During October 2005, I spent five days in Mississippi with a group of volunteers from Minnesota, California, and Florida, helping clean up homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Below is a description of my experience. In addition, one of the other volunteers, Eric, a professional photographer, took hundreds of photos during our stay, and generously agreed to let me post some here -- links to those are on the left edge of the page.

The group I was with is called "Nechama, Jewish Response to Disaster." I've worked with Nechama before, cleaning up after natural disasters in Minnesota. The group specializes in two kinds of disaster relief: we help people clean up their basements and homes after a flood; and we clear away trees downed by high winds, which in the Midwest usually means tornados. What struck me as the main difference between helping after a tornado, and the help needed after Katrina, is the scale of the damage. If a tornado strikes a small town in rural Minnesota, for instance, it might damage 10 or 12 homes, affecting 30 or 40 people out of a population of 4,000. Many of those people will have insurance, plus neighbors or relatives who can help them clean up. Nechama comes in and helps the few people who can't help themselves, because they lack insurance or are frail elderly or disabled or otherwise alone, without resources.

After Katrina, though, it isn't only the poor or disabled whose resources are stretched thin! You can't turn to your neighbors for help, because they have their hands full cleaning up their own damaged homes. If a home is uninhabitable, FEMA will provide a small trailer for the family to live in - but only if they have a place to put it. If your house is a pile of rubble, and your yard is choked with fallen trees and other debris, you somehow have to clear enough space to make room for the trailer before FEMA will deliver it. But even if you have money (insurance or savings) to buy or rent equipment or pay for professional help, your local stores are destroyed or their stock sold out, and you might have to wait weeks or months until a contractor can fit you into his schedule. And for anyone living in poverty, even those limited options are out of reach.

I drove down and back with two other people from the Twin Cities. The drive from Minnesota to Hattiesburg, MS (our first stop) was 1,241 miles, which we did in about 24 hours - 10 hours the first day, 14 the second. The three of us spent the time listening to music and talking about a huge range of subjects: science, medicine, politics, music, and, always, BOOKS. I came home with a reading list of over a dozen titles recommended by one or both of my companions that I look forward to digging out of the library. So, it was an educational trip for me thanks to the drive there and back alone!

The southern part of Mississippi we visited is mostly forested in tall, straight pine trees. We had good weather the whole week - upper 80s to low 90s each day, 50s at night, fog on a couple of mornings but a clear blue sky most of every day, with no rain at all.

Our accommodations in Mississippi were in camps set up by FEMA for the use of government-paid contractors and assorted volunteer groups working to clean up storm damage. The camps were run by companies that normally provide living arrangements for fire fighters who battle wild fires around the country, and they were pretty amazing. We stayed near Hattiesburg for the first few days, in a meadow on the outskirts of an Army base, and that camp, called Barron Point, was five-star. We slept in yurt-shaped tents (air-conditioned, though we didn't need to use that amenity while we were there) that held a dozen or so people, with cots and mattresses provided (Rebecca and I, being the only women in our group, got a tent to ourselves). There were very clean porta-potties, showers and sinks with hot and cold running water (built into semi-trailers, quite a nifty set-up), a laundry (you drop off your clothes and they wash them for you, ready for pick up 24 hours later), an excellent food service, even two widescreen TVs and two computers hooked up to the Internet.

The price we paid for having all these amenities was noise. Electricity was provided by generators, which thrummed and rumbled 24 hours a day. The food service area had several reefer truck (refrigerator) semi-trailers for storing supplies which also were powered by motors that ran constantly. Add to that the trucks bringing in water and fuel and taking away trash, and the trucks and equipment of the contractors and volunteers coming and going at random times during the day, and you get an idea of the general atmosphere: LOUD.

The Barron Point camp had a staff of 150 and was designed to house and feed about 1,500 people. Apparently it was very busy in the couple of weeks before I arrived, full of, among others, "blue tarp roofers" - those are the independent contractors who are hired by government agencies and insurance companies to go to storm-ravaged communites and install blue tarps on all the damaged roofs to keep out the elements until permanent repairs can be made. However, by the time we got there they had finished their work in the Hattiesburg area and moved farther south, so the decision was made to close our camp - it simply wasn't cost effective to have all that staff and equipment running to take care of only 250 or so workers.

During the time we were based at Barron Point, we drove each day to the town of Hattiesburg, about 40 minutes away. We had a list of assignments to work on, collected from the county emergency services department. Keep in mind that we were there six weeks after the hurricane hit. When I first saw Hattiesburg, which is about 65 miles north of the Gulf coast, much of the most obvious damage had already been dealt with. Most of the town had electricity, traffic signals were working, and stores were open. However, everywhere you looked, once you knew what to look for, you'd see signs of the storm. Many, many buildings had blue tarps covering all or part of their roofs. Many billboards and other signs were damaged, bent or torn or shattered; and, if you glanced into a stand of trees near the road, you'd always find at least a few within your line of sight, sometimes many, that were bent over or tipped a bit sideways, or snapped clean through (usually at a point about 15 to 20 feet up the trunk), or torn up by the roots. You'd also see random debris and unidentifiable garbage scattered along the ground and draped high up in tree branches, and the occassional car or pieces of a building lying in a ditch.

