D'Iberville Mississippi Trip

4/22/08

Saint John's Trip to D'Iberville, Mississippi

A group of 11 folks of varying ages went to New Orleans on the way to D'Iberville Mississippi to help a group called the D'Iberville Volunteer Foundation restore housing lost as a result of hurricane Katrina 2 ½ years ago.

We flew uneventfully to New Orleans and arrived Saturday afternoon to pick up two vans and head for the Chapel House, a facility owned and operated by the Episcopal Diocese of New Orleans. Do gooder tourism is helping the area economy because a number of groups from all over arrived about the same time we did. We moved into the dormitory style accommodations and quickly parceled ourselves into young women (Vicki, Sarah and Bailey), slightly less young women (Martha, Cindy, Joyce and Masha) and the gents (David, John C, John I and Jim). A woman was there who had been working on housing in New Orleans and had been living at Chapel House for several months. She was too tuckered to join us as we left to take a look at the French Quarter.

We played dodge-ems in vans and finally found places to park near the French Quarter and got out to stretch our legs and walk around. The place was fairly busy as a weekend bash was going on and the thing to do was walk all over town with some sort of drink in your hand. One drink , the hand grenade, was billed as the strongest in New Orleans. It was served in a container shaped like its namesake near the bottom and flaring at the top. My general impression of the area was of a run down but relatively litter free area with lots of folks drinking and milling around while jazz was pumped out of various establishments and played by one band in the street. This area had been under several feet of water after the hurricane. I guess this is the famous culture that will cost billions to keep from getting drowned again. Our tax dollars at work.

We enjoyed a dinner together then went back to Chapel House to get some rest after a long day. Sunday started with a trip back to the French Quarter and to Café Du Monde for a breakfast of beignets (pronounced bey-YAY). Beignets are French dough nuts for which New Orleans is famous. Judging from the traffic and the wait in line, Café Du Monde is the place to buy them. My breakfast came with 3 beignets and grease spots on the bag as a sign of freshness. Included was about a cup of powdered sugar. It turns out that Beignets are the Louisiana state doughnut. More famous culture.

While waiting for others to finish, I went outside to a memorial of sorts and climbed three full flights of stairs to see what was at the top. Turns out at the top is a walkway along the Industrial Canal. The Industrial Canal is a waterway about three times as wide as the Connecticut at Hartford and able to carry good size shipping between the Gulf/Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain. That's a lot of water to be 15 or more feet above street level. With all the grease, I expect Café Du Monde would pop right to the surface when next the water tops the adjacent levee. More billions to save famous culture.

I don't swim all that well and was glad when we went to higher ground at the Cathedral for a presentation on hurricane relief activities of the Diocese of New Orleans followed by a full smells and bells mass. The sermon was pretty good: the Good Shepherd and sheep simile doesn't mean one should follow mindlessly. Think for yourself. During the prayers of the people we prayed for six folks by name and one "unidentified male" all of whom had been shot during the previous week in New Orleans. More famous culture.

After coffee hour and some meet and greet we met Pete. He works for the diocese coordinating hurricane relief volunteers and climbed in a van to tour parts of the city made famous by unwanted water. Cell phones put on speaker helped us all hear what he had to say.

The famous 9th ward was typical. Houses washed to the roofline or more which we saw in plan view on TV after the hurricane. Most had a big X spray painted. In the 4 quadrants were the unit inspecting the house, the date of inspection, a big zero (hopefully) and something else I don't remember. If not a zero, the number told how many bodies were inside. The X's were often near the roofline indicating where a person in a boat would easily reach when spraying. The dates were as much as a month after the flooding began. As one imagines the water level in the bowl New Orleans became, one remembers that the soup ingredients were gas from cars and mowers, sewage, chemicals from everywhere, dead folks and pets and water. Lots of water. The water did what water does in a bowl: it sat. In my youth along the Mississippi and the Missouri, we often joked that the water was too thick to drink and too thin to plow so the soup had heaps of sediment that stayed as the water was finally pumped out. No one in the 9th will need to fertilize their lawns for a long, long time. I figured the concrete roads would be heaved all over the place from the flooding and ground saturation. Turns out the roads were level although the concrete was pretty spalled out. Lower on the house folks had sprayed insurance company names and policy numbers in hopes of expediting claims. Great big X’s added later by the city indicated that if the grass doesn’t get cut and restoration begin soon, the city will raze the building.

