January 24-28, 2007
New Orleans, Louisiana
Six members of Trinity United Methodist Church in Milford, Ohio drove to New Orleans to help with recovery from hurricane Katrina. Here are some photos of our experience.
The morning we left was cold and snowy in Ohio, but we enjoyed the 13 hour trip.
Our host church was Aurora United Methodist in Algiers, and the mission was organized through UMCOR.
Our contact person at the church also gave us information about exactly what happened during the days leading up to and after Katrina hit the area. Click on the NOLA link for an interactive timeline, showing the flooding and how it affected New Orleans and southeast Louisiana.
The first morning of work, we had to load the van with tools.
Here is the first house we were assigned to, and the row of FEMA trailers looking down the street. This house was in the hard hit area of Orleans parish. You can still see the water line on the outside of the home.
Here is a garage down the street.
The homeowner has a friendly dog named BamBam, but lost 7 dogs in the flooding. It took just 6 minutes from the moment water was seen coming under the door of the home to having the water about 6 feet high in her home. The homeowner had to quickly get in the attic with her brother and they were there for 3 days.
Our group with the homeowner, Dolores, who also rolled up her sleeves and helped.
Here is what we saw when we first entered the home.
After removing the drywall, we had to dump it in the street. We found lots of 6-legged creatures, too.
After removing the drywall, we removed the nails in the wood, repaired broken pipes, cleaned up the backyard some, and cut the grass.
The shed in the backyard was moved off its foundation. Lots of things we found in the backyard did not belong to the homeowner, and were just swept there by the surging waters.
Here are the "before" photos from the second home where we worked. Note the mold on the walls and the ceiling falling in over the stairs. There was a tarp over the roof, but our last day it rained all day and the upstairs was still getting wet.
The flood waters moved all of the heavy furniture around in the main living area.
Yes - the refrigerator still had contents inside!
Here is what it looked like after removing the contents.
We had to remove all of the drywall and nails in the wood, as well.
Here is the first pile of ruined items we left for the trash pick-up.
