We are back in Pearlington

Our group from Summerville, SC led by Dorchester Presbyterian Church is back in Pearlington at PDA Volunteer Village #6. More than half of the Mighty 13 that came down to Pearlington the first week of April 2007 came back. My first impression is the cliche: the more changes, the more the same. The first picture to the left is our group's first stop of the day. This picture still represents Pearlington. Rebuilding is happening, but the FEMA trailers are still here.





Check the picture to the left. I think that Greg Hazelwood is trying to have a sense of humor that he had riverfront for a time. His house was a stop for one of our group today.

Our group of 11 is joined by Jane El's group from Texas and 8 men from First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, GA. In our group, Roger drove down from near Boston to go with us. Not as large as the group in April, we have a bit more experience of how the rebuilding process works with the PDA in Pearlington. People that have been here before (which is most of us here this week - only a few newcomers from all 3 groups) has more patience with getting assigned to work at different houses.

I will save the soapbox and inferences about government help and people getting themselves together for another time. For now, here are pictures of our day working around Pearlington. TX and GA were sent to different houses.

Today, our group of 11 split into 3 groups.

• Norma and Marie helped cook lunch at First Missionary Baptist.
• Two years later, the church still feeds lunch to the volunteers. They clearly expect fewer volunteers - one row of tables is gone.
  
• John, Scott, Don, and Harry D went to Greg's house to help with framing.
  
• They stopped in the afternoon when they ran out of 2X4's.


• Billy, Harry J, and I went to Dallas Tremmel's next dooor neighbor to put in 6 windows.


• No big deal, according to Dallas. I had forgotten that "no big deal" for Dallas meant that we might spend the whole day there, and we did. Later in the afternoon, John, Scott, Don and Harry D came over to help us finish. Billy got an early shower trying to hammer the nails during the rain.


• Roger and Kenny helped at a "One House at a Time" house to build up the bracing.
  

Let me try to describe the pictures uploaded here.

Billy, Harry J, and I started at Dallas Tremmel's next door neighbor's house (Kendra MacArthur) with no windows installed. I didn't remember to start taking pictures until we had one window finished. That window is the only window screwed in. We ran out of screws and switched to nails. You make do with what you got. That window is also the only window that I screwed in. Billy did the outside work after that until the afternoon helpers arrived.





Help arrives in the afternoon on the church bus.













Harry D and John measuring. They were making sure to follow the rule "measure twice, cut once."












Do you know what Scott is hammering? Hard to tell from this picture...












It takes two on the inside and one on the outside. Billy has things under control with Scott and Harry J helping from the inside.












While we were there, Marie and Norma came over and with their help after Billy's inspiration to clean up the yard, we created 2 stacks of debris and recovered some good, usable building materials. We also destroyed some fire ant hiding places and they paid us back in kind.