Most of the houses were vacant. Turns out that New Orleans has a high percentage of poor (no insurance) and renters (it ain't mine, I'm outta here). If someone moves back they have nowhere to shop or get supplies, and since population is way down retail outlets see no point in moving in. Chickens and eggs. One bright spot, however. Almost all the relief workers were men so X rated video rental places opened quickly and did land office business. Imagine the possibilities for an exotic dancer with a pair of waders and rowboat.

The law of unintended consequences was rampant. A renter who wanted to move back couldn't get a FEMA trailer because they couldn't show they owned a place to park it. Condominium owners couldn't get the OK to rebuild because the neighbor might not be in a rebuilding mood so the common walls couldn't be worked on. So it goes. We drove past rows and rows of vacant houses and abandoned apartment complexes. Some folks had insurance, but that was problematic. If you had flood damage, the insurer said sorry, your insurance is for wind damage. If you had flood insurance, guess what. Yep, must have been wind driving the water. Allstate apparently made itself a particular object of scorn.

So goodbye to Pete and off to a quick (almost) lunch and then D'Iberville. The vans were pretty comfortable to sleep in; we tested this. A pretty straight shot through what earth does to deal with hurricanes: meanders, swamps and dense vegetation that slows down wind and water absorbing the latter. All the stuff the citizens of New Orleans had removed over the years.

Remember pictures of a 1930's WPA camp? That's what the DVF (D'iberville Volunteer Foundation) looks like. D'Iberville (known in the 80's as North Biloxi until the new city was incorporated) took the brunt of the hurricane which made a pretty clean sweep. No one has basements so the slabs that once were floors of houses are everywhere. All are about 700-1000 square feet. The city before the hurricane had about 8000 residents.

The DVF has a president, Irene McIntosh and a vice president, Ed Cake. Irene is PhD in psychology and professor at a college in Mobile. Ed is PhD in Environmental Science and a former professor. They run a well oiled machine and are long time friends. Very good friends. Irene is hard work and inspiration, Ed is hard work and planning/management. Each can fill in for the other. Both are heavily faith based. They started DVF with the then mayor just after the hurricane and at first just got basics and food to the residents. DVF grew to become the city's main volunteer group intent on rebuilding D'Iberville.

Here's how it works: Through heavy dissemination of information on local needs they get volunteer groups (sometimes busloads) and supply them with tools and materials from grants, donations, scrounging and whatever. Each property has an owner who wants to rebuild and a clipboard listing what needs to be done. Teams are assigned appropriate work and they go figure out what they need. Then to the several supply sheds for tools and some materials then visit Ed to get Lowe's gift cards and/or a check for supplies. Then off to work. The masthead on the DVF website says "405 houses completed out of 1240 damaged and 370 destroyed. 410 in progress”. Completed + in progress = 2/3 of the houses damaged in D'Iberville. Not too shabby for a volunteer operation.

When we volunteered there were about 70 folks of various ages and from various Hartford County churches, about 100 folks from central Pennsylvania with a group called Lend a Hand (some of whom had been down a dozen or more times), and a few other groups from here and there. Overall about 200 people and we filled up the facility. The day started with breakfast call (cereal, bagels and rolls) followed by lunch line where each made their own bag lunch. Dinner was served the same way; by streaming through a chow line. There was a wedding tent with tables that served as mess hall and general meeting area, and some folks ate on their laps here and there.

Saint John's folks formed two teams: John I, John C, Masha, Sarah, Vicky and Bailey on team 1 and David, Martha, Cindy, Joyce and Jim on team 2. Jim and John I went to a meeting on Sunday where Ed Cake parceled out jobs. Jim volunteered for electrical work and John took on reworking all surfaces (ALL surfaces) of a house.

Monday was some fits and starts as we all sorted out our assignments.

