Monday and a snake

We arrived at camp at 7 a.m. The people making lots and lots of money after Katrina -- or any disaster, really -- are contracters hired by your federal government. Companies seem to only exist for these type of contracts. Exhibit A are the tough looking Rent A Cops who "protect" the camp. Protect what on the? The Birkenstock crunchy folk from New Jersey? The hot chocolate in the mess tent? Anyway, like Chicago's finest, these rotund and very self-important Rent A Cops dwell in large numbers and their activities involve sitting in chairs, sitting in golf carts, smoking cigarettes, chatting each other up, and generally looking cool in their buzz cuts, shades and faux military gear. Women on our team told me that the noise them made through the night -- stomping around next to the tent, talking loudly -- kept any of the ACTUAL WORKERS from getting sleep. Again, they have no function except to yell at you if you exit the wrong way.

They are worthless. About eight of them sit around the guard shack at the front gate. In the total of three times I've entered the compound since Sunday, I was given three different directives for where to park. I'm told be a Habitat person that this is a choice gig for these guys as they're making lots of money. Who knows, maybe they were supplied by Halliburton.

We are told we're getting on the bus after 7 a.m., but it's really around 8 a.m. Our group consists of 11 people. They are pretty varied by age, consisting of a few fiftysomething women, a sunny couple from San Diego, a couple my age from DC and that's about it. Everyone is enthusiastic.

So we all get on the bus finally and, to the sound of morning drive classic rock, head off to St. Bernard Parish.

St. Bernard is more or less a suburb. It is one neighborhood removed from the Lower Ninth Ward. The Lower Ninth was all black, the homes were wood and small and the place is an utter ghost town and in shambles. St. Bernard is somewhat mixed racially (85 percent white I'm told), also a ghost town and in complete shambles. However, due to the economic divide, these homes were larger and brick. The homes also had more stuff. St. Bernard was described to me as a working class neighborhood and what I saw made me think, more or less, that it was populated by the same people who live on Chicago's NW Side.

Both these neighborhoods took water to the ceiling or higher and the water sat there for a few weeks. But no holes in roofs because these people had the means to leave town. So once we arrived at the home — a nice little bungalow home to a couple and, we presume from the stuff we hauled out, two young daughters — we entered a total mess. Imagine if you grabbed a few suitcases full of some stuff for a weekend trip, left your home with your family and expected to return three days later. Except it's not three days, it's eight months. And swamp water filled your home to the ceiling and in some cases, the attic. That's the scene we came upon in St. Bernard's.

Here's our block:

Here's the entrance to our house. Like most of the homes here, the couple left their name and cell phone on the wall so neighbors can find them. Notice the rosary placed over the shudder's edge.

The water became mud so what was essentially a mud blanket was over everything. Quintessential visuals like stuffed animals (lots of them, from a Teddy Bear to any assortment of animals), the Finding Nemo DVD were in the wreckage, dishes were in the dishwasher still, CDs and records were everywhere and the closets were stuffed wtih clothes. I would have provided photos of all of this but as luck would have it, my batteries died on my camera. So the photos that follow are from after we worked on the house and after I found a Kwik E Mart to purchase batteries (itself a feat considering nothing is open here and traffic lights are dead. the only things open are the occassional bar and gas station and of course the insurance office).

From the time we arrived to about eight hours later we hauled out the crap, knocked down drywall, tore down insulation. I started shoveling debris in the living room until finally I could see a wooden floor. Then I went to the back sun room where I worked solo, hauling away tons of stuff including speakers, stereo, piles of mud caked with CDs, records (Bad Company to Dean Martin), bank statements, window blinds, tiles, chairs, and a chest filled with antique glassware. I then grew tired of that and moved back into the front room and tore down drywall until finishing.

We were instructed to bring debris out and make three piles: the largest was general debris, then there were piles for hazardous debris from the medicine chest, another for electrical and another for personal belongings.

Here's the pile of general debris we hauled out by day's end:
It's much more expansive than what it looks like. Here's a hazardous pile:

Here's a food pile. Pickles and Coke anyone?

Here's the electrical pile:

Here's the house the way it looks after today. I wish I could have a "before" shot to compare. Believe me, it was the type of mess that makes people wonder where to start.

The personal belongings set aside were jewelry and a shotgun, plus ballerina trophies from the two girls, a wedding dress luckily encased in plastic (but still with mold), and cups from the world's fair in New Orleans.

Oh yeah, and the snake. The snake wasn't a pet. It was found in the kitchen by Rob (who, like me, weeps at the sight of snakes) and two co-workers. I was in the sun room next door. I heard silence and then our team leader suddenly announced everyone needs to leave. They saw something wiggling under the sink and thought it was two baby snakes. Turns out it was one baby water moccasin, you know, the deadly snake they put up on the slide projector Sunday night and told us were extremelly venomous? So in what was one of many surreal moments, we sat in the car port of the abandoned house next door (well, all homes here are abandoned), munched our sandwiches and waited for a fire dept. guy to come out. He did and our team leader and him went inside to get the snake. In fact they brought it out from the sink with a rake and the other guy chopped off its head and it proceeded to lunge at him. San Diego guy asked if it was given last rites before the chopping, but sadly the answer was no.

We're going back there Tuesday to finish the house and then move onto the next one. In this neighborhood -- essentially a subdivision -- there was no sign of life but people from other charity groups. I will upload photos I look of all of this in the next post.