We started the week with a crew of 11 men and two women, one from Florida, three from California, and the rest from Minnesota, ranging in age from early 20s to 68. One of the Minnesotans left on Wednesday, so then we were 12, but then on Thursday night and Friday morning, we were joined by 8 students from Pitzer and 20 from Claremont-McKenna (both part of the Claremont Colleges group of schools in California) and 54 students who drove up by chartered bus from the University of Miami. All of them had learned about Nechama via the Internet, contacted one of our organizers, Seth, and arranged to work with us for three or four days.

Here's how things were organized, more or less. Our group leaders made contact with the local emergency services people when they first arrived in Mississippi in late September, and explained what we could offer. Nechama brought all of its equipment (chain saws, shovels, rakes, buckets, generators, pumps: three big trailers full of stuff pulled by a van and two trucks) to Mississippi and was able to provide those material resources, plus able-bodied folks who knew how to use it. The emergency services people had lists of local residents who had contacted them, asking for help. Our deployment manager, Ken, and the other leaders chose jobs they thought we were capable of handling, estimated how many people and hours each job might require, and then deployed our resources accordingly. In a few cases, they had an opportunity to drive to the homes the day before and inspect the site to make sure the written request matched the reality of the situation, but most often we just had to hope that the information we were given was accurate.

Monday

Monday set the pattern for the whole week. We got up around 6:30 a.m., had breakfast in the dining tent, then met by the trucks and trailers around 7:30. We checked our gear (cleaned the chainsaws and made sure they all started, refilled the gas and oil containers, etc.), got our assignment for the day, picked up box lunches provided by the camp, and headed out. Monday's job was so big that all 13 of us went to the same site, and worked there the entire day. Two huge trees had toppled over and crushed the back third of a single-story house, and there were an additional three trees down in the yard. The elderly gentleman who owned the property had no insurance. Some agency (city or county FEMA? I didn't hear the details) was going to bulldoze his house for him for free, but the trees had to be removed first. Bulldozers are wonderful machines, but they can't cope with two or three tons of 40-foot-long tree trunk. Our job, at this house and the rest of the week, was to disassemble the trees into pieces of manageable size, suitable for a bobcat to pick up and put in a dump truck, which then hauls the mess away. At Monday's site, the homeowner said he planned to build a new house and wanted to keep as much wood as possible for future use as firewood, so we cut it up even smaller with that in mind.

The work was quite satisfying, in an instant gratification sort of way. We would arrive at a house with tree trunks and limbs and branches piled up all over the place, draped over the roof, blocking the driveway or doors. Two or three of us would wade in with chain saws buzzing, and the rest would start hauling the cut pieces out to the roadside for eventual pick up by city or county crews. Within a few hours, the yard would be, if not clean, at least clear of tree debris. We were like a swarm of large, two-legged locusts, in a good way.

One person wielding a chainsaw can keep three or four people busy hauling the wood away, depending on how far the pieces have to be taken. Dragging branches and carrying 30- or 40-pound hunks of trunk is hard work, obviously, but chainsawing can be strenuous, too. The saws aren't too heavy to start with, but feel heavier the longer you're waving them around. Also, Nechama sawyers have to wear protective gear - special chainsaw protective chaps over jeans, nice solid boots, gloves, and a hard hat with a face guard and ear protectors - which gets HOT really fast. No air circulation! So, a person would saw 'til they got too hot or tired, then pass their gear to someone else and drag branches for a while as a change of pace. Of the 13 of us, I think 6 or 7 really enjoyed chainsawing (I'm in that category), two never touched the saws, and the others maybe tried it once or twice, but preferred dragging wood to cutting it.

We finished around 4:00 in the afternoon, gathered up all our gear, and returned to camp by a bit after 5:00. I always headed right to the showers when we got back, though some people in our group went to eat first. The dining tent was open for dinner from 5:00 to 10:00 at Barron Point camp, which was nice - no fear of missing the meal. It got dark by 7:00, but the camp was fully powered and lit by those big generators, and they kept the lights on until 11:00. Some people hung around the dining tent to chat or play cards, some watched TV or went online or read books or magazines. I was tired enough most nights to be in my sleeping bag by 10:00, and I slept well each night, despite the narrow, creaky cots. Fresh air and hard work does that for me.