As you might imagine, there is a lot of faith and hope in how the work will fare, and a fellow from Pennsylvania named Dan Benninger who works as an electrician's apprentice was also assigned to the Saint John's wiring crew. The records on who was going to do what electrically were not all up to date so we ended up nearly starting at three houses before we finally settled for work on Bay Shore Drive, the house known as Maggie Seymour's. I'm glad it happened that way because we got a look at the city, saw several of the houses and how they were built, and met some of the people we would see as the week progressed including the Mennonite framers and a sort of roving site coordinator named Greg.

Maggie (Miss Maggie to us) and her husband live in a FEMA trailer out front of where their house once was. They had several dwellings on about 1.5 acres with waterfront until the hurricane decided otherwise. The property is one lot away from the I-10 bridge to Biloxi. Maggie is 78 and gets around pretty well. Her husband is in his 90's and spends much of his time in bed or nodding off in a chair. The land had been in Miss Maggie's husband's family for generations, and it was property nice for the area with frontage on the bay. They have a collection of dogs of various temperaments chained here and there, and they have a grandson Vinnie who lives in a tool shed out back and a granddaughter who was in hospital somewhere delivering a baby. Apparently Maggie has a sister in Philadelphia (MI not PA), a daughter in Florida and another daughter (the mother of the grandchildren) somewhere else.

Miss Maggie's house is going to be beautiful. It sits on 10' high wood 12" x 12" columns and has about 1300 square feet with full length porches front and back. The house has long stairways front and back and about 150' of ramp (2 switchbacks) for handicapped access. The front covered porch was framed with a large hole for future installation of an elevator. Views out the front window of the Back Bay of Biloxi, the high rise casinos in Biloxi and the route 110 bridge crossing the bay. Inside is an efficiency kitchen, 4 bedrooms, two full bathrooms and a large dining room/living room area. The dogs will get lots of exercise moving around.

When we arrived the Mennonites were finishing siding, forming and installing aluminum trim and beginning roofing. Greg's truck arrived shortly thereafter with about 6 volunteers in back. They got out and each started carrying bundles of shingles up the stairs to the back porch and so we had a static load test in progress. Not to be outdone, Cindy picked up a bundle (about 70 pounds) and brought it and perhaps a few others up on the porch.

We didn't have a wiring plan, we did have lots to do and limited time to do it so the first task was to find a productive job for everybody. Dan and I first parceled out jobs like bringing tools and materials, running an extension cord and beginning to drill wire passage holes. We then planned where to put the meter box, the outlets, the sub panel and so on. Lots of willing hands and we were on our way.

A wiring plan developed as we got our hands on a floor plan and began to do take-offs for materials. It is a great pleasure to do real useful work with good friends and we had great fun teaching each other, helping each other and giving each other grief. Dan fit right in and quickly became one of us.

Dan had come with the group from PA which included his father, sister and niece. I had expected him to work with us for a short while until Ed or Greg got a feel for our wiring abilities so Dan could go work with his friends. Either our shortcomings were obvious or Dan liked our company quite a lot. I think the latter. Dan worked with us all week and could be an honorary member of Saint Johns were he a churchgoer.

At the end of our first day we could see progress as some switch and receptacle boxes were nailed to the studs, lots of holes were drilled through top plates and what wire we had was put in place and stapled. I settled into doing take offs and parceling out jobs to the rest of the team and we used up the electrical stuff we had scrounged from the equipment sheds back at the camp. Orders from home base included “Don’t start before 8AM” and “Quit at 5PM.” Following the latter rule wasn’t hard as we were tuckered.

Back at camp we had a hearty camp style dinner and took Navy showers. A Navy shower has 4 steps: 1. Turn on the water and get wet all over. 2. Turn off the water and soap up. 3. Rinse off. 4. Get out. .

Each night at 7PM we had devotions. Miss Irene has a smooth delivery of stories of the area and its people in the aftermath of the hurricane. She wanted all of us to feel needed and appreciated, and has the art of conveying that feeling down pat. She teaches evening classes as well as some days and so Ed fills in. Both are clearly a gift to D’Iberville and its people as well as a gift to the volunteers for their deep faith in their mission and their guidance from above. Makes you want to grab a flashlight and go back to work each night. We took turns claiming accomplishment to wide applause from the group; we were clearly a gang of people with a uniform purpose: get this place fixed up.

