Pictures from Pearlington - April 2009

Here are pictures from the Summerville, SC crew that worked on Lester Dell's house in Pearlington. We were honored to be part of a chain of crews to work on his house, almost 4 years after Katrina. Until recently, Lester helped everyone else rebuild. Now, it was our time to help him. The biggest part was rebuilding and reattaching the deck to the raised house. And, we had a few people willing to go 30+ ft in the air to hang the fascia and soffetts.

Click here for the pictures.

Pearlington PDA Village #6 closing in October 2009

After almost 4 years helping residents in Pearlington, the camp will likely be closed because Hancock County will not renew the occupancy permit for the temporary facilities of the PDA at the former post office along Hwy 607 in Pearlington. Here is a copy of the letter that our church received.

This letter shows the helpful spirit that Hancock County has shown the organizations "from outside" that have tried to help. In many ways, Hancock County feels insulted that outside organizations have stayed. But, if the county helped its residents more then the organizations wouldn't feel the need to stay. I believe that organizations like PDA, One House At a Time, and the PRC have helped a lot more residents find grant and relief money and get FEMA trailers and now MEMA cottages than the county did.

Yes, the Storm would have overwhelmed any county staff, especially as small and rural as Hancock County. But, rather than support the organizations, they are business as usual.

Maybe Hancock County is trying to get back to normal; whatever that now is. And, the temporary pod structure that PDA set up needs to go away. Maybe, PDA should have planned a more permanent facility. Maybe, PDA should plan some kind of facility to help the community develop. Jane Els put some of these ideas in my head; they are settling in better after my initial disappointment with the county. The county caused some issues when PDA was restoring the camp after Gustav. I guess that we should have gotten the message.

I have been to Pearlington 4 times, and our church has been on 6 trips there. I don't feel like an outsider while I am there. I know where most of the streets are and I know people on both sides of the highway. We will work hard to get travelers there to finish the 49 cases still open, but the summertime is a struggle there with the climate.

I think that the conspiracy theory that Stennis Space Center was disappointed that groups like PDA came to Pearlington and is a thorn to their land grab for buffer is probably a good theory. Just like ignoring the rebuilding of Ninth Ward will lead to it being largely left alone, maybe in the end Pearlington should have been left. The next destruction by any type of storm will certainly highlight that direction.

Pearlington PDA has allowed me to connect with other Presbyterian churches across the country. I now have friends in TX and PA to connect with on a regular basis. Maybe, that was a good thing for me. And, I now have a reason to stop in at Pearlington on my drives across I-10.

I will see you in Pearlington for the next few months working hard to finish the 49 cases. See you there!

Back from Pearlington, April 2009

Almost 4 years after Hurricane Katrina, our group from Summerville, SC along with groups from NC and PA were able to help the remaining residents make progress in rebuilding after the Storm.

At Lester's house, the big project was getting the deck and pool area ready for his family for Easter Sunday. A deck may not be considered important when your entire house has cracked drywall because of your house being dropped while being raised. But, for a family that is used to spending most of their time outside on the deck around the pool, it is a huge thing.

We were driven and energetic to complete the deck as the excitement grew from Lester while he invited family members over for Sunday afternoon. And, I bet it was a great party. We did our best to get the deck and grounds stable, level, and in shape for visitors this weekend.

Our group helped Lester and family for the week. The other groups were each at different family. From PDA volunteers, four families were moved forward towards returning to normal more than 3 1/2 years after the Storm.

We will go back in 6 months. Will I see you there?

Gustav is Coming

Not a good way to plan to Labor Day. Hopefully, Gustav will not follow predictions, but the NHC has been getting better and better. The models seem to be pretty consistent pointing Gustav towards LA/MS coast. The current path is on the west side of NOLA which will be worse for surge on the east side. But, once in the Gulf, Gustav has to hit somewhere. We have trips planned over 2 weeks, 10/5 and 10/12. We may need to move up the trip to next week, but hopefully not. If you are interested in what we are doing with the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), then please leave a comment with contact info. If you would like to go on the trip with us in Oct, then leave some contact info. We are sure to have a good work crew and excellent food. Our group will be meeting up with the group from Texas again. This time the food competition may be dessert.