Also on Monday evening, Seth went to the Hattiesburg volunteer center to let them know that Barron Point was closing, so Wednesday would be our last day working in their town before we moved south to a different camp. When he came back, he said he felt bad because the woman at the desk looked devastated when he told her we were leaving; Nechama was the only volunteer group doing our sort of clean-up work around Hattiesburg..

Tuesday

On Tuesday we divided into teams and cleared trees at six different houses. In the morning we took care of two sets of neighboring houses. Then, after lunch, we did one small, quick job for an elderly lady, then finished the day at the home of a young family with half of a giant tree sprawled across their patio. The young family wasn't impoverished, but the tree belonged to a neighbor who was showing no signs of being willing to arrange to have it removed from their property, and it was very dangerous - lots of heavy limbs that might crack and fall with the next windy day.

Wednesday

On our last day in Hattiesburg, the group scattered in several directions. When we left camp, we had to pack up all our belongings and take our personal cars with us, as well as the work trucks and trailers. A couple of our leaders went south to confirm arrangements for us to live and work near Gulfport, and another man, Phil, led the work crew, with me as navigator. We had a list of addresses and a map of Hattiesburg, and all I had to do was put the two together. It was a challenge, or so I thought at the time…. Hattiesburg has several railroad lines running through it, and some of the streets run parallel or perpendicular to one set of tracks, and some are oriented to another set of tracks, and different roads meet at bizarre angles, or come to dead ends, or change names unexpectedly.

We made an effort to finish all the houses still on the list we'd gotten from the volunteer center, and I think we came close. I didn't keep track of how many sites we visited, because they were almost all small projects. We would arrive at an address, unload a saw or two, cut up a single tree or a few downed branches, clear the debris out to the curbside, pack up, and be on our way. We drove to several places that were "duds" - either the work had already been done, or it was an empty lot or abandoned house, or the tree was in such a hazardous position (for instance, a heavy trunk leaning across a third-floor roof) that we weren't equipped to deal with it, and had to tell the homeowner she'd need to contact a professional tree service.

We left town after our last project and headed south. By the time we turned west along Interstate 10, which parallels the coast, it was getting dark, so we couldn't see a lot of details in the landscape. What we could see were the remains of tall billboards along the highway - the surfaces were completely gone, with just the heavy metal beams of the supporting posts and frames remaining. Some of the billboard frames were bent over at a 90-degree angle, others had been crumpled or twisted, as if a giant fist had crushed them, and others were missing entirely, nothing left but the naked support pole sticking up into the sky.

Seeing those warped, twisted metal frames was a vivid indication of how strong the hurricane's winds had been.

Our new camp was in the county fairgrounds outside of Kiln, MS, a small town 10 miles or so inland from the Gulf. The general arrangement was the same as at Barron Point, but less posh. The food wasn't quite as good, the showers not quite as nice (still clean, just showing more wear and tear), no TV or Internet, and, instead of having a bunch of small tents for sleeping, they had three or four BIG tents, each the size of a circus big top, filled with rows of cots, 300 or so to a tent, barracks style. The women had one corner to ourselves, with room for about 15 or 20 cots, partitioned off with a few blue FEMA roof tarps. These big tents were air-conditioned, but instead of the small units used in Barron Point's yurts (similar to a standard apartment window air conditioner), each big barracks had three or four humongous units along the back wall. They didn't quite "roar", but the noise they made was definitely louder than a "hum" or "thrum," and they ran all the time.

Wednesday night was Kol Nidre, and we had explored options for attending local services, but logistically it didn't work out. We tried to discover if there was a congregation in Gulfport that might be holding services (even if their building was damaged, they might have made alternate arrangements for the holiday and welcomed visitors), but we never found any contact information. And although we knew there were congregations in Jackson and Hattiesburg, there was no way that we could get to camp in Kiln, get cleaned up, and drive back north in time for services.

Thursday

Thursday, we observed Yom Kippur in a highly nontraditional way: we worked hard, and no one even considered fasting. But we all agreed that our observance of the day was meaningful in its own way. We spent the first part of the morning going to the local emergency services office, getting ID badges for everyone, and confirming our work assignments. Then we split up again, a few people going off to do more advance planning to prepare for the imminent arrival of the horde of college students, while the rest of us headed down to the town of Bay St. Louis, again with me navigating. We had maps and we had addresses, but it was unnerving to discover how little good those did us.

Bay St. Louis lies mostly south of I-10, between the expressway and the coast. As soon as we entered the outskirts of town we could see the difference between it and Hattiesburg. At the north edge of town, traffic lights were working and there seemed to be a few businesses open, but almost every building was damaged, from missing store signs and awnings to ripped-off roofs to entire structures collapsed. Most of the roadsides were littered with debris and drowned cars, some still sunk into mud or water, some lying on their sides or upside down. The closer we got to the coast, the greater the evidence of destruction. Boats were stranded in yards or on roadsides (we also saw one perched on the second story porch of a house, and one in a tree), trees were snapped in two or completely torn out of the ground, and the trees still standing usually had at least some broken limbs plus debris caught in their upper branches.

