(in the words of Malai) Woo!
We arrived here in St. Bernard’s Parish three day ago. We left at 2:20am to catch a bus to Oakland (1 ½ hours away) because it was cheaper to fly us all out from there. We had at least three charter busses packed with AmeriCorps members and all of their belongings. Once we got to the airport it was basically a free for-all…and you had to hope you knew what you were doing or you were going to miss your flight! There were at least 130 AmeriCorps members flying out to various areas around the Gulf…which meant different airlines, different flights, sometimes layovers…Gold 1 was split into two groups. Also, instead of sitting with other Ameri-members on the plane, you are randomly spread out in individual seats (usually the awkward middle seat). We had to wait a few hours at the airport to gather as a team again and catch our ride to Camp Hope. We finally arrived at Camp Hope around almost 10pm.
Camp Hope is:
Located in St. Bernard’s Parish (they call counties parishes in Louisiana)
The largest volunteer camp in the United States
An old converted 2 story middle school
Camp Hope has:
Classrooms filled with bunk beds (34 beds in the female room)
Lounges
A used books section
A few TVs (hello again American Idol!!!)
A give and take room where you put things you don’t need anymore (I found a shelf, bug spray and a pair of pants)
Cold showers inside the building but warmer shower available outside in a ‘mobile shower unit’…we have to take 4 min or less showers
There is another Ameriteam that cooks breakfast and dinner for us and they lay out lunch items for us to pack each day
It is amazing how much work still needs to be done here in New Orleans. It has been 2 ½ years since the storm but only 40% of residents have been able to return. Few businesses in the Parish are open and many houses remain uninhabitable. Our orientation the first day was great! The organization is extremely organized and knows exactly what they want to do with us…we were sent out to worksites to build for the next few days. Our organization is called the St. Bernard’s Parish Project (SBPP). Their goal is to find homeowners who lived in SBP before the storm, take their gutted houses (must have faming and be structurally sound) and restore the inside including walls, floors, appliances, doors, etc.
(Paraphrased from a SBPP packet)
St. Bernard’s Parish is more of a suburb of New Orleans and it was the only parish to be completely destroyed in the flood. Before Katrina the population was 67,000 and the Parish had 27,000 homes. Senior citizens comprised 50% of the population prior to the storm and residents worked as fishermen, in the trades, and at refineries. After Katrina 100% of the homes in SBP were rendered uninhabitable and standing water of 4-20 feet stayed for up to 4 weeks. Now only a little over 1/3 of the residents have been able to return…most living in FEMA trailers or in their attics above the waterline. Only ¼ of the businesses has been able to re-open. SBP is described a community filled with hard working middle-class families, veterans and generations of families who live within a few blocks of each other. In the years before Katrina, insurance companies rezoned St. Bernard out of the flood plan, so most residents no longer had flood insurance after decades of paying for it. When Katrina hit 75% of families were under- or uninsured. The first rescue crews into the Parish, five days after the storm, came from abroad: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Residents felt abandoned by the US government…especially the residents who were veterans.
Now AmeriCorps is the large force coming from the government. It has been said many times how the volunteers have rebuilt the Parish…if it weren’t for volunteers SBP would not be what it is now. The director of Camp Hope was telling us how a resident has regained his faith through the volunteers…during the flood he spent 5 days stranded on the top of his roof, waiting for help. During those 5 days he lost faith in the government and humanity…his father (who was on the roof too) survived but his mother could not make the 5 days of hot summer heat with no food and no clean water. He told our director that after the rebuilding started he would see the volunteers giving their all to help the residents move back into their homes…and after awhile seeing that restored his faith in humanity.
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