Sunday, October 09, 2005
Weak 4 - Whitney Hayes Contributions
Editor's Note: Whitney Hayes is 15 and a Sophmore at Westerville South. I'll add additional notes to this posting when I get them.
10/3/05 11:17:05 PM
Ms. Shankle and class,
Today we drove four more hours to our final destination. As we headed into Mississippi we began to see tree damage. We saw an area where we believe a tornado hit. The houses had whole sides ripped off of them. It looked like they had been hit with a wrecking ball. The closer we got to Louisiana the more damage we began to see. Trees had been snapped in half or uprooted. The interesting part was that many of the trees looked as though they had been snapped from the north side. More and more trees began piling up the further we pressed on. When we stopped for lunch we saw signs down and a church across the street had multiple holes in its roof. If the damage was this bad and we hadn't even hit the storm surge yet I didn't want to know what awaited us in Mandeville.
When we finally arrived my time was spent playing with some kids at the church and packing up cleaning supplies and toiletries. Emma and Christian are 2 and 4 years old. Their parents are working here and they were very grateful to have someone to play with. We ate dinner and had a devo. Tomorrow I get to go out and de-muck houses. I'm really looking forward to getting to come in contact with these people. I can't wait to hear their stories and be able to make an impact on their lives.
I'm also very anxious because I know there are dangers out there, but I feel that the positive outcomes greatly out weigh the negatives. Hopefully the updates will be more exciting as we get out into the work field. Hope everything is going well back in Ohio.
-Whitney
Tue 10/4/2005 6:08 PM
Today was amazing!!! A crew of about 20 of us left at about 8:00 and drove for 30 minutes to Slidell. There was the previously seen tree damage but nothing could prepare me for what we saw once we took our exit. Businesses were gutted and trash was piled along the street. There were several parking lots full of boxes of clothing that people could go through. Almost everything was still closed. We pulled into a neighborhood, and I sat speechless. Fallen trees were everywhere; almost every house had been hit by one. Trash was piled up to 10 feet high on either side of the road. A large semi and a machine with a large claw were working on the street we were on to pick up the trash and take it to a landfill. I put on my boots, mask, and work gloves and headed into the house to get my assignments. The house reeked. The walls were covered with mold. We had to move some furniture and other small items out before we could start tearing down the walls. Once we got started everything went pretty quickly. Our instructions were to tear down everything: walls, ceiling, and floor. I started hammering at drywall and using a crow bar to take off door and window frames. Mold was everywhere. All the walls were covered with green, black, and brown blobs. There was a room that still had carpet in it and when you stepped on it water and mud would rise up around your feet. We cut it in to strips and hauled it to the curb. It was extremely hot inside the house, especially since we had to wear masks. As if we weren't sweaty enough, the mask created a greenhouse effect around our noses and mouths. The sweat just poured from our brows. The mold was so bad in some places that many of the walls would come down just by kicking them. They were very soggy. E
Everything smelled like waste and sulfur (rotten eggs). The area we were in was hit by a 30-foot wave of water.
The hardest part for me was having to see the homeowner help tear down her own house. She mainly worked with the crew on cleaning up the outside of her house. She still had photo albums in the house and we had to throw them all away. How a woman could be there as people ripped up her house and threw away everything that was left of her life is still a mystery to me. I mean, its not like you can say oh it’s just my house I can live somewhere else. Well I guess you can say that but there are still memories that were made there that can't be replaced.
We are now back at the church. My dad and I are making dinner for all of the volunteers tonight. I am so worn down after all the hard work that was done today. I just feel like crying. Not really for myself, but for the woman we helped today, the people we will help the rest of the week, and all the other people whose lives have been affected by this horrible tragedy. Their lives will never be the same. Today, many people would stop and walk outside to take in some fresh air, but something in me kept telling me to keep on going. I couldn't let myself stop working. I had to help this woman who had nothing left. I have been blessed with so much and yet she has everything taken away from her. Somehow she still had a smile on her face and thanked us for our work. I have great admiration for people who maintain their faith in times of trouble. She could have been angry and ungrateful, but instead she was kind and loving. I gripe and complain because of the littlest things and here this woman's house was completely destroyed and yet she was thankful. I can't even comprehend what this woman has been through and I don't think I ever will be able to.
