I can’t help but think about the residents in the path of Hurricane Gustav. After spending a week in Lake Charles with Rebuilding Together just a couple of months ago, I feel a strong connection to the area and I have to say that news about potentially devastating weather approaching the area is much more meaningful to me than it was before.

As of now, I haven’t received confirmation that Mrs. DeJean and Mr. Keleman (the two homeowners we assisted back in June – watch the video here) have been able to move back into their homes yet. But if not, they were at least very close. While I do hope that the most devastating part of the storm misses Lake Charles (Mrs. DeJean has spent nearly 3 years in a FEMA trailer park waiting for here home to be suitable to return to), I also realize that the storm has already done damage to other areas and is likely to continue its devastation where it makes landfall. Residents in the area will be needing help of all kinds. If you are able, please consider helping out in some way. There are few things that you can do that have a greater purpose than helping someone in need.

En route to Houston

“We made the front page!” shouted John Bruhn as he burst through the kitchen door of the Southwest Louisiana Volunteer center. “We made the front page!”

The day before yesterday, a rookie reporter showed up at the Mrs. DeJean’s place sent out by his editor to find a community interest story. He spoke with everyone and put together a piece that the paper decided to run with as their lead piece, complete with a four-color photo front and center.

Boy was that a boost to team moral. Not that it was drooping in this hard-driving group, but recognition for a job well done is always appreciated.

Yesterday was all about the electrical inspector. Electrical inspectors: can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em. We tried to organize our day around the arrival of the electrical inspector, but in the end it was no go.

We packed up the new-found glow from the newspaper article and headed off to the job site. It was great how everybody on the team prepared themselves to do whatever it took to ready themselves to complete our work, if only the inspector would come. We made sure we got Mrs. DeJean to the permit office first thing in the morning to apply for building, plumbing and electrical permits. We knew the crew would be doing finishing touches for the morning without the usual plate full of tasks to accomplish. And that, if we were lucky, we would have a frenzied afternoon of work trying to finish.

John Bruhn was so great, making sure we had lights available for evening work if needed. He is great about making sure there are no excuses for not completing our appointed rounds.

The electrical crew, now known as Southpaw Electric (both Eileen and Ben are left handed), had some needed work to accomplish before the inspector arrived: hard-wired smoke detectors in the 3 bedrooms (and the six-foot long hallway!), two outside outlets, and the installation of arc-fault breakers (a safety device that disables a circuit in the event of any intrusion into the electrical flow, e.g. a nail driven through a wire).

Those tasks were dispatched in relatively short order and we stood ready to screw the sheetrock home, close up the walls post-inspection and put a bow on the whole enterprise for Mrs. DeJean. But by about 2 PM, most of the crew left to pack up and clean up our volunteer housing center, leaving the Southpaws, John, Graylyn, Kevin, Dave, Nick & Nate in case the inspector showed.

But by 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, it was clear even to the huddled hopeful that no inspector would show. So we saddled up and moved out, securing the place carefully to await Mrs. DeJean’s return. She still has work to complete, but with the other disaster relief funds, she could get a contractor to finish this off in a few weeks.

While talking to the photographer, the day before, Eileen had obtained a restaurant recommendation. We were getting a little bit tired of cooking for the 25 person crew (actually, Eva, Linda Pam & Natasha did most of it – Thank you, thank you) in the institutional kitchen and wanted some local color, especially in Louisiana, so known for its good food.

Steamboat Bill’s was the recommendation that came back, and Susan Mestayer, our fearless leader, seconded the nomination. We had a great time, eating crawfish and combination seafood platters. Brian Houston entertained us with crawdad finger puppets using the discarded crawdad heads.

All in all, it was feel-good week with a ton of accomplishment, putting Mrs DeJean on a good footing to finally complete her rebuilding and get her life back on track. We will look back on the new friendships we made, the relationships forged and the skills learned from our time in Lake Charles. Unanimously, we want to encourage each and every one of you to participate in an effort like this. It is a chance to give back to your fellow man and it will change your life.

We were fortunate to meet the owner of the house today. She dropped by as the exterior was being painted. It was an amazing experience to see how the work we’ve been doing is having an obvious impact. When Ms. DeJean and her son walked in the front door, she had tears in her eyes and all she said was “Oh my God”. After she made her way through her home, she thanked us over and over before she left.

After the work day, Susan Mestayer, the Executive Director of Rebuilding Together Calcasieu, cooked gumbo for us back at the housing center and then spoke to us from her heart as the Executive Director, as a mom of 2 children, and as a resident of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana which suffered devastation 3 years ago due to hurricane Rita but did not have the same national and global spotlight that New Orleans received. All of us had an opportunity to speak about what this week has meant to us. This week has really changed us all.