Along the way we heard some local color about this family or that, about generally hapless government groups and nefarious contractors and the bra tree. The street signs washed away so giving directions to volunteers became problematic. Somehow a collection of brassieres got washed up into a tree and this made a fine landmark.

Each group took turns with a devotion. Some prayers, reading of tracts, singing and so on. Saint John’s women (no doubt guided by our artist in residence Masha) fixed up a shower curtain with the the words “I am here, Lord” and silhouettes of various tools. Masha got up a whole bucket of markers and invited everyone to write something on the shower curtain. Well received.

Each devotion and sharing ended with holding hands and singing a song (I am here, Lord) whose last verse is “I will hold your people in my arms” with arms raised. More urge to get a flashlight and go back at it.

Back to the tents for lights out at 10 PM and needed rest. The Saint John's men's tent was next to the Saint John's women's tent and I had a great joy each night while drifting off. I recognized the voices of good friends laughing and having a great time together so the day ended with considerable happiness. John Church said he really enjoyed how much fun Martha was having, and I'll bet David felt the same way about Masha.

Tuesday morning started with getting a check from Ed Cake and a trip to Lowe’s in D’Iberville. Interestingly, the majority of customers when we shopped were volunteers like us (we all had ID tags; mandatory for meals and the job sites). $750 later we had coils of Romex, a meter box, a panel box, wire nuts and connectors, and lots of miscellaneous electrical supplies. Back to Miss Maggie’s for another day’s work.

Later Tuesday morning I contacted Wallace, the D'Iberville building inspector to get a few particulars worked out on how the house was to be wired. My experience with building inspectors is that they are truculent types given to thinking of impediments to progress if you are lucky enough to get their attention at all. Wallace claimed I'd see him before lunch and there he was. I asked him a bunch of questions and got very helpful answers. Then I asked him what else I should have asked him and got heaps more of helpful information. It turns out that the mayor and Wallace were intent on getting people into houses with volunteer labor. Wallace wasn't going to accept anything unsafe, but he wasn't going to slow down the process either. Here good enough is the enemy of perfect, and folks are moving into houses as a result.

The planning and cooperation between Irene, Ed and the mayor, their "can do" attitude, their faith and cell phones all came together beautifully to expedite all the necessary work. Remarkable.

So it went all week more or less. Along the way we saw more of Miss Maggie and her dogs. Two friendly critters that got lots of attention (and treats) from us and one protective yappy little critter I could have done without. We periodically got Miss Maggie to the house to figure out where the microwave or phone lines will go and so on. Maggie is a delightful Southern gal with a Mississippi accent and a good heart. One day she brought us all coffee, hoofing it up the ramp herself and another she came to share the bad news that her sister in Philadelphia was in the hospital. She had a good cry with Martha and Cindy doing a great job of plumping her up. She marveled at our industry and progress. We would have felt great doing the job without her. Having her there to visit, marvel and appreciate about quadrupled our enjoyment and sense of accomplishment.

And then there was Vinnie, Miss Maggie’s young twenties grandson. He lived in a tool shed out back. Windows blacked and an air conditioner. Vinnie surfaces from time to time and is sober from time to time. He came to look at the operation and was clearly looking forward to claiming at least one bedroom and living a life of modest expectations in less modest surroundings. Vinnie has all the trappings of a genuine Bubba except the pot belly, which may arrive in time. A monster truck (compact Toyota), several beat up cars, a quad and a respectable collection of debris arranged with casual abandon. The tool shed was about 6 x 12 and one day I saw six Bubba’s (some female) come out blinking in the sunlight. Each would have caused me to cross the street to avoid them. One day we left Cindy and Martha at the house to set boxes and feed wires as David, Dan and I went to Lowe’s. In the couple of hours we were gone I thought of Cindy and Martha at the site and hoped Vinnie wouldn’t show up. Then I remembered that Vinnie wasn’t an early riser, how Cindy had hauled shingle bundles and how both women had hammers and cell phones. Vinnie wouldn't have stood a chance, but I was glad when we got back nonetheless. Vinnie would show up in the house from time to time and look around. He was generally wrapped up in whatever was coming out of an Ipod or cell phone and showed no inclination to get in on the learning and doing despite multiple invitations. Word from Greg is that Vinnie did help with part of the framing, but had to be “rode like a train” to get it done. We often talked of the opportunity for a young man to make his fortune by picking any of a number of construction trades as the whole area was being rebuilt. You can lead a horse to water….. Worse yet, no one was salting Vinnie’s oats. Vinnie reminded us of what the poor are best at: staying poor. An interesting twist on that later.

