I\'m not exactly sure where to start. This is pretty long, because\r\nSaturday was one hell of a long day.\r\n\r\nPlease remember as you read what I\'m describing: I\'m not asking you to\r\nfeel sorry for us. I\'m writing to describe what I experienced, as it\r\nfeels absolutely unbelievable to me - even while I experience it. I\'m\r\nwriting to try and share those feelings with you, my (and Noel\'s)\r\nfriends. I enjoy the writing; I\'ve enjoyed the conversations that\r\nhave sprung out of these emails; I enjoy the time to try and collect\r\nthoughts that rumble through my head as I try to make sense out of\r\nwhere we are going next. But through this all, our family is still\r\ndoing well. We laugh, we cry, we scream at each other (close living\r\nquarters tends to wear nerves a little thin), we *live* - same as all\r\nof you. Please don\'t feel sorry for us. As I\'ve said before, if you\r\nfeel the need to reach out and help, consider the Red Cross and\r\nCatholic Charities. Donate blood. Serve lunch at a homeless shelter\r\nin your own city. Reach out to needy people wherever you are.\r\n\r\nI write that preamble because what I\'m going to write paints a pretty\r\ngrim picture. I\'m not sure if you want to see a pictures first, or\r\nread first. Your choice. You can what our house now looks like at\r\nhttp://dev.priorartisans.com/paul/katrina/katrina1.html.\r\n\r\nLast week was a tough week for me. After seeing the flooded house,\r\nI\'d been agonizing over the uncertainty of what would happen. I keep\r\nreading stories about houses being lost to mold, foundations being\r\nruined by water surges, the general damages that can be caused by\r\nflooding. So I lay awake at night and wondered whether our house was\r\ngoing to be saveable? Would we have to tear it down? Would our flood\r\ninsurance be sufficient to cover our losses?\r\n\r\nAnd, as many of you undoubtebly know, fears and worries are much much\r\nmore vivid at 2:00 in the morning when you are lying in bed staring at\r\nthe clock.\r\n\r\nBut - my father-in-law again called on his connections. He has worked\r\nwith a real estate agent here in Baton Rouge for 20+ years, This is\r\nthe agent who has found us the home we are in, arranged furnishings\r\nfor us at a time when furniture and sheets were very scarce in Baton\r\nRouge, and has delivered us a few delicious home cooked meals. But he\r\noutdid himself last week - he arranged for a crew of 10 carpenters and\r\nlaborers to come with us (Noel and I, her parents and her brother) to\r\nNew Orleans and start working on all 3 houses.\r\n\r\nAfter reading up online and talking to a couple of contractors (thanks\r\nfor the pointers!), we had what seemed like a decent and simple plan:\r\ncut out and throw out everything in the house that was wet. Walls,\r\ncarpets, floors, whatever. And whatever remained - spray it with\r\nbleach/water mixtures to kill mold. Sure, nothing to it. So we spent\r\na week going to the hardware store every day to pick up some more\r\nsupplies - each day we thought of a few more things, went out and\r\nbought in bulk, piled it in the house. Repeat the next day. And the\r\nnext. Pretty soon, we had a nice sized stack of bags, bleach, brooms,\r\nmops, towels, gloves.\r\n\r\nWe left at 5:00 am Saturday morning. One of Leon\'s law partners is\r\nalso a corporal in the National Guard. Apparently he was the highest\r\nranking officer stationed at the Superdome in the days after the\r\nstorm; I would enjoy having lunch with him to talk about his\r\nexperiences. That law partner arranged for a couple of Guardsmen who\r\nhad to go to New Orleans anyway to ride with us - just to ensure that\r\nwe\'d be able to get through any checkpoints we might encounter.\r\nRemember - New Orleans isn\'t really \"open\" right now; you need a pass\r\n(which we don\'t have) to enter the city. It doesn\'t seem like its a\r\ntightly enforced ban (we keep talking to friends who return), but\r\nsometimes it is enforced (we also talk to friends who are turned\r\naway). So we meet the guardsmen at 5:30 in a deserted parking lot, I\r\nhop in the lead car with one of them (just a regular car, not a humvee\r\nor jeep or anything cool) and our convoy of 9 cars and trucks hits the\r\nroad. Unventful drive to New Orleans; the guy I was riding with had\r\nbeen back from a 1 year stint in Afghanistan for about 3 weeks before\r\ngetting sent to New Orleans. I think this was an easier stint for\r\nhim. We get to the road block to enter New Orleans (the bridge over\r\nthe dreaded \"17th Street Canal\"), and he rolls down the window, says\r\n\"The next 8 cars are with me.