Trip 3 to Pearlington

Well, I have not been as good at daily updates while we are here in Pearlington. I will try to catch you up with some pictures over the next couple of weeks, while I tell you below about some of the work we are doing here.

First, progress is being made. Slow is a safe word to use without blaming. I would say frustratingly slow, but once you come to Pearlington and begin to understand the process and money available in Hancock County, you see that progress is made as it can be.

In some cases, the volunteers here may slow the process a bit because of the unskilled labor and energy to help but maybe misplaced. For instance, at Don and Lois Lee's house, where we are helping get within weeks of finishing we had to spend 2 days with 2 of us removing the flashing installed upside down and replacing it with white rather than galvanized to match her house trim. Let me leave that particular discussion for another time (I think that I said the same thing last trip - and the need to describe those thoughts faded because I didn't take the time).

This trip is different from the other 2 trips. We are all guys and we are split between the 5 of us at the PDA village and 8 of us staying at the Pearlington Recovery Center (PRC). At the PRC, the 4 pairs of fathers (grandfather) and sons (grandson) are in a big tent that can hold about 80 people. About 200 people are staying at the PRC (many of the groups with high school-age kids) with Spring Break like us. You can be encouraged to know that kids are interested in helping. Many of the kids are working on finishing the Missionary Baptist Church where the volunteers in town eat lunch each day. The dynamic is a bit different, although we have worked out arrangements to let them eat and work near us.

We have separate groups working at 3 different places. At one house, Doug/Connor, Bob/Ryan, Milt/Steven, and Scott/Preston are filling Dallas Trammel's yard with dirt and building a shed to cover the well pump to keep people from trying to steal it. Crime isn't really a problem I don't think. If you know Dallas, then you get a better idea of why someone might try taking hers. The 6 foot fence that she is building around her house might help, as well.
At another house, Matthew, Tony, Scott, Russ, and I are working to help finish up the Lee's house. So far, we have fixed the flashing, painted the fascia, installed a front and back door with storm doors for each, set an interior door, and nailed the trim. Matthew has done all of the detail painting work to clean up the backwards flashing that was painted after installing incorrectly. He was the hard worker of the day and received the honored job of installing the house numbers under Lois's supervision. She brought us the numbers and asked if we could put them up. She is getting excited. She said that she was moving a boxspring and mattress into the house tonight.
You should come meet Lois. On the next trip in April or after that in October or both. She patiently watches us discuss how we should do something, and after much talk and multiple measurements and sometimes multiple cuts, we have finished a particular task. Then, when we aren't looking, she cleans up after us and puts things into a burn pile or keep for others or later pile.

A little of her story is important. She has received only $5300 from FEMA to repair her house (that was submerged to the roof - we could see the mud caked under the roof boards when installing the flashing). She is living in a FEMA trailer now, and waiting on a Katrina Cottage. Luckily, her particular trailer didn't have the formaldehyde problem. You can get a little upset about that. A pastor from Michigan calls her each week asking if she is in her house yet. They worked on her house a year ago...

To talk about the fellowship at the camp, I sat down to type this entry out and upload some pictures about 3 hours ago. But, we have been talking with other volunteers from other churches and I am now one of the last 2 sitting up. Here are some pictures. The commentary can follow.

Last night, we took a road trip to New Orleans. Russ's cousin, Bill, took us on a road tour through the 9th Ward, downtown, and through St. Bernard's. The sheer size of the flooding for 15 miles x 15 miles is stunning. Being able to see the areas in person sets everything up. Pearlington is tiny, but has little national attention. The 9th Ward has the attention, but in many blocks of probably thousands of previously occupied houses, 2 are rebuilt by investors and are for sale. Should the areas be rebuilt? The discussion needs to happen. The current situation is to just wait them out - I think that the decision has been made - and is probably correct. The 9th Ward should be a national monument like Ground Zero.

Here is a picture of our group in New Orleans at the Industrial Canal break. More to follow tomorrow...