Our Rebuilding Experiences

Our time here in New Orleans is flying by! We just finished up our second day of work and our teams are doing a great job. I thought you might like to hear a little about what each of our three teams are doing and the homeowners they are working with. Today Amy & Katie are going to tell you a little about their experience drywalling:

We're working on a house in a neighborhood that was hit pretty hard and sustained quite a bit of damage. Our homeowners are Angie and Richard who are engaged, and her 12 year old son Dennis. Before the storm the house was one story with 2 bedrooms and 1 and a half bathrooms. When the storm hit the water reached 8 feet, nearly to the ceiling, and remained at 4 feet for several weeks afterwards. As you can imagine everything inside and outside the house was pretty much destroyed. When they came back after about 4 months they decided to rebuild. Now there is going to be 2 stories with 4 bedrooms and 2 and a half baths. Angie inherited the house 8 years ago from her mother, who had always wanted to expand to 2 stories. The couple has lost $17,000 due to crooked contractors. After the first rain since being re-roofed, the ceiling leaked and ruined the brand-new sheet rock. So here we find ourselves with the privilege to be the drywall crew for these amazing people.

Our team consists of our fearless leader Ben S. who is so good that other team leaders feel they need to call him for further instruction. He is assisted by the peons: Brad, Anja, Erin, Amanda, Nick, Amy, Katie and our bus driver/construction guru, Cory. Our days consist of the installation of insulation, the meticulous science of measuring and cutting, holding slabs of sheet rock above our heads for minutes on end, drilling in screws like there's no tomorrow and visiting the local hardware store to use the bathroom. Our progress is rockin'! With 2 and a half rooms down, the forecast for the rest of the week is looking pretty good. Although talent does make up for the hang-ups, we have encountered faulty framing, a lack of supplies and being too short - well, for some of us... We're having a blast though, and Angie promised to send pictures of the final product.

Today we got to meet Angie's neighbor Miss Janette, and her husband Mr. Roosevelt, who live down the street and graciously lend us the use of their trailer's toilet. They recently moved back into their house and were excited to show off their new floors and counter-tops to us. Miss Janette told us stories of some of the aftermath of the hurricane and showed us pictures of the damage it left behind. We couldn't believe the difference in the before and after, you wouldn't be able to tell it's the same house. Even though the neighborhood as a whole sustained some severe damage, most of the neighbors are planning to come home.

Even though we've only been working for a few days, it's already starting to look like a house again, and we're hoping to finish as much as we can so that Angie and Richard can move in as soon as possible. And with a kickin' team like this it looks very doable. Boo ya!

Check back tomorrow for updates about the other teams!

(posted by Rebecca, Amy & Katie on Tuesday, March 13, 2007)