Swamp Tour

As many of you know Mom, Dad, Pat, Charlie and Aunt Laura just came down to visit. One of the things Dad most wanted to do on the trip was to go to an airboat tour through the swamp. So on their last day we all drove down to Marrero to Jean Lafitte National Park to go on a airboat tour through the swamp.

Swamp Tour Photos

A New Orleans Trailer

I worked with this guy named Bruce a few weeks ago. He had bought this boat and trailer from a friend, yet decided he didn't really want a boat afterwords so he loaded it up with trash and was going to take it to the dump and just leave the whole thing there. It was just so funny to think of someone doing that.

A White Christmas

Merry Christmas...and guess what its white...well kinda. As I showed in my last blog we had snow two weeks ago. Well I got some more photos from that day and figured that there is no better day to relive the snow then X-Mas so heres some snowy photos. At the end I also put a photo of me and Holly when we went to the Saints game vs. the Atlanta Falcons for her birthday on Dec. 7th.

A White Christmas Photos

New Orleans is Weird

It was 70+ degrees out this weekend...sounds nice but as many of you have heard it snowed a few inches here on Thursday. Heres one photo of me in the snow and I will post some more photos when I get a chance. Other than that things are going very well. My last volunteers until the new year leave on Tuesday and I am by myself until Jan 2. Might get a little quiet and slow here since having people here makes things go much faster, but it will be nice to have a break and some time for myself. Plus time to start getting ready for my family to come down for Christmas.

Target

Here is a photo of me and Deuce McAllister, one of the running backs for the New Orleans Saints. He was at Target doing a holiday charity event for underprivileged kids and I just happened to show up to shop and he was there.

Thanksgiving

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving tomorrow and to also let people know that it is supposed to be about 75 degrees here tomorrow which is approximately 30 degrees warmer than what Connecticut is supposed to be. As much as I miss ya'll I won't be missing the weather. And I am sure ya'll will be missing my pecan pie. And I gotta go now since I have one to make.

Thank you to all for the donations in September

Earlier in November, Justin (my boss/co-founder) of On-Site Relief returned to New Orleans. And as he promised he got things done in our house. Honestly things are amazing. We are currently sleeping 11 people (Justin, Jan, myself, and 8 girls from University of Georgia). Here are a few photos of some of our new additions to the house.

We got a washer/dryer, stove, 16 mattresses, 4 sets a bunk beds, built 2 more sets of bunk beds, 12 lockers, and lockers for people to lock their valuables up, a futon, 2 computers.

My First Experience With Health Care in Louisiana

So every November for the last 5 years or so, I have gotten an ear infection. Its not normal for adults to get these, but I do so whatever. Regardless I started feeling it coming on Sunday night and after experiencing a fair amount of pain last night I decided today that I needed to get to the doctors. Way easier said than done. I knew that all I needed to do would be go to a pharmacy walk in the back and find the amoxicillin pills and count out 30 of them (3 a day for 10 days).
But unfortunately you can't do that so this morning I called a doctors office near my house that I found on the internet. At lunch time I talked to one of my friends who said that I could go to the military barracks a few blocks from where we work since they have a free health clinic. So I drive to the barracks and have to speak with a fatigue clad sentry at the gate just to get in to the compound. When I arrive at the clinic (a mobile trailer) the secretary is at lunch so I sat and waited without talking to anyone for 45 minutes. When the secretary gets back she says that they are all booked and can't take walk-ins today. I ask about tomorrow and she says again they are all booked and may not get to walk-ins even if I came in early in the morning. So I walked out to go home and try and figure something else out. While unlocking my car door the secretary comes out and says that they will indeed be able to see me today. So I go in and grab a beeper (one of the kinds they give you at like Chili's or Applebee's to wait for your table to be ready).
After another 45 minutes the secretary calls me to get all my information. Then I wait for another 45 minutes to speak with a nurse. She does all the basic things that a nurse does, however this did include asking me questions such as "Can you read?" or if I take any "street medicines". I guess those are part of standard questions down here. So I wait another 30 minutes to see the doctor. She looks into my ears and says that they are so pink "Like a child's". I could have told her that. Then since I was a new patient she asked me all the other types of standard questions including whether or not my mother was alive (Sorry dad, I guess she didn't care about you...haha).
The doctor then sends me back to the waiting room to wait while the nurse had to process my rX (must have something to do with the fact that it is a free clinic). Then once I had this I had to wait for the secretary to schedule a follow up appointment (which is Jan 12, 2009). Maybe this is why I couldn't have gotten an appointment until December.
So I while I had heard that after Katrina (but certainly not because of Katrina) the health care system in Louisiana is in shambles but now I see for real that it certainly isn't like going to CVS Minute Clinic or the UConn infirmary back in Connecticut.

