New Children's Library at All Souls Church in the Lower Ninth Ward

One of the LeMoyne College students' projects during last week with Operation Southern Comfort in New Orleans was to clean, sheetrock and paint unfinished parts of the church. This beautiful library was only a dream before last week! 

St. Bernard Parish LA Houses

Every building in St. Bernard Parish LA, just south and east of New Orleans, was inundated during Hurricane Katrina. No building was spared. These homes, all within 3 blocks of the Mississippi River, are behind the levee and on slightly higher ground than those farther from the river, and all of these sat in water 8-10 feet deep (which came from the opposite direction, not from the river) for a period of up to two weeks. 

Almost all of the homes in this particular area in Old Arabi have been rehabbed. The crew with which I worked gutted a house here during our week in St. Bernard with Operation Southern Comfort. It was among the last to be saved before the Parish would have condemned it and taken it down.

Gutting a house means removing the interior down to wood walls, and beyond if there are termites (of which there always are some), pulling nails, taking up tile and linoleum, and hauling everything outside and into the biggest dumpster available. Next steps include steam cleaning for mold and fumigation against termites.  Then the rebuilding can begin.

Most of the houses are shotguns, meaning that, in the most literal sense, one could look through the front door and out the back door with 4-5 rooms between.

There are also double shotguns for two families. These were traditionally built for multiple generations of the same family, a couple and the parents of one of them, and later a child of the couple with his or her own family.

Shot-guns may have a camelback attached to the rear of the house...a single room addition, or two stories and several rooms.

The appearance of the front of the home, facing the street, remains the same. The effect is lovely. No two homes are quite alike; paint combinations are personal choice and pleasing; trim is unique. 

Old Arabi, St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana

Operation Southern Comfort is a not-for-profit that organizes and supports 6 trips a year from Central New York to places hard-hit and still recovering from Hurricane Katrina five-and-a-half years later, particularly to St. Bernard Parish just south and east of New Orleans.

This week I have joined a group of 110 people including 80 college students from SUNY Oswego and LeMoyne College for a week of work sandwiched between 2-day drives from CNY each way.

We left home last Saturday and began working bright and early Monday morning. It is cold here this week with daytime temperatures in the 40s and 50s and nighttime temps in the 30s and 40s.

The group of Oswego students with whom I am working has responsibility for gutting half of a double shotgun house. The house, and every other house and business in all of St. Bernard Parish, was under several feet of water for weeks following Katrina and the breakdown of flood control in its aftermath.

Difficult circumstances have kept the owner of the house from taking on the task any sooner. It is a painful week for her as she recognizes, describes and touches, and finally lets go of, material representing a lifetime of memories.

Shown here is a room from which furniture and personal items have been removed and sheetrock has been taken down. The guys are pulling nails. In coming weeks, after we leave, the house will be steam cleaned to remove mold and dust, and sprayed for pests including termites.

Not knowing where to start or how to describe this week, I will just find a place, this place, to begin. Please bear with me, and feel free to ask questions in the Comments area.