\" The guardsmen on the bridge says \"Yes\r\nsir!\" and waves us through. Nothing to it.\r\n\r\nLater, I met the son of our next door neighbor as he arrived to begin\r\ncleaning up his parents house. He begged and pled, but the guardsmen\r\nwouldn\'t let him across. So he parked his car, loaded a backpack full\r\nof several water jugs and hoofed it about a mile across some railroad\r\ntracks over the canal and into the neighborhood. So, having a guard\r\nescort was certainly a nice perk.\r\n\r\nWe each got the crew for about 3 hours - we\' were trying to tackle as\r\nmuch of each house as we could in one day. So the crew started first\r\nat our house, which was a mixed blessing. We didn\'t have time to\r\nprepare our house and think about how to attack it. As soon as we\r\npulled up, Noel and I ran in and started figuring out what needed to\r\nbe moved in order to let the workers get working. It was a very\r\nfrantic 3 hours while we stayed no more than a step ahead of the\r\nworkers.\r\n\r\nAnd what did we all do? Short answer: throw away *everything* in the\r\nfirst floor of our house.\r\n\r\nLonger answer: Noel and I started digging into all of our furniture\r\n(china cabinets, entertainment center, etc.) and throwing out\r\neverything. We needed to empty these things so the workmen could toss\r\nout the furniture. Everything goes into a garbage bag, and then\r\nhauled out to an ever growing pile in our front yard. Trip after trip\r\nafter trip. Everything was soaked, and slimy, so Noel and I chose to\r\nwear rubber gloves just to avoid touching it. That was a good choice,\r\nbut my hands got so damn hot that sweat would pool in the fingers\r\nwhile I was working, so I\'d have to stop and hold my hands straight up\r\nto allow them to drain. (Ugh, maybe too much information). But\r\ndespite that discomfort, it was one hell of a lot better than touching\r\nall this junk.\r\n\r\nGoing through a cabinet of tupperware, lunchboxes, and other\r\ncontainers was particularly nasty. All of them were still holding the\r\nflood waters, which by now (nearly 3 weeks later) was particularly\r\nrancid. So each of those had to be carried carefully to avoid\r\nspilling. And they *stunk*.\r\n\r\nStench was a very common theme for the day. So was heat.\r\n\r\nThe refrigerator was another particularly pleasant place. The fridge\r\nhad been opened by the flood, so a lot of the food had already made\r\nits way around the house where it found convenient places to sit and\r\nrot. But the produce drawers were still filled with floodwaters. I\r\nthought the tupperware filled with water was bad - take that same\r\naroma and add some rotten potatoes and lettuce and vegetables.\r\nMmmmm... Soup, just like Mom used to make (I\'m kidding Mom...)\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, Noel tackles the china cabinet. We decided that it would\r\nbe best to get all of our china and crystal out of the house, so she\'s\r\ntrying to find a place to pack it. But of course, every surface is\r\nunusable except for a kitchen counter top. So the kitchen counter top\r\nbecomes the center point of all activity and all attempts to salvage\r\nanything. Noel is piling china there, the workers are putting artwork\r\nthere. I\'m crawling around the bottom of the cabinets trying to throw\r\nout stuff. Its starting to get crowded.\r\n\r\nNow lets throw in the sheetrock removal. We\'ve removed enough trash\r\nand furniture to create some space for the \"specialists\" to begin\r\ntheir work. They\'ve fired up the generator and brought in the\r\nsaws-all and start cutting. Generally, they are removing around 4\r\nfeet of the walls, as we had about 3 feet of water. When we started\r\nthe whole cleanup process, the house was still wet. The floodwaters\r\nare all gone, but the floors are still very damp. And each of our\r\nattempts to remove trash results in splashing a little more water on\r\nthe floor. So the floor is wet. And sheetrock and water don\'t mix\r\nreal well. As they start cutting the sheetrock, it falls on the\r\nfloor. As it lies on the floor, it mixes with the water creating a\r\nnice slippery paste.