Our groups have consisted of men and women, teenagers, and seniors. Both those
who are mechanically adept and those who are not safe to be around tools. What
we have found in everyone is a desire to help and answer the call. It has been
great and incredibly gratifying and now barely two weeks after our last trip,
we are getting calls about trip #6!!!
I can attest to the enthusiasm and hard
work that our contingent of 36 brought to this latest trip.
So glad that you were able to join us on our fifth Katrina re-building
trip. After our first trip in September 2006, I wrote an essay about my
experience and shared it with friends and anyone who was curious about what we
saw and did. I go back to it before each subsequent trip as a barometer to
gauge progress. What is remarkable is how much is still the same some four
years later.
Tell us
a little more about that, Larry.
What I still see is the monumental failure of the authorities and the
indiscriminate fury of nature. However, I also still see the incredible resolve
of those who are still there and of the thousands of volunteers who have
stepped up to help total strangers.
When I've spoken to each group, I get them to think back to what they saw on
TV. I also like to focus on what still amazes me and sometimes haunts my memory
of what I have seen. It comes down to the absolute silence that one can find in
what used to be thriving neighborhoods. That is why I ask them to walk to an
intersection and look in all four directions; look and listen. No homes with
cars in the driveway. No children. No birds. No noise.
When you
pointed that out when we were out working in St. Bernard Parish, I suddenly
became very aware of that silence, too. Looking at the desolation all these
years later, it was almost impossible to imagine it was once a bustling
neighborhood.
Yes. St Bernard Parish was a very close-knit area just outside New Orleans. A
lot of hard working folks living there for generations. Low unemployment with a
high percentage of home ownership. Almost 100% of all the residential and
commercial structures were deemed uninhabitable after the storm.
I try to get the volunteers that come with us to understand what
it would be like for people like ourselves. After all, Katrina was an equal
opportunity disaster. It did not discriminate. Imagine, no phone, no computers,
no TV, no electricity, no working ATM card. Only the cash you had in your
pocket as you ran for your life.
Now you are in a strange city and do not know where your friends are. Where
your family may be. If they are all alive and if you can ever go home. Then
after several weeks, you do go home and your business may be gone. Your
furniture is ruined. Your clothing is not wearable. Yet the worst thing is everything that cannot be replaced: pictures, grandma's dishes, your father's
watch and many other items are gone.
I try to let folks know that this place changes you if you pay attention and
take it all in. I hope that they do.
So true. I know I feel different, almost
haunted by all those stories. We have a responsibility to not turn away or close our ears. Let's take a break. When we return, we'll
talk more about how you put this trip together and how things are, at the same
time, both the same and different, four years after Katrina.
Part two of my interview with Larry
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