First Forray into VBlogging

New Orleans is full of tourist attractions

While I know that this may be one of the more famous Wal-Mart locations in the world due to the looting after Hurricane Katrina (such as this photo or this photo--scroll to photo 5), I still don't think it deserves a tour bus stop.

No News

Wish I had something interesting to report, but there really is nothing new happening. I just keep doing my thing (which is sheetrocking at the current moment) as time flies by. I should let you know while I may have complained all summer about the miserably hot weather, we now have the most absolutely beautiful weather in the world. Every day is bright sun and low 80's. We have had like one day that was rainy in like a month. Its honestly amazing and supposed to last through November. Enjoy the cold Northerners.

Ima Vote

Just wanted to take a second to share something quick with ya'll (yeah I say and write ya'll now). But last night I went to a website to see if my voter registration for Louisiana ever went through. Well my name didn't come up on the website and with the deadline on Monday I was worried. Then today I got to work and after watching the debate last night everyone else was wondering if their voter cards went through. So we got on the horn and called the state. The woman wouldn't tell anyone their status unless they were the person they were inquiring about so we made the woman talk to like 7 of us to confirm that we all are registered in Louisiana where our votes count more. We all were. Now we have to try to figure out how to get everyone in the Lower Ninth Ward to the polls (I am not sure if there even are any in the L9) on Nov. 4.

I'm In Hot Water

For the first time in months I took a hot shower at my house since we just now have our water heater hooked up. Amazing.

A Focus on My Region

I wanted to start off by saying thank you to all of you who attended or donated to my parents 2nd Annual New Orleans Relief Cocktail Party. Again this party was very successful and we were able to raise over $1700. Proper thank yous will follow, I just wanted to let people know that their donations did not go unnoticed. The money hasn't been spent yet (although we came VERY close to acquiring a new nail gun yesterday), but when we find some things that fit our budget we certainly will be buying things. As said in the video (Check it out here if you have not seen it yet) we will be looking for a stove, washer/dryer, and mattresses. All of these will come in handy big time as we get more and more volunteers this fall. It looks as if our house will be at or over full occupancy the entire month of October. So yes, I will be posting photos of what we end up getting once we have them.

I also wanted to let people know of a great new documentary. Last night a volunteer staying with me, Will (Norwich, VT), and I went to see "Trouble the Water" at the Canal Place Theatre in the French Quarter. This movie just won the 2008 Sundance Award for best Documentary. The film, made with mostly home video footage, follows a couple that lives only a few blocks from my house as they stayed in their home during Katrina because they didn't have the money to leave. It was a very interesting film, particularly because of where I viewed it. Throughout the movie there were people verbally agreeing and cheering the points made in the movie. Also the movie featured a scene filmed in the mall that the theater we were at was in. I highly recommend seeing this movie since it will be playing all over the country (In Hartford Dec. 5-7). When you do see it please pay particular attention to the high school and navy base since I drive by those both daily.

Also, just wanted to say that I went to Uncle Mike's church today for mass and while there he introduced me to Mayor C. Ray Nagin and his wife.

And as we head into the postseason I want to say GO SOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a Trailblazer

It's the truth. Yesterday I showed up at work and was told that instead of going back to the house that I had to finish taping at, I was going to go to another house that I had re-framed a few weeks prior. When I got there I found out that we were going to be listening to a guy explain to us how to do a new type of insulation. I guess that is not totally correct. We were going to be listening to a guy explain to us about some of the principles of this new type of insulation and the problems of how houses are insulated and what this new product should do. He then showed us the tools we could possibly use. The reason it was all so vague? Because it is the first house EVER to use this type of insulation. See I told you we were trailblazers. It is really cool because there are all these different construction and building companies and green energy commissions that are really interested and invested in how this comes out. Throughout the day the guy was asking us to tell him what we needed or what the best ways to do this were. Then at the end of the day the guy was telling me and the project manager from Lowernine.org, Ryan, that if we needed any tools, we could write out some info about our company and a wishlist and he would get it to some companies that would be willing to donate. Tools are awesome, free tools are WAY better.

