New Orleans Dec 06 - Jan 07

 

December 30, 2006

Hey there, I am in New Orleans..... ( I know this must have spelling errors. The computer isn't doing "spell check", and I have lost my glasses...)

Marian, Jacks mom and Felipe came and picked me up at my aunt and uncles in Tedrow Ohio, and we set out on our trip to Mississippi and New Orleans at 11 pm. We drove through the night, and the next day and got into Biloxi MS at dark, and were put up in a trailer at a POD rental service. Portable On Demand Storage. These units are like a uhaul without wheels, and they are rented at 125$ per month to folks who use them as storage for their possissions while they are gutting their homes. It is one and a half years, and people are still not back in their houses. Whole communities, apartment complxes, shopping centers...are seemingly normal, but on closer inspection are hollow on the ground floor as the water and winds washed everythimg away. A few scattered and abandoned cars may be seen in the parking lots...overtuned and abandoned, and there are no people. Emptyness.

 

We went to find Jack, who is working for Common Ground in the storm-damaged Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He was working that day in the "blue house" a home where Common Ground distributes free donated food, clothing and tools to those in need. From the blue house we could see one of the failed levees....and this area was almost bald of houses, soil, trees. The levee seemed so small. Just a wall only 8 feet tall on either side of a canal. The damage came not only from the hurricane, which blew and rained for 12 hours, but from the walls of water which flooded from the ocean into the city sending up to 28 feet deep water into the city. The ninth district where I am right now is actually 6 feet under sea level, so the water literlly had to be pumped out. The depth of the water varied according to the lay of the land, but the water lines on the houses showed the level that the water maintained for at least 2 weeks and in some cases for up to a month.

 

Contacts ~ people I met

 

Common Ground is an organization who has promised to gut 1157 homes, and only has 110 to go. Folks have come from all over the US and the world, and many are staying here at ST. Mary's Elementary School which has been transformed to a Center which houses, feeds and organizes volunteers to go out into the community to gut homes, do repairs, maintain resources centers such as the Womens Center, supply distrobution centers, The Center for Excellance which houses computers that the neighborhood youth can use and provides rooms for meetings, media work, grant writing, etc.

 

We are in a school building that is not needed now because there ARE NO CHILDREN here. Very few. There are very few people in general, as most of the area are the "working poor", and their homes are uninhabitable, or gone. Jobe are gone. There is not need for schools, and most children have been sent away to live in other situations.

 

Many street lights are not working, and often the street light is gone entirely, with only a pole sticking up into the sky.

Road signs are fequently gone. People are being required to gut their homes in the next few months, or they will be reclained by the city and taken down. Some people have been given FEMA trainers which they have put on their properties to live in. This has been a god-send for those theat have been lucky enough to get them, but they are only a small percentage of those who need, and have applied to recieve them.

 

I am hearing stories: Wendell who is living here at the school says he is coming back to reclain his life. He stayed through Katrina, climbed into the attic of his neighbor and watched his entire home be swept away. Work has been intermittant. He told of the dynamics of power and decision making here, which is in the hands of those who own and run things. The concensus I am hearing is that those in power are hoping the remaining poor will leave so the city can be rebuilt for higher income customers. Manditory evacuation for the city was not called until AFTER the bus and train lines were shut down, while the outlying regions were mandated earlier.

 

Miss Margaret who runs The House of Excellence told her story of staying in the city, watching, photographing. She had some of her photos in Time Magazine. She has been recording the water lines on various buildings. She saw alligators eating corpses in the streets which were lakes.

 

Another woman, Holly, was out on the gutting crew, and told of the water line being 2/3rds of the way up the send story of the house. That means the water level was that high for at least 2 weeks. Then it would have slowely gone down, as the drainage systems allowed, then finally needing to be pumped out. Unimaginable. She described the attic, caving in, heaviy from water damage, broken furniture, everything wet, lots of mold, stench. They wear respirators and special suits and rubber boots. It has to be done to save the homes. They take out the furniture, the insulation, they tape up the refrigerators, because to open them is to open to water and decay. And people, many but not all, young, come to do this, some day after day for months.

 

I am learning so many things I can barely keep up with it. How the wetlands have failed and why. Decreasing amounts, separation form the salt water by train line berms. Overflow of salt water into fresh water wetlands, leading to the death of many plants and animals. Lauri is writing grant proposals to restore the salt water plant communities, to educate and empower children. She (and the communitieis she was representing) turned down a 250,000 grant offered to them by the Army Engineering Corp.

 

At 6 pm Jack started leading a yoga class. He isn't a teacher, but is able to share enough that we are each feeling blessed by the opportunity to come together on the third floor in what was a school library, to stretch and meditate a bit. Yesterday another young man volunteered to do a buddhist meditation, which we did at the end of our yoga. It is a small group of about 10, out of the about 100 people who are here this week. It feels great to creat a peaceful and intemtional space.

 

Time for bed, up in the classroom on the tird floor, filled with cots and a few mattresses. It is really quite amazing and nurturing to be in this space, in quite a freeform way, with so many diverse people. At the evening meetings we find out about tomorrows jobs, volunteer for one, share announcements, while in the side of the room several massage therapists give voluntary massages for those who have been "gutting" all day. We have been having good meals, and I have gotten a chance to bring out my natural building books and have some conversations with interested folks.