Dan and I found ourselves consultants on various electrical wiring problems on other houses either being wired from scratch or being worked on for other reasons. It was fun pretending to be something of an expert and more fun spending someone else’s money to build stuff. One day we went to see the house that John Ineson, Masha, John Church, Bailey, Sarah and Vicki were working. It was about 900 square feet of ranch house bought by a couple in their 60’s after their house elsewhere got removed by wind and water. The roof was in good shape, but the crew was reworking every other surface as well as the shed and mailbox. The old flooring got scraped from the slab, lots of washing, sanding and scraping and surface prep and then several coats of paint. John Church was even building a custom cabinet for a microwave oven. Lots of work. Fortunately John put out the word and other West Hartford types showed up in abundance. When I was there to look at the electricals the place was crawling with people wielding every sort of paint application device and the house changed colors before my very eyes. Lots and lots of work, and it was getting done with a will. More folks feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Come Wednesday the house was well into wiring with tools and materials all over the place. We began to feel like squirrels asking who had seen the romex connectors or the 14/3 or whatever and digging for the wire nuts here and there. Martha went into full librarian mode and began to organize everything. Shortly all rubble was collected and tools and materials were collected and arranged in a neat row. Alphabetically from electrical boxes to conduit connectors and on through tools. Wire (Dan, from central PA called it waare) was in a separate pile all its own. Martha was proud and we were more efficient.

I suggested we name the wiring crew the Wire Nuts. Everybody else decided on Wire Strippers. So much for staid Episcopalians. All in all our crew installed about 75 electrical boxes, a meter box and service entrance, a distribution panel, about 2500' of high voltage (110 or 220) wire, 30 odd breakers from 15-60 amps and a whole collection of smoke detectors. We all pitched in on everything. David and Cindy put 5 cans in the ceiling of the kitchen having been inspired by the lighting in Ringquist's new kitchen. Martha got with Maggie and installed about 400 feet of coaxial TV feed and phone line. Joyce installed meter panels, set up the panel box for the wires, drove staples and drilled holes. Dan and I just kept doing stuff and teaching folks until, on Friday at about 5:30 the job was finished, the tools put away, the extra materials turned back into money and the site swept up. On the inside of the distribution panel it proudly states "Wired by a crew from Saint John's Episcopal Church and a fellow named Dan from Pennsylvania 4/18/08". If the house should burn, we hope the fire's source isn't electrical.

Thursday evening, in the sharing we found out that D'Iberville, like the rest of the area had lost lots of jobs in the gaming industry with the hurricane. The city was looking to get folks back to work in the Biloxi casinos, but wanted some of the tax base itself from casino buildings. Adjacent to the Seymour property (on the side of the I 110 bridge) all the land was optioned for a casino. Turns out the Seymours had been offered $3,000,000 but Mr. Seymour turned it down citing his long family history with the land. Ed Cake says that makes him think they are holding out for $4,000,000. I'd say there is a good chance Mr. Seymour won't live to spend much of his wealth, and Maggie is up there in years. Vinnie and his sister, their mother and aunt are likely to be able to live pretty well if they don't meet someone who wants the money and knows how to part them from it. When a person with experience meets a person with money, the person with the experience generally gets the money and the person with the money generally gets an experience. Fortunately, the DVF plans ahead. If the Seymours sell, the agreement says the DVF will be able to lift the house off the pilings and truck it to another family that needs it. Good planning.

We all left the site, then the camp, then D'Iberville then New Orleans with a real sense of having been an important part of important work. In the New Orleans airport we began to ease back to normal life by figuring out how Iraq was going, what the Dow had done, how the candidates were clobbering each other and so on. Near as we could tell, the world hadn't missed us and D’Iberville had been glad to have us. And we were glad to do this together.