I went down to Chalmette , Louisiana to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. We left on Wednesday (8/23/2006) and came back on Sunday (8/27/2006). 25 people went with our church group. We stayed in a school where the top floor was still in good condition run by Hilltop Rescue ( http://www.hilltoprescue.org ). The bottom floor was stripped down to the concrete floors and aluminum studs. We “mucked” 5 houses during our stay. The houses had been under 14 feet of water for an extended period. They were filled with water logged belongings in disarray, rot and mold everywhere, and lots of rats and cockroaches. The mucking involved clearing a pathway to the road, knocking down the front door, breaking out the windows, removing all of the contents, busting out all of the cabinetry, removing the insulation, and stripping the house down to the concrete slab, studs, roof, and exterior walls. Only about 2% of the businesses in the area are operational. There are thousands of houses unoccupied. Many people are living in FEMA trailers beside their house that is in ruins. The government will start mandatory bulldozing and reclaiming land at the end of the month from landowners who have not begun rebuilding. Here is an excerpt from the Internet about the St. Bernard Parish (that’s like our counties).

On August 29, 2005, Saint Bernard Parish was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The storm damage, which affected virtually every structure in the parish, was believed to come both from direct effects of the storm and from a massive storm surge funneled in by the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ("MRGO").

The eye of Katrina passed over the eastern, less populated portion of the parish, but in doing so pushed a 25-foot storm surge into Lake Borgne and into the MRGO. This surge destroyed the parish levees which were 14-17 feet high. Almost the entire parish was flooded, most areas getting between 5 and 12 feet of standing water. There may have been as many as two homes untouched by flood waters. Independent engineering analysis of the storm surge suggests that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet transmitted the storm surge from the Lake Borgne area directly into the center of the heaviest populated areas of the parish. Unlike most of the flooding in New Orleans, the water rose suddenly and violently, during a period that witnesses have reported as no more than fifteeen minutes. In many areas, houses were smashed or knocked off their foundations by storm surge higher than their roofs.

For more than two months after the storm, much of the parish remained without proper services, including electricity, water, and sewage. Federal and state relief was notably lacking in the parish. Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, declared all of the parish's homes unliveable. Many areas of the parish may have to be completely demolished, although there is much uncertainty about whether or not this will happen. Several residents have begun to repair houses which they believe are more cheaply repaired than bulldozed and rebuilt. There is much fear about the lack of funding because of the complete loss of the parish's tax base. St. Bernard's levee system, however, is being restored and is expected to be at pre-Katrina levels by June 2006. It should be noted that this is the first time in FEMA history that an entire parish or county experienced the severity of damage that St. Bernard received from Katrina.

As of late November 2005, it was estimated that the Parish had some 7,000 full-time residents, with some 20,000 commuting to spend the day working, cleaning up, or salvaging in the parish and spending their nights elsewhere. By mid-December some businesses had returned to the Parish, most notably the ExxonMobil plant in Chalmette and the Domino Sugar plant in Arabi, together with a handful of small local stores and businesses. Thousands of parish residents were still waiting for promised FEMA trailers as their wrecked homes were still uninhabitable. At the start of January 2006, it was estimated that some 8,000 people were living in the Parish, only about 200 of whom were in their pre-Katrina homes.

The Baton Rouge Advocate of February 28, 2006 published newly determined official population estimates from several state agencies. David Bowman, assistant director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, who was appointed to coordinate a group of experts working on these estimates, noted that these numbers will play a major role in government funding, both in those parishes that have suffered major losses in population and in those that have gained it. Louisiana Tech University, which has responsibility for providing parish population estimates to the State Treasurer’s office, estimated the population of St. Bernard Parish in July 2005 at 67,419. Bowman and Karen Patterson, the Louisiana State Demographer, consider the best current estimates for January 2006 to be those produced by the Office of Primary Care and Rural Health of the Department of Health and Hospitals. For St. Bernard, this figure is 6,889 – a loss of 89.9%.

Emergency Communities offered one reason for hope in the first year after Hurricane Katrina. In the parking lot of a destroyed off-track betting parlor, EC built the Made with Love Cafe and Grill, a free kitchen and community center serving 1500 meals per day. Made with Love, housed in a geodesic dome, also offered food and clothing distribution, and emotionally supportive volunteers. Upon leaving, EC has offered logistical support for the founding of a new long-term community center for St. Bernard.

Many St. Bernard residents feel their plight is little known and generally ignored by the nation as a whole, having been overshadowed by the proportionately less severe but more visible damage in New Orleans .