In the six weeks since the storm, the streets themselves had mostly been cleared enough to be passable. However, many street signs were missing. In some cases, residents had scrawled addresses or street names on pieces of cardboard or wallboard; often, the only way to guess where you were was to study the map and count what looked like cross streets from the last named street you noticed, or ask people you passed. This was also true for specific house numbers. Also, many of the residential streets looked as if they originally had been narrow, asphalt-paved single-lane roads, bordered on each side by ditches; now they were covered with dirt and dried mud, hemmed in by stacks of debris along the edges, and cluttered with work crews. We passed trucks stringing new power lines, most from other communities (Florida, for instance), and bobcats and dump trucks collecting debris, and trailers parked on the side of the road, housing for residents whose homes were uninhabitable. Other than the sounds of work crews, the town was weirdly quiet. In many of the residential areas, especially close to the Gulf shore, there were no city utilities functioning, and therefore none of the everyday sounds of an American town on a hot summer day: no whir of fans or air conditioners, no drift of TV or radio voices, no lawn mowers or sprinklers. Some bird song and cicadas, and the intermittent noise of dump trucks and similar equipment; but not the usual background noise of a living city.

After a bit of searching, we found the home we were supposed to work on, about a block and a half north of the Gulf coast. Standing in the middle of the street, we could see the ocean, though we couldn't walk or drive to it because that end of the street was completely blocked by debris. This residential area probably had five or six houses on each side of the street, on decent-sized lots. Looking at one house, you could see immediately that most of the shingles had been torn from the roof, and all the glass in the windows blown in. As for the Peterson house, it didn't look as bad at first; just a little roof damage… until you realized that it was sitting about 20 feet away from its foundation. The storm surge had picked it up and floated it halfway across the yard before setting it down again.

As for the rest of the houses on that block… picture a modest, white frame single-family home, with a porch and garage. Now picture a fairy tale giant standing over it with a big wooden club. The giant smashes his club on the roof of the house, again and again, until it's reduced to a pile of splintered wood and rubble.

That's what the majority of the homes in this neighborhood looked like.

We worked a couple of hours at that house, then checked out two houses where the work had already been done, and finished the day at a house on the edge of town, near a bayou. There must have been 15 trees, fortunately most of them fairly small, blocking the driveway and front door. The ground was all mud, some of it dried and caked, some still squishy, with parts of the some of the trees stuck in the mud. But we were lucky; that was the worst mud my group encountered all week.

Friday

Our final day was satisfyingly productive. Ken took most of the college students with him to a home that needed mucking out - flood clean-up. That kind of job benefits from as many strong backs as possible, to strip the house of all its water-damaged contents and pile the mess in the yard for eventual disposal. But we also still had a list of tree clean-up jobs to do, so two more groups were formed, each with a few experienced members of our original group, plus eight or nine college students, and we went in search of chainsawing assignments. My group's first stop was the home of a man who had been mayor of Bay St. Louis 20-some years ago. He had several huge trees down in the yards of his and the neighboring house, which belonged to his daughter and son-in-law, and just around the corner on the next street, another relative (someone's grandmother) had more trees down. We got started on the work, and about an hour later the other group called; they had found no work at any of the addresses on their list! So I gave them directions and they came and joined us, and those three houses kept everyone busy for the rest of the day.

It so happened that one of the city or county debris removal crews was working in the neighborhood that day, using a bobcat and three or four dump trucks to collect whatever was on the side of the road: ruined shingles, siding, furniture, clothes, whatever. The bobcat would pick up enough loads of debris to fill a truck, which then drove off, making room for the next truck to pull up and be filled. Our chainsaws and tree-draggers couldn't quite work fast enough to keep up with the bobcat, so he continued to progress slowly down the block; but every half hour or so he would double back and clear away the brush piles we'd managed to make in his absence. I didn't pay close enough attention to notice how many dump trucks it took to haul away all the trees we disassembled… but it was more than a few.

After we returned to camp and had dinner, my carpool set out for home. We had thought we might drive just a few hours on Friday night, but we ended up having to travel over 300 miles north before we could find a hotel vacancy; everything closer to the coast was full with either contractors or evacuees.

I'm definitely glad we went and worked in Mississippi. From one perspective, what we accomplished was a tiny drop in the bucket, compared with all that still needs to be done. But for each of the homeowners we helped, we made a significant difference, and helped them take another step toward rebuilding their homes and their lives.