Until tomorrow
-Whitney
Wed 10/5/2005 10:12 PM
Today we went down to New Orleans. The most amazing part was driving on the 23-mile long causeway. It was the only bridge out of 3 that had survived the hurricane. As we crossed Lake Pontchartrain, you could not see anything but water on either side. In front of us, we could see the misty outline of downtown New Orleans. We could see a couple of high rises' and the pancake shaped Superdome. Once we were off the causeway the devastation hit me. We passed by many businesses that were gutted or yet to be gutted. Many had boards on the windows and tarps on the roofs. We ended up taking a detour that turned out to have been completely unnecessary but it gave us an opportunity to see things we would have missed. As we got into the neighborhoods everything began to hit home. We saw several people emptying their homes. There was so much trash piled everywhere that the streets were completely blocked. All the houses had the neon orange spray-painted "x's" that meant the house had been searched. You could tell that many of the homes had once been very beautiful. They had little gardens and decorative metal fences. We worked at church today. Because the damage was so bad we had to wear respirators, double-layered gloves, and the ever-lovely marshmallow suits. We were covered head to toe. Nothing could get in and nothing could get out which meant that all the sweat was trapped inside. The result was a sauna effect. Later we were able to escape that prison and took down some more walls in a duplex down the street. The inside of the house was very beautiful with a large staircase and oak and tile floors. There was molding around the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling.
We came home early again because dad had to cook dinner. I slept for a while because I was exhausted. I've decided to take this time to tell you about the wonderful showers that we have at our facility. There are five plywood stalls for girls and four for guys. PVC pipe and the garden hose is our source of water, there is no heater. Every shower is cold. The curtains are made of tarps and the stalls are outside. The cold water feels really good when you're all sweaty until the breeze blows. Then the tarps blow up and you are in full view of anyone on that side of the stall. I've also got to meet some children here at the church. Emma and her brother Christia. Their parents work her at the building helping the relief effort. I played with them for several hours yesterday. They are so adorable. They love the attention and their parents really enjoy not having to worry about them. We played several games of pretend including batman, castle, and hide and seek. At one point Christian wouldn't stop giving me a hug and when I asked him what he was doing he said, "I'm loving on you". They are just the cutest kids and so sweet. That’s pretty much been it for today. Last full day of work tomorrow. It'll be really depressing to have to leave.
Until then,
Whitney
10/3/05 11:17:05 PM
Ms. Shankle and class,
Today we drove four more hours to our final destination. As we headed into Mississippi we began to see tree damage. We saw an area where we believe a tornado hit. The houses had whole sides ripped off of them. It looked like they had been hit with a wrecking ball. The closer we got to Louisiana the more damage we began to see. Trees had been snapped in half or uprooted. The interesting part was that many of the trees looked as though they had been snapped from the north side. More and more trees began piling up the further we pressed on. When we stopped for lunch we saw signs down and a church across the street had multiple holes in its roof. If the damage was this bad and we hadn't even hit the storm surge yet I didn't want to know what awaited us in Mandeville.
When we finally arrived my time was spent playing with some kids at the church and packing up cleaning supplies and toiletries. Emma and Christian are 2 and 4 years old. Their parents are working here and they were very grateful to have someone to play with. We ate dinner and had a devo. Tomorrow I get to go out and de-muck houses. I'm really looking forward to getting to come in contact with these people. I can't wait to hear their stories and be able to make an impact on their lives.
I'm also very anxious because I know there are dangers out there, but I feel that the positive outcomes greatly out weigh the negatives. Hopefully the updates will be more exciting as we get out into the work field. Hope everything is going well back in Ohio.
-Whitney
Tue 10/4/2005 6:08 PM
Today was amazing!!! A crew of about 20 of us left at about 8:00 and drove for 30 minutes to Slidell. There was the previously seen tree damage but nothing could prepare me for what we saw once we took our exit. Businesses were gutted and trash was piled along the street. There were several parking lots full of boxes of clothing that people could go through. Almost everything was still closed. We pulled into a neighborhood, and I sat speechless. Fallen trees were everywhere; almost every house had been hit by one. Trash was piled up to 10 feet high on either side of the road. A large semi and a machine with a large claw were working on the street we were on to pick up the trash and take it to a landfill. I put on my boots, mask, and work gloves and headed into the house to get my assignments. The house reeked. The walls were covered with mold. We had to move some furniture and other small items out before we could start tearing down the walls. Once we got started everything went pretty quickly. Our instructions were to tear down everything: walls, ceiling, and floor. I started hammering at drywall and using a crow bar to take off door and window frames. Mold was everywhere. All the walls were covered with green, black, and brown blobs. There was a room that still had carpet in it and when you stepped on it water and mud would rise up around your feet. We cut it in to strips and hauled it to the curb. It was extremely hot inside the house, especially since we had to wear masks. As if we weren't sweaty enough, the mask created a greenhouse effect around our noses and mouths. The sweat just poured from our brows. The mold was so bad in some places that many of the walls would come down just by kicking them. They were very soggy. E
Everything smelled like waste and sulfur (rotten eggs). The area we were in was hit by a 30-foot wave of water.
