Hurricane Relief - Day 1 - 12/10/2005
The day began with a really cold early morning. We met with a group of 9 people from our church who had all decided to drive down to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to do some hurricane relief work. The trip was thrown together last minute. Most of us didn’t know eachother at all, and some of us hadn’t even met until this morning. We knew the address of where we were going and knew that we were meeting with a guy called the Colonel…and that was about it. We had rented two minivans for the 15 hour drive down and got our clothes and tools all loaded up and then we hit the road.
The drive down was mostly uneventful. We spent most of the drive just getting to know eachother. We stopped for the night in Birmingham, AL.
Hurricane Relief - Day 2 - 12/11/2005
This morning we finished up the drive and made it to Mt. Carmel Baptist church just before 11:00 am. We met up with Colonel Griffin who showed us around the church. Mt. Carmel is a much bigger church than we expected. Soon after we started, the Sunday service started which gave us a chance to sit in an see what Mt. Carmel was all about. Pastor Fairley gave a great message about hope. Their community has been hit pretty hard by the hurricane…both directly and indirectly. The town of Hattiesburg is 90 miles from the coast. It was hit hard by wind which knocked a lot of trees down and did a lot of roof damage. It wasn’t hit nearly as hard as the coastal towns which has led to a huge influx of people. The town population has gone from 55,000 to 85,000 since the hurricane. Mt. Carmel church has helped a lot of people since the hurricane. Immediately afterward they ended up providing ice and water to the whole community. Thousands of people were lined up around the church to receive aid. Soon after that, the church started receiving donations from all around the country and became one of the main distribution centers for the area. Their rooms and hallways were all full and eventually they were able to lease a 40,000 sq. ft. warehouse from a kind soul who gave it to them for $1 for 6 months. The donations kept coming in by the the truckload. Being at the church service was very interesting because the pastor was able to use our group as an example for his people. He said that if God was able to inspire people to come and help all the way from Michigan, than he can do anything and everyone needs to mainain hope that they will get through these hard times. The people of the coastal regions are tired and exhausted from the last 4 months and any hope that they can get is very important.
After the service, Colonel Griffin took us around to visit homes in the area. We were assessing some of the damages so we could decide which projects to work on over the next week. A lot of the damage in the Hattiesburg area was roof damage. None of us were experienced roofers, but between the group, we had enough expertise to do what needed to be done.
It was completely overwhelming seeing what needed to be done once we realized how little we could do…and this wasn’t even a very hard hit area. There was a woman that is a teacher from the church who’s house we decided to work on over the next few days. In the evening we developed a plan to go buy the supplies and tools that we didn’t already have. We also had a chance to meet Dave Halverson who is a member of our church back at home who has dedicated his life to being a missionary. He basically left his job and his security and follows wherever he thinks he’s needed to do God’s work. The last few months he’s been down in Hattiesburg to help out….he’s an amazing inspiration of selflessness.
Some of the sites in the Hattiesburg, MS area - keep in mind that this was one of the lesser hit areas:
The image below shows the warehouse where all the donations are stored. This shows just a small part of the 40,000 square foot space that is filled. Right now, they don’t need clothes to be donated, they need people to give up their time and go help along with money to support the storage and distribution efforts. When Dave Halverson first started helping Mt. Carmel, he helped organize this warehouse. It took weeks just to get all the boxes inside, let alone sort everything.
The ware house has no electricity so all of the sorting happens during daylight hours using light coming in from the windows along with light from a few lights running on a generator.
Our accomodations were better than what we had expected. There is an upstairs wing of the church where we had a large room with refrigerator and microwave and a men’s and women’s bathroom down the hall. Most of the other rooms on that floor had pretty bad water leaks from the storm and were still under repair but this room worked out perfect for our team. The 6 guys had mattresses in the downstairs room and the 3 women shared a room up the stairs.
Hurricane Relief - Day 3 - 12/13/2005
After an extensive home depot run this morning, we had most of the supplies we needed to begin working. Once we got up on the roof that we planned on repairing, we realized that even though it looked like a simple job, it was going to end up being an almost complete tearoff of the roof. Most of the plywood was weak and rotted and many of the joists were cracked and needed bracing. We scraped off all the shingles and tar paper and then evaluated each sheet of plywood to see if it needed replacing which unfortunately most of it did. Today was a long hard day of hands-on labor which really was quite enjoyable because we learned a lot and were able to help someone who really needed it. By the end of the day we had redone almost half of the roof and were excited to finish it up tomorrow.
Hurricane Relief - Day 4 - 12/13/2005
Today we hoped to finish up the roof. We all felt that we learned a lot yesterday and could work even faster today. However, we ran into a lot of problems. The ceiling on the house was so weak and the joists cracked, etc. etc…we ended up having two of our team members put a foot right through the ceiling. They both slipped and went right through. The first put a whole right above the Christmas tree, and the second right above the kitchen. These required not only a lot of time cleaning up, but also time re-drywalling and mudding the ceiling to patch up the holes. We also realized that the second half of the roof needed to be almost completely replaced because of really weak wood. We were all tired and sore from yesterday and with these hiccups in our plans, it seemed like a long day.