Some Tales of the Crescent City

1) Have a guy coming to give us hot water. We have an interesting contraption in the house that allows us to pick up a stronger wireless internet signal. It is basically a tin can mounted on top of a tripod with a USB cord. The guy who was coming for the water walks in and says "Its a good thing you aren't Muslim because if you were I would have thought you were terrorists with this thing." We were all stunned. And to top it off both his work truck and his work shirts are emblazoned with something to the effect of "In case of a nuclear war or terrorist attack the ban on prayer in school will be lifted immediately." I guess people down here are just more blatant with their convictions.

2) Today I sat and talked with a woman whose home I have been working on for a week. She told of how she and her sister and 12 other people were rescued from the side window of her home during Katrina and brought to the St. Claude Bridge and left to walk across the city to the Superdome. These kinds of stories always get me. She then talked about how she can't wait to move back into her house that her mother had owned and paid off the mortgage so that she can stop paying for the apartment she's living in and have some extra cash on hand.

3) At this woman's (Kathryn Scott) house I have been doing a lot of sheetrocking and taping. While I have been taught some of this a lot of it kind of comes naturally to me. Must be in my blood. Shocking huh?

Post-Gustav New Orleans

Its a different world out here. I mean for the most part everything is the same as it was 2 weeks ago, but there certainly are some differences. Take last Saturday for example. I went out to lunch in the Business District and saw two soldiers walking down a street with M16s strapped to their backs. Then throughout the week I have seen military humvees regularly patrolling the streets. The other day they even came by to the lowernine.org house and dropped off some Military Rations and cases of water, yet the entire time they were there talking to us one of the soldiers didn't take this finger off the trigger. Not take his hand off the gun, but his finger off the trigger. I mean I understand that the Lower 9th doesn't have great reputation but its the middle of the day and your delivering food to a volunteer organization. Lighten up guys.

Also this week we spent a good amount of the time hoping that we wouldn't get hit by Hurricane Ike. I mean it was such a fear that a lot of people never came back from Gustav thinking they would just have to leave again. I mean even at our house we still left a lot of things boarded up just in case we would need to go. And although we don't need to evacuate I have decided to leave the board up through the weekend since we are experiencing tropical storm conditions from Ike. For those of you that don't know a TS is like a mini and less intense hurricane with one of the biggest differences being lower wind speeds. And even though we are getting a mild storm here I still only managed to get about 3 hours of sleep last night. This was due to the fact that we had a piece of sheet metal from our porch roof as well as our attic door hitting against the side of the house all night. In addition my bedroom is at the end of an alley which intensifies the sound of winds that are 50+ mph like we had. We even had rain that was coming down so hard that it woke me up a few times. Want to hear the true icing on the cake? We then lost power for an hour and a half so that we had no fans or AC in the house. Yeah it was just one of those nights.

And some other news:
*I have a volunteer here named John. He's 23 and here for a month from Kansas City. We are getting along really well so far.
*Mom and Dad's cocktail party to benefit On-Site is tomorrow night. Thank you to everyone who already donated or will be donating at the party.
*Mom, Dad, Pat, and Charlie booked tickets this weekend to come down and visit at Christmas time.
*After spending my whole evacucation in Shreveport with 7 dogs I decided that I need to get one of my own. As soon as I get some sort of regular income (hopefully soon) the I will be getting a (again hopefully) Dalmatian puppy.

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans--The Long Road Home

So finally I am home. My house sustained no damage and we came back to power and running water. I have to say that I am VERY excited about that. While I had a great week with some good friends and better than amazing hosts in Shreveport it was nice to get back to reality and continue to pick up the pieces from the last storm. What I really want to focus on in this blog is my trip home today which was rather interesting. Up in Shreveport we had nothing more than a rainstorm and lost power for a few split seconds. It made it seem like nothing really bad happened anywhere. But all this changed as we drove further down I-49 towards Lafayette, LA. We had heard that they had gotten hit harder down there than we had (particularly in Baton Rouge), but never really thought much of it. As we drove we got hungry so pulled over at a Burger King/Gas station 2 hours south of Shreveport. When we got there we found that the gas station was open, but had just gotten power this morning and the Burger King was still closed. So we kept going and pulled over at a Subway/gas station which was the exact same scenario. We finally found a Wendy's about 3.5 hours from Shreveport that was a mob scene (it took almost 15 minutes to place an order). It also would take us several gas stations to find regular gas and a restroom as we headed even further along. As we kept driving we noticed signs and billboards that were destroyed. I also noticed a large swamp, but am not sure if it was there on our way up or if it was a result of the storm. Finally as we got into Baton Rouge and then all the way into New Orleans, the only thing on the radio were single songs followed by DJ's taking peoples calls about info they needed. Things people were asking for were when schools were opening, which grocery stores had meat, and where they could get military rations from the Red Cross. It was all very shocking.



