home again

I got home Saturday, but let me tell you I've been catching up on my sleep, so forgive the delay in posting. It seems like I've been in another world for the past week. Time in Louisiana seemed to be absent for the people who work tirelessly and constantly for those who have lost everything. I ended up working with a chainsaw group, not the feeding unit like I expected, but it turned out better that way. I felt like I was doing more to help people. I really had no concept of time while I was dragging limbs and logs larger than myself across the yards of houses that had their roofs caved in, siding blown everywhere, and powerlines hanging down.

I was in a town called Sulphur, one of the hardest hit in that area, and before I got there I really didn't know what to expect. I kind of thought it would be a small town like mine, with 2 red lights and not much else. It turned out to be quite large, and much more than I expected. There wasn't any flooding, mostly wind damage and leaking from holes in the roofs, but some people still lost everything. There were houses that had so much damage from trees and right beside them the neighboring house would be untouched, no trees down or anything. The week before we got there the town had a curfew of 6 pm, fortunately that was lifted by the time we got there, but most businesses still closed before it got dark. Wal Mart closed at 3 and had lines to get in the store. That to me is amazing, that you have to stand in line just to get inside the Wal Mart.

We stayed in the gym at Maplewood First Baptist Church,taking our meals and sleeping in the same space. Let me tell ya that it's not fun waking up and seeing people staring at you while they're in line for breakfast. I didn't watch TV the whole time I was there, mostly because there wasn't one, and we worked all day clearing trees and brush only stopping for a short lunch. By the time we finished all I wanted to do was take a shower and go to sleep. Tylenol PM was my best friend. We completed 10 houses in the week we were there, but there's so much more to do and not enough people to do it. New volunteers from the Tenn. Baptist Convention Disaster Relief come every day or so, but even with groups working nonstop, the jobs never seem to get smaller. The day we left there were still over 1,000 job requests from people that couldn't afford to pay to have trees removed, and were relying on the kindness of volunteers they had never met before.

Friday they closed the feeding unit for the public, claiming that the numbers were going down and that meant things were getting back to normal. The number of people fed on Monday was over 8,000 and by Thursday it was 4,000 something, so yeah, it was time. Normal for these people will be a long time coming, but it's a step in the right direction now that they have power.

I left Saturday with mixed emotions. I wanted to stay and help as much as I could, and stay in this world simplified by disaster, but yet I wanted to go home and escape from the tragedy and destruction that was left in the wake of the storm. Hopefully I'll go back, but for now I just have to get on with life in Tennessee.