. Our plan was to look around town, grab some dinner, and go. We found this place called Verti Mart that some locals recommended. It's a tiny city-style grocery store. Think a quarter the size of a 7-11 with a deli counter in the back. And they serve po' boys too! We thought for five people, food would take 10-15 minutes or so. It took 35 or 40 and we were not pleased. And we had to stand on our feet trying not to fall over. But I did get too see a copy of the New York Times. I opened up to the sports section and saw the headline "Mets can do no wrong as they finish sweep of Diamondbacks 15-2." I was very quiet about it. Bull! I went nuts!
Oh, I'm sorry, back to the food. I got a combo of fried shrimp and oysters dressed, which means with lettuce, tomato, and pickle. Actually, that usually includes mayo as well. Even though I specifically asked for no mayo, the idiot behind the counter put it on anyway. But I was the last one to get my food and I couldn't wait. So I got some extra napkins and took off. The owner was nice enough to take a dollar off. The sandwich was nothing short of amazing, even the bread was excellent. And I drank a bottle of cherry Coke, which I had not had in 7 or 8 years.
As for the city itself, not much has re-opened. It's very quiet and not much traffic even at 6 or 7 p.m. I saw a couple of buildings that were standing, but visibly leaning to one side like the Tower of Pisa. This will be a lengthy recovery for this city and the surrounding neighborhoods.
And one more story. We drove back east towards Kiln, and we could see flashes of lighning. I'm talking the kind that's bright white and looks like a running electrical current. I just said "thunderbolt of lightning." And Jill comes right back with "very very frightening." And together we went, "Galileo, Galileo, Galileo Galileo figaro magnifico. I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me. He's just a poor boy from a poor family. Spare him his life from this monstrosity." And then we all sang the rest of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. It was one of those spontaneous funny moments that you can't plan, it just happens.
I know this was a long entry, but it was a long day!
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