Hurricane Relief - Day 5 - 12/14/2005
We had hoped to finish the roof yesterday, but that just wasn’t an option…there was too much to do. Between all the details and last minute fix ups to the cleanup, it took most of the day today. At the end of the day two guys from the leadership of our home church (Kensington Community Church) came down to present Mt. Carmel with a check for $50,000 which was part of the money raised from the Hurricane Relief fundraiser that Kensington had a few months ago. Mt. Carmel is so active in helping the community that the money will surely go to good use.
Finally finished:
Hurricane Relief - Day 6 - 12/15/2005
There was no way that we would be able to finish another whole roof in the limited time we had left so instead we took on a number of smaller projects. Mt. Carmel had purchased a house across the street from the church and their goal was to fix it up and give it to a displaced family. Dave (the fulltime missionary) had made that one of his projects and has been working on the house for a few weeks. We spent most of the day drywalling and mudding the inside of the house. Cheridy and I both got sick on the trip and were feeling pretty lousy so we took turns disappearing to go lay down and rest for a bit.
The hospitality at Mt. Carmel has been absolutely amazing. Everyone has been incredibly friendly and helpful and they have been providing us with fantastic breakfasts and dinners every night. Colonel Griffin has pretty much been in charge of a lot of our organization and day to day happenings. The guy is a machine…he works 16+ hours a day and answers cell phone calls every 10 minutes it seemed like. He retired as a Colonel from the Marines and once was the head of 96,000 men, so he’s obviously a qualified leader with fantastic organizational skills. He took great care of us while we were there.
Hurricane Relief - Day 7 - 12/16/2005
Today’s goal was to drive down to the coast to see first hand what the real devastation looked like. Back at home, the news of the hurricane damage is an old story that’s seldom talked about and already forgotten. But for the people of the coastal regions, it’s fresh in their mind and they still live through it every day. We wanted to be able to get some video/photo footage to bring home to raise the awareness of how bad things still are. Deborah, the woman who’s roof we repaired told us that just recently one of her relatives went back home for the first time in 4 months since the hurricane and not only found a demolished house but also found the bodies of other relatives still in the rubble. This heartache and devastation is STILL happening and help is still severely needed!! Our plan was to first go into New Orleans and see the areas that we saw most on television and then head to Waveland which was one of the hardest hit areas on the coast. We had seen some photos of Waveland which was pretty much complete destruction with houses completely leveled. Seeing New Orleans was like something out of a Steven King novel. It was a mostly abadoned city…from the richest areas to the poorest areas…empty. You could see water lines on the trees and houses which gave perspective to just how high the flood waters rose. Every house that was searched was marked with spray paint to show how many bodies were found in the houses. It was really eerie seeing the insides of some of these houses. Seeing people’s living rooms tossed upside down with the walls covered in mold. It was really gut-wrenching. We did not get a chance to go to Waveland or the other coastal towns because there was really heavy traffic getting out of New Orleans and it was already after dark. There are so many people in the city that are doing cleanup work and yet entire neighborhoods are still completely untouched and probably never will be until they get bulldozed because they are unsalvageable. On the highway we saw hundreds of cars loaded with personal belongings that people tried salvaging from their homes. Again…this if 4 MONTHS later and there is barely a dent in the cleanup efforts compared to what is needed.
This morning I was able to capture a beautiful sunrise over Mt. Carmel church:
The beauty of the morning was soon replaced by the ugliness left in New Orleans. The first picture below shows the water line on the trees:
The next set of pictures shows some damages to one of the local marinas on Lake Pontchartrain. We saw boats up in the parking lot and some as far as the highway:
The next image shows the spray paint which can be found on all the houses searched. This particular house was searched many times and I think the first time, there were 5 bodies found:
This shows a living room of one of the abandoned houses. You can see mold growing all over the walls:
Here are a couple houses in the 9th ward which was one of the worst hit areas near New Orleans. Again…the damage in these areas was nothing compared to what hit the coastal regions such as Waveland, MS, but it still made the whole area uninhabitable:
Hurricane Relief - Day 8 - 12/17/2005
Today we finished up the long drive home…back into the cold to get back to our daily routine and hopefully not forget everything we saw. I just wanted to thank the other members of the team (Cheridy, Mike, Ken, Andrea, Brian, Dennis, Kristan, and Shane) for some seriously hard work. They were some of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen and it was a pleasure to make some new friends. I also wanted to thank Dave Halverson for giving his life to God and serving the people as he feels called…Dave was an incredible inspriration to our team for the whole week. Also thanks to Colonel Griffen who took care of our every need while we were down in Hattiesburg. Also to Pastor Fairley for giving incredibly moving messages during the church services and for the tour our New Orleans. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to be from that area and drive through and see all that.
Colonel Griffen (left), Pastor Fairley (right):
Team Photo:
The rest of the images that we took on the trip can be found at:
http://www.arisingimages.com/event/20051218_mississippi/index.htm