\r\n\r\nSo now, we\'re all falling all over each other around the kitchen\r\ntrying to salvage, trash and chop at the same time, while trying to\r\navoid slipping and falling on our rear on a surface rapidly\r\napproaching the consistency of an ice rink.\r\n\r\nWe manage to get the back door of the house open - under the best of\r\nconditions it sticks, so after it had been swollen with flood waters,\r\nit took a fair amount of effort to get it open. And of course, it\r\nwon\'t close afterwards. But it was open - so I figured that would\r\nmake trash removal easier - two doors to start unloading the house\r\nthrough.\r\n\r\nBut, nothing is actually easy these days. Every step forward (opening\r\nthe back door) is accompanied by a step backwards. In this case, the\r\npath around the side of the house to the front was blocked by a closed\r\ngate which was blocked by my car, which is flooded and undriveable,\r\nand blocked in place by a small fallen tree. So, there was no way to\r\nmove trash out the back door to the front of the house. So we\'re back\r\nto a single way in and out of the house. And for those of you who\'ve\r\nbeen to our house, you may have noticed that the one hallway from the\r\nback to the front is fairly narrow. So, now we have 14 people in our\r\nhouse trying to move from the front to the back so we can all pile\r\naround the kitchen counters to either salvage, trash or cut while\r\nslipping on sheetrock paste.\r\n\r\nAnd did I mention that it smells? And its hot?\r\n\r\nFortunately (1 step forward), 2 of the people were our insurance\r\nadjusters. They were the two people that I was waiting to talk to\r\nabout our house. One of them we had met the week before at Pass\r\nChristian, and he seemed like a nice, smart and reasonable guy - at\r\nleast as nice, smart and reasonable as an insurance guy can be. He\'s\r\nbeen a disaster guy for 20 years, doing just this kind of work -\r\nparticularly with hurricanes. So after he\'s been looking at the house\r\nfor a while, I finally ask the question I\'ve been losing sleep over:\r\ncan we rebuild this, or do we have to tear it down. And, much to my\r\nrelief, he answers without even pausing that we can fix it. He then\r\ndescribes the issues we\'ll face - but I don\'t really care at that\r\npoint. Just the relief of hearing that we aren\'t looking at a total\r\nloss means I can breathe easy (not deeply, though; remember, it\r\nsmells...)\r\n\r\nPretty soon, the workers have finished the back half of the house and\r\nmove to the front half. That\'s where we knew it would be hader. The\r\nback of the house is sheetrock, which is easy to remove. The front of\r\nthe house is sheetrock covered plaster. Plaster is a bear to remove,\r\nbut lots of people suggest that you may not have to. So, they\'ve take\r\nout a sledgehammer and trying hitting it in a few places to see how\r\nstrong the plaster is - and most of it seems pretty strong and solid\r\n(another step forward). So they remove the sheetrock.\r\n\r\nNow we\'re starting to run short of the 3 hours allotted for the crew\r\nat my house, so they start working faster and faster at demolition and\r\nless and less at cleanup. Then poof - the clock strikes 12, and the\r\ncrew packs up and heads to Treys house to work. Way back in this\r\nemail, I mentioned that it was a mixed blessing to be first with the\r\ncrew. We had a lot of work to do, and no time to organize. The good\r\nthing, though, was we had a fresh crew. From what we heard, they were\r\nquickly tiring throughout the rest of the day. So we got a lot of\r\nwork done in the time we had them, and we needed it.\r\n\r\nBut now I was looking at about a half-a-house full of sheetrock lying\r\non the floors. So I got a shovel and a trash can and bags and started\r\nshoveling. And spent the next 5 hours shoveling wet sheetrock into a\r\ntrash can, dragging it through the house and unloading the bag at the\r\ncurb.