To all my Northeast people good luck with Hanna this weekend.

Landfall

So as you may have already heard, Gustav made landfall today along the Louisiana coast. As you may have also heard, New Orleans and Louisiana in general dodged a serious bullet. The storm decreased fairly quickly so it only hit as a Category 1. That being said there was still a large amount of rain that accompanied it. This rainfall was so intense that it flooded the Industrial Canal and started lapping over the western levee which goes to the Upper Ninth Ward (my neighborhood). The best report I have heard is that there was 6 inches of rain in that area, although I live in one of the higher elevated areas so it is possible that my house had no water. The other main issue was that there was a barge and two other vessels that got loose from where they were docked and floated into the Industrial Canal. If you remember from Katrina it was barges crashing though levees that caused many of the flooding issues. Alright well now it is time to prep for Tropical Storm Gustav to make its way though Shreveport tomorrow.

A long day

Heres some captions for todays photos:
1) Our house at 5:45 this morning after we boarded up and just before we got in the car to evacuate.
2) A Mardi Gras Indian. This is a combination of cultures resonating from the days when slaves and natives were barred from practicing their religions so they got together and taught each other their traditions.
3) Some people dancing at the Jazz Funeral.
4) The levee separating the Industrial Canal and the Lower Ninth Ward. This photo clearly illustrates why it is called the LOWER Ninth Ward.
5) A video from the Jazz Funeral.
6) My neighbor Will's Antebellum house all boarded up. We were the only two houses on the block that were boarded up when we left.
7) Heather (gray) and Elma (pink) boarding up one of our bathroom windows.
8) This man was the definition of irony. His sign said something to the effect of Stop Ethnic Cleansing in the Lower Ninth Ward, yet he was wearing a Washington Redskins t-shirt.
9) A Horse buggy horse that was used in the Jazz Funeral. The buggy is made of glass and you can see the casket inside.







So I am just chilling at my "new house" in Shreveport. Left New Orleans at about 6 this morning and got up here a bit after lunch time. We made great time and hit only about 10 minutes of traffic. So for now I guess we all just have to keep watching the storm and keeping our fingers crossed for the safety of New Orleans.

Gustav 4

So it's official. While Gustav still may or may not hit New Orleans the chances of it doing so are great enough that they are going to issue a mandatory evacuation probably on Sunday. That being said Heather and I are leaving early tomorrow morning for Shreveport.

Today we went to the Jazz Funeral to bury Hurricane Katrina which was fun although there was no Jazz. Maybe thats only at real jazz funerals. Oh well, I guess I will have to go to another one soon.

Gotta go do some stuff now but I will post some more photos/videos as soon as I can, including one of the definition of irony.

Gustav 3

What a tricky thing. We were sure that we'd know our Gustav fate today, but after it slowed down and moved southwest and hit Jamaica last night, we are still unsure of whats going on. It is still predicted to hit the Gulf coast next week, but chances are just as likely for it to hit anywhere along the coast as they are to hit any other place. Hopefully we will know better tomorrow as it moves into the Gulf. Regardless we are acting as if we will be leaving on Saturday morning. At this point my short term volunteer Heather has agreed to come to Shreveport with me.

Everything has been rather strange and way different than what I would have ever expected a year ago (especially to think that all my friends are at the first UConn football game tonight). But yeah, I figured that today we may end up just sitting around feeling that it could be very pointless that we are doing work, but I forgot how community oriented lowernine.org is. They spent $500 to buy plywood and screws for local residents to help them board up their houses and will be doing so probably until Saturday afternoon. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the heat telling everyone we could that there was buses available to take them out of the storm if they didn't have evacuation plans. I only had one person in the 20 or so blocks (granted about half the houses were abandoned from Katrina) I covered say that they were not sure if they were leaving (ironically he lived next door to a family that was packing up to leave tonight).