I spent another day hanging sheetrock. We have completed hanging the sheetrock on all of the walls and ceilings on the right half of the house, and all of the ceilings except for the closets and one room are complete. We did find out late today that before the power is turned on, an inspection will have to be done since the power has been off for a couple of years. The (hopefully) good news is that we don’t think the inspection is like a city inspection for a permit for occupancy in a new construction. Probably more of a safety inspection. The electrical is certainly much better than it was before and is now up to code. We feel confident that the work will pass inspection. The only downside is that the sheetrock crew will definitely not be closing off walls until the inspector approves the work, and we may be removing some panels if the inspector needs to see the work behind the walls that are finished. Well, I guess there is another downside too – we don’t know when the inspector will be over to the house. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that the local Rebuilding Together Director can pull some strings and get an inspector to the house early. We only have 2 more days to work and really want to finish up, although we have completed the 3 primary items the homeowner really wanted done this week.

Once at the house, work began promptly as everyone just knew what needed to be done and picked up where they left off yesterday. Within a couple of hours, several people were running out of work and really needed the material delivery to arrive. The delivery arrived in the late morning and by lunch, the sheetrock on the ceilings was complete for half of the house. The ceilings on the other half of the house are not available yet to install the sheetrock, so after lunch the sheetrock team began installing sheetrock on the walls in the back bedroom area. Most of the floor joist repairs were also completed today – I believe only one joist remains to be repaired before flooring replacement can begin.

Based on today’s progress, we remain optimistic that we will complete most if not all of the wish list goals we set. Check back for tomorrow’s update.

I went with an early group to the DeJean house – the house requiring more extensive work. We left the facility before 7:00 AM and arrived at the house in about 10 minutes. This house is basically in a gutted condition. All sheetrock has been removed as has much of the flooring. We’ve been told that the owner of the home has been promised so many times that her home would be completed only to have her hopes dashed when the work did not get done successfully. Most recently, a group completed the sheetrock but it had to be removed because of electrical problems.

Our goal is to complete the rewiring, plumbing, flooring, and the sheetrock on the ceilings. We would really like to complete all of the sheetrock, siding repair, and painting as well, but we’ll see how things go.

We are very fortunate to have some very skilled people on the project this week, including a master carpenter, an electrician, and several people who have successfully completed diverse rebuilding projects similar to this one. We found out that the crew who removed the sheetrock did not remove the nails and screws, so to get the ceilings and walls ready to receive sheetrock, we will need to remove them.

As other groups began working on removing existing wiring, repairing siding, or assessing damage to flooring and joists, I and a few others began removing nails, staples, and screws from the ceilings and wall studs. By the end of the day, all existing electrical wiring had been removed, new wiring had been pulled, electrical outlet boxes had been installed, all damaged flooring had been removed (including some sections to the joists), most damaged siding sections had been removed and replaced, and all ceilings and wall studs were free of nails and screws and were ready to receive sheetrock. In addition to removing nails and screws, I had an opportunity to remove damaged flooring and reframe interior door headers.

Everyone agreed that it was a very successful start and that tremendous progress was made. We think we have an excellent chance of meeting the extra wish list goals we set.

The housing center is a former school, approximately 40 years old. There are separate dorms for boys and girls with bunk beds spaced about 3 feet apart. We had a brief orientation and each had the opportunity to introduce ourselves and say a little about why we decided to come for the rebuilding. There is a very diverse group. Some have volunteered with Rebuilding Together, Christmas in October, Habitat for Humanity, or other similar causes for as many as 20 years. While there many like myself who have never participated in an event like this before. The person in charge of this week’s effort is John Bruhn, a former employee of the company I work for. He has been retired for several years and has been involved with Christmas in October for 20 years. John arrived earlier last week to scope out the projects we will be working on this week. John has a tremendous enthusiasm for this project, and I’m certain we are lucky to have someone with his experience, enthusiasm, and compassion to lead the effort this week.

After the orientation and introductions, everyone turned in feeling anxious and excited to begin the week. There are two homes on the schedule this week. One will involve primarily a demolition of a very large shed or storage building. The other one will involve a much more comprehensive rebuilding effort with everything from a complete electrical rewiring, plumbing repair, flooring, and sheetrock, to siding repair and painting.

We left home just before noon which should have given me plenty of time to get to the airport to catch my 2:30 flight to Houston-Hobby Airport. Unfortunately, there were a couple of MARTA delays along the way where the train had to stop for a couple of minutes. If I had caught the train that was leaving as I came up the escalator, I would have made it comfortably. As it turns out, I was exactly 4 minutes too late to self check my bags at the Delta Kiosk and was instructed to go to the Kiosk Assistant counter. My scheduled flight was on-time, so I missed that one. Luckily, the Delta agent was able to get me on the 4:35 flight. I’m supposed to be meeting 7 of my co-workers from other regional offices and leaving Houston in 2 rental vans. Now I’ll be arriving 2 hours later than originally planned, so I feel like I’m getting off to a really bad start and letting the group down by being late. I’ve called several of the others to notify them of my changed flight and left messages that if they need to leave before I arrive, I’ll pick up a separate rental car and meet them at the Volunteer Center in Lake Charles later this evening.