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, what is Noel doing? After finishing packing china, she\r\nmoves on to tackle the one task that really hurt. We lost a lot of\r\nstuff in the house. We lost a lot of crap that I\'ll never think about\r\nagain. We lost some stuff that we really liked, but will replace.\r\nBut Noel sat down to pull out several shelves filled with all of our\r\nphoto albums (except our wedding album - every time we\'ve evacuated,\r\nthat album has come with us). That was hard. We had talked the week\r\nbefore about how we might be able to save some of them, but as soon as\r\nwe pulled out the first, we knew it was a lost cause. They were\r\nfalling apart in her hands. So, all of them went straight to the\r\ntrash pile. And, to add insult to injury - soaked photo albums weigh\r\na ton.\r\n\r\n*Nothing* I have ever done in my life compares to this day in terms of\r\nphysical exertion. I was spent when we called it a day at 6pm. I\r\ndrank several gallons of water, and lost all of it (and more) in\r\nsweat. And, worst of all, I didn\'t finish the damn job. So, I get to\r\ngo back and keep shovelling. Yipee.\r\n\r\nBut, I ramble. In the end, we\'ve thrown out just about everything\r\nfrom the first floor of the house. We\'ve chopped sheetrock out from\r\nalmost everywhere. We\'ve removed all of the baseboards from the first\r\nfloor. We\'ve sprayed the growing mold with bleach. We\'ve left\r\nwindows and doors open (didn\'t have much of a choice about the doors)\r\nto try and keep some air circulating.\r\n\r\nWe\'ve learned some interesting things about our house as we opened the\r\nwalls. We\'ve found plaster in unexpected places (which means parts of\r\nthe house are older than we thought), and didn\'t find plaster in some\r\nplaces we thought (which means it was enclosed at different times, or\r\nmight have been doorways in a prior life). We\'ve found little hidden\r\nnooks and crannys that had long since been covered up. We\'re going to\r\ndo some remodeling when we start to rebuild, and now I\'ve got all\r\nsorts of ideas bopping around in my head.\r\n\r\nLast thought: I know I\'ve mentioned that it stunk. And it was hot.\r\nBut I didn\'t mention what struck me the most as I stood on the street\r\nlooking around our neighborhood: brown. Everything was brown.\r\nEverthing besides the trees (flowers, grass, shrubs) was dead. And\r\nnot just dead, it was all covered with a thin brown sludge. Tree\r\nlimbs that had fallen were covered with it, and their leaves were\r\nbrown. The street was covered with the sludge. Everything was brown.\r\n When I was in the city while it was flooded, it seemed colorful. All\r\nyou could see them (above the water) were the houses, their paints,\r\nthe trees which still looked green, if somewhat more barren than\r\nbefore. Now that the flood waters are gone, all you see is what was\r\nbelow. Just a brown, dead, mess.\r\n\r\nI put up some pictures of the house after we finished what we could:\r\nhttp://dev.priorartisans.com/paul/katrina/katrina1.html. The one\r\npicture that still strikes me is the one of our backyard: brown.\r\n\r\nBut - The grass and plants will grow back. Our house will be rebuilt.\r\n Our neighborhood will come back. We saw several neighbors cleaning\r\nout their house, and not one talked of leaving or not rebuilding.\r\nYes, I\'m worried about living in New Orleans; what if this happens\r\nagain? But it is my home now (sorry, Mom and Dad - Wisconsin is still\r\nvery very near and dear to me). I really can\'t see living somewhere\r\nelse.\r\n\r\nLots of steps backwards. Then tonight, Trey came over to dinner. He\r\nhad went back to his house again today. After visiting his house, he\r\nstopped by his parents house. And he salvaged two small photo albums\r\nof Carrie when she was born and baptized. After having lost our photo\r\nalbums, we thought we had lost all of the pictures of Carrie (way back\r\nin the days before digital cameras). But Trey came through.\r\n\r\nOne giant step forward to start a new week.