What puts a very weird spin on the whole situation is that tomorrow is the 3 year anniversary of Katrina so there was and still are events planned in the city over the weekend to commemorate this. Tomorrow I am going to see a Jazz Funeral for Hurricane Katrina (if you don't know what it is wikipedia it, although I will probably post photos/videos) and am VERY excited. The place that is hosting it is also hosting some speeches later that day including one by our Mr. President. They asked my buddies Eric, Ryan, and I to help set up for it but we declined to walk through the heat to warn residents of the storm since we felt that saving human lives (which is essentially what we did) was more important than helping the president look good for a press shoot. After the Jazz Funeral the volunteers that are staying with me will come back to our house and help me get all our ducks in a row in case push comes to shove. This includes boarding the windows (since we have shutters we just need some 2x4s and not a lot of plywood), packing our own stuff, and getting gas/packing the car up. One of the strange/wasteful things we will need to do is to empty our fridge of all persihables. It is terrible to think about how much food/money I am going to be literally throwing away, but with no clue about traffic, power, and how long we will be away you need to be safe rather than sorry. My guess is that I may leave some where around 5 or 6 am on Saturday.

As I said before for more information on the current status of the storm please check out www.nola.com. Also check out my video that I posted on Sunday or Monday. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Gustav 2

Still a lot of uncertainties in the air as no one is sure what will happen. the storm could potentially land anywhere from Mexico to Florida. Right now it seems as if it may come through here on Monday afternoon with tropical storm force winds, but honestly everything is speculation at this point and we will know a lot more tomorrow. I am making preparations as if I AM going to have to evacuate. I went today to Auto Zone and bought gas cans in case we are stuck in traffic since if needed I will be headed to Shreveport, LA to spend some time with a college friend of my mom's. It seems as if the city is more pre-cautious now than Katrina, but also less worried so it is I guess a lesser storm. It is kind of scary since everyone that I regularly interact with is not only expereincing their first hurricane, but their first hurricane season, so no one knows really how much to prepare. just expect for the worst and hope for the best.

An interesting conclusion we have kind have come to is that unless this turns out to have destruction similar to Katrina, it would actually be more detrimental to the area if a natural disaster occurred somewhere else in the country rather than here, since that would take focus off her and to the other place, killing our opportunities to get money and volunteers.

I guess we are all just really hoping that the storm dies down in the Gulf and hurts no one.

Please keep checking here since I will try to make nightly updates as long as I am able. Also check www.nola.com for the best weather and news regarding the storm. I should have cell phone access so you can feel free to call/text me if you want to check in.

Gustav

So I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who checked out my video in the last post. If you have not yet done so then please do.

I also wanted to let people know that I as well as everyone I work with is well aware of Hurricane Gustav. As you may or may not know it is over Haiti now and predicted to be about 300 miles south of NOLA on Sunday afternoon. It is predicted to make landfall as a Cat 3 hurricane (this is what Katrina was where it hit New Orleans) with winds of 120 mph. Keep in mind that these are only predictions and a lot can happen between now and then. The storm could potentially hit anywhere from the Texas coast to northeast Florida. I just don't want people to worry. While this is a serious threat I am going to take all necessary precautions and evacuate if/when it is time. If you would like to stay updated on Gustav your best bet is to check in regularly at www.nola.com as they are the local paper and will probably have the best updates. On my end I will try to post on here as much as possible to keep people updated.

Love you all.

On-Site Fundraising Video

I made this video so that people could see what really happened during Hurricane Katrina, see the dilapidated conditions that the city is still in, and see how they can help. Please leave me comments about it and left me know how you would like to contribute. Please share this link with as many people as possible. Thank you.

New Photos--i.e. a trailer for my fundraising video

1) Rotted wood that Ronnie and I worked on replacing over the last week.
2) A TV cabinet at a man named Turner's house that we've been working on. It is a very interesting piece that is truly remarkable.
3) A house across the street from the house I've been working on. It only has a front left and I do not know what they plan to do with houses like these since they are rather plentiful.
4) Even national chains have not come back. This KFC/Long John Silver's is across the street from a Walgreens that is not opened up. Down the street are a Family Dollar and a Wal-Mart that have not come back yet either.

Keep posted for the video that I have made and will hopefully be posted in the next few days.