Johnson Family

I recently got back from a mission’s trip to New Orleans, Louisiana to help clean up after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Our church took a group of 30 people down to St. Bernard parish where we lived and worked for the week of July 8-16. We were split into two work groups: construction and demolition, as I have no marketable construction skills I was placed on the demo team. Due to the extensive flood damage that occurred during the hurricane, every house needs to be completely gutted and cleaned out. Our team managed to clean 2.5 houses while we were down there.

The picture to the left is a room in one of the houses my demo team worked on. This room was formerly a kitchen. Each house was coated from the ground up with 6-8 inches of thick, heavy mud. Layered on that was another 6-8 inches of fallen ceiling tiles and insulation, followed by furniture, clothing and equipment. As nothing was salvageable, all items had to be dragged out of the house onto the curb so that the mud could be shoveled out. We found all sorts of surprises in the mud, dead animals, snakes, live rat families…

After removing the mud, the next step was to strip the drywall off the framing. This was my favorite part because I got to swing a crowbar and a sledge hammer like a madwoman. It’s a long, tiring process stripping every piece of drywall off the walls, wheelbarrowing it outside, then removing each nail from the studs. The picture on the right shows a room that we cleaned of debris, stripped the drywall off and were in the process of shoveling the walls out to the curb.

This is a small indication of the wreckage that was taken from one house we gutted. Unfortunately, what you can’t see is that the pile continues around the corner of the house and is probably twice in length. We worked about 100 hours total that week in the relatively cool New Orleans climate. :) The temperature was at a consistent 100 degrees in the shade, not including humidity. Needless to say, I proudly sweat through at least 2 shirts a day and switched to men’s deodorant early on in the workweek. The picture on the right shows a what a completed room looks like. Recognize it? Bob is looking into the same kitchen that was pictured above with the floating refridgerator. The owners of this house now have the capability to rebuild their home.

This last picture is the group I hung out with for the duration of the trip. We are the youngest members of the church group and named ourselves the “A-team.” This photo was taken our last day in Louisiana, and I can guarantee that each of us is significantly thinner and more muscular than we were when the trip began. I can't think of a time where I've worked harder, but this was an unbelievable experience for me. If anyone else has the opportunity to help in a similar way, I recommend doing it because it's extremely beneficial for everyone involved.