The hardest part for me was having to see the homeowner help tear down her own house. She mainly worked with the crew on cleaning up the outside of her house. She still had photo albums in the house and we had to throw them all away. How a woman could be there as people ripped up her house and threw away everything that was left of her life is still a mystery to me. I mean, its not like you can say oh it’s just my house I can live somewhere else. Well I guess you can say that but there are still memories that were made there that can't be replaced.
We are now back at the church. My dad and I are making dinner for all of the volunteers tonight. I am so worn down after all the hard work that was done today. I just feel like crying. Not really for myself, but for the woman we helped today, the people we will help the rest of the week, and all the other people whose lives have been affected by this horrible tragedy. Their lives will never be the same. Today, many people would stop and walk outside to take in some fresh air, but something in me kept telling me to keep on going. I couldn't let myself stop working. I had to help this woman who had nothing left. I have been blessed with so much and yet she has everything taken away from her. Somehow she still had a smile on her face and thanked us for our work. I have great admiration for people who maintain their faith in times of trouble. She could have been angry and ungrateful, but instead she was kind and loving. I gripe and complain because of the littlest things and here this woman's house was completely destroyed and yet she was thankful. I can't even comprehend what this woman has been through and I don't think I ever will be able to.
Until tomorrow
-Whitney
Wed 10/5/2005 10:12 PM
Today we went down to New Orleans. The most amazing part was driving on the 23-mile long causeway. It was the only bridge out of 3 that had survived the hurricane. As we crossed Lake Pontchartrain, you could not see anything but water on either side. In front of us, we could see the misty outline of downtown New Orleans. We could see a couple of high rises' and the pancake shaped Superdome. Once we were off the causeway the devastation hit me. We passed by many businesses that were gutted or yet to be gutted. Many had boards on the windows and tarps on the roofs. We ended up taking a detour that turned out to have been completely unnecessary but it gave us an opportunity to see things we would have missed. As we got into the neighborhoods everything began to hit home. We saw several people emptying their homes. There was so much trash piled everywhere that the streets were completely blocked. All the houses had the neon orange spray-painted "x's" that meant the house had been searched. You could tell that many of the homes had once been very beautiful. They had little gardens and decorative metal fences. We worked at church today. Because the damage was so bad we had to wear respirators, double-layered gloves, and the ever-lovely marshmallow suits. We were covered head to toe. Nothing could get in and nothing could get out which meant that all the sweat was trapped inside. The result was a sauna effect. Later we were able to escape that prison and took down some more walls in a duplex down the street. The inside of the house was very beautiful with a large staircase and oak and tile floors. There was molding around the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling.
We came home early again because dad had to cook dinner. I slept for a while because I was exhausted. I've decided to take this time to tell you about the wonderful showers that we have at our facility. There are five plywood stalls for girls and four for guys. PVC pipe and the garden hose is our source of water, there is no heater. Every shower is cold. The curtains are made of tarps and the stalls are outside. The cold water feels really good when you're all sweaty until the breeze blows. Then the tarps blow up and you are in full view of anyone on that side of the stall. I've also got to meet some children here at the church. Emma and her brother Christia. Their parents work her at the building helping the relief effort. I played with them for several hours yesterday. They are so adorable. They love the attention and their parents really enjoy not having to worry about them. We played several games of pretend including batman, castle, and hide and seek. At one point Christian wouldn't stop giving me a hug and when I asked him what he was doing he said, "I'm loving on you". They are just the cutest kids and so sweet. That’s pretty much been it for today. Last full day of work tomorrow. It'll be really depressing to have to leave.
Until then,
Whitney
# posted by John McGuire @ 1:11 PM 
