New Orleans--2 1/2 Years Later
My son and I just returned from New Orleans after spending 6 days with our church group helping with the restoration efforts. My first reaction to the devastating areas surrounding the city, is that it is just heart breaking! So many homes destroyed, so many lives uprooted, so many families displaced. Driving around the neighborhoods...they are ghost towns. Maybe 3-4 houses on each block are inhabited again...or at least trying to. Some neighborhoods have no one at all. This disaster hit low income families as well as the middle class. FEMA's money was mismanaged and some families got very little. Insurance companies did not pay much if any at all to others. The news media does not depict the horrible circumstances that still remain after two and one half years later. Maybe there has been a lot of clean up, but the rebuilding is slow and much of the population has not returned either. They are seriously hurting. I took nearly 400 photos of my time there. I will try to share as many as I can in these next few days/weeks. I hope that my writings and photos will help you to understand how much more help the people of New Orleans need!
Many of the homes have been deserted. Lots of people still have their mortgages to pay with no home to live in. Most of the houses are gutted like this one here. The beams need to be bleached to rid of any lingering mold, nails need to be pulled before insulation and sheet rock can be placed again. All new appliances are needed for these homes too.
This was a shed we cleaned out for a lady. The water was up to the ceiling. Everything was ruined--heavy duty machinery, a horse's saddle, fishing gear, collectibles and so much more. It was difficult to throw things away, knowing that it was someone's life you were just tossing into the dumpster.
This was the truck we filled with all of the debris from the shed. It took us all day to clean this shed out. It was dusty, very dirty and smelled foul.
This is the shed all cleaned out.
This is the group who did the job this day. There were 13 of us in all. We traveled with 37 people in our group--everyone had different jobs to do each day.
I will share more photos and stories on my blog as soon as I am able to post again.
I count my blessings everyday--and pray for more help for the people of New Orleans. I only wish I could have done more during my visit.