 

Meanwhile, Jack's mom is in Biloxi MS trying to make contacts with folks in need to distribute the items she brought down from Michigan, and hoping to get news coverage on what one person can do. She has been responsible for organizing 5 truckloads of cloths, furniture and other needed things, and has been distributing them through churches, schools and individual contacts. She is an amaizing connector.

 

I am also aware that humans are really quite .... something....with all the things we need, unlike other animals who need to purchase nothing. We are the only animals which cook, which wear clothing, which need transportation, which burn fuels, These activites have complex relationships. We need this to repair that. We need this specialized object for that purpose. We live in places and in ways that make us vulnerable. Should we even build homes anywhere near the coastline? Perhaps temporary structures like other animals and tribes.? Do we need to have so many thngs which we then can "lose"?

 

So, time for be, again. Tomorrow is New Years' Eve, and Jack has volunteered to be a "sobor shuttle" to drive people to and from their New Year's activities, and suggesting perhaps a donation to help ofset the travel expenses incured by his mom in getting truckloads of good from Michigan.

 

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1/1/07 Monday. Happy New Year! Up at 8:30 ready to go! I volunteered for food preparation for the 11 am brunch. A wonderful spread complete with a "create your own omelet". Food has been wonderful, basic but great. Lots of rice and black eyed peas. The Ravioli, in seemingly endless amounts is often recieved with a groan and jokes, but folks are hungry and are glad to have it. There is always a vegetarian and meat choice, salad and often dessert. I spent a good part of the day editing the Wetlands Grant Proposal. This is a day off on the whole.

 

1//07 Tuesday** Wetlands Grant Writing again, then I was part of the crew that delivered lunch to 7 of the sites where houses were being gutted. I got to see half of the current sites this way. In the late afternoon there was a request for volunteers to help move out the belongings of residents who had to leave their living quarters at The Woodlands by January 3rd. This was a sad situation where the owner sold the building to friends after promising it to Common Ground. The current residents had put in great effort restoring this building as a cooperative, getting jobs, and putting together daycare and other programs. Evening Meeting met as usual, to go over job distribution, and to greet newcomers as well as bid farewell to those leaving the next day. A busload of new volunteers came in, and the ranks will soon swell to about 350 people due to college vacation time. After the meeting, there was a presentation by an expert on what is happening in the shrimp industry since the storm, and the situation regarding the ongoing wetlands and land loss in Louisiana. Fastinating. Then a video: Waking up from our Nightmare by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, the 9/11/01 Crimes in New York. The video, and book of the same name gives substantial evidence pointing to an intentional detonation of both of the twin towers and tower 7. Very pursuasive.

 

1/3/07. Wednesday. My last day. I am floating as to what to do today, but in the amazing fashion that happens so often -- I am making connections and having things evolve:

 

At Breakfast I sit with Laura, Wetlands grant writer, and she directs me to The Green Project and

ACORN.org at 1624 Elessyian Fields (sp?). She recommends I visit the Green Project and see what they are doing in relationship to green building, and also make phone calls (at the House of Excellence) for Common Ground to determine whether apartments that are listed as available for displaced folks are actually for rent. Laura dropped me off at the Green Project where I met Kieren, the director. Another fellow in the car during this drive talked about Youth Grow, an Urban Agriculture Project in Wooster, MA. It is sponsored by the Regional Environmental Council and provides training and jobs for youth.

The Green Project www.greenproject.org

 

The director, Keiren and I talked briefly. He gave me handouts about the center, and I gave him the Ann Arbor Recycle Environmental House contact. 2 older women from Pennsylvania were there to do volunteer work, and I told them about the permaculture sheet mulching as a strategy as they were doing some work on overgrown garden beds. They are planning to build up raised beds, but not remove any soil.

 

Kieren brought up the Global Green web site on their computer. These are good links to green building criteria, and the competition posed by William McDonough and Brad Pitt. The President of the organization is Mikhail Gorbachev.

http://competition.globalgreen.org/pdf/09_flyer.pdf

http://competition.globalgreen.org/green_building/

 

 

I bought the book "Making Stuff & Doing Things" by Kyle Brano at the Green Project.

Mike Neumann and Jayne Leathermann Walker called while I was there. Both had contacts here on N.O.

 

The following are leads I got to interesting projects and websites:

 

 

• A Studio in the Woods, Art colony and learning community. Near New Orleans.

Lucianne was Jayne Leatherman Walkers contact there. They are turning it over to the University so that the work can continue.

 

• Rural Studio.org in Brethern MS 1340 River Rd. 70131. They are trying to protect the land. Brad Kick and Amanda

 

• Musicians Village. Construction of 78 Habitat-constructed homes for displaced New Orleans musicians and other qualifying Habitat partner familiestogether in the 9th Ward.

 

• Dwell magaine featured an article about a small emergency building that cost less than a FEMA trailer.

 

• ACORN.org located at 1624 Ellusyian Fields, New Orleans

 

• Food and Farm Network providing a connection between schools and local growers.

 

• Mercy Corp. As more and more residents return home, many face the major decision of how to repair their houses. Where appropriate, Mercy Corps advocates for "deconstruction," which is done by contractors (not bulldozers) who take a home apart piece by piece to salvage reusable materials, recover items of historic value, and reclaim personal belongings if possible.

 

 

 

I walked down the alley/street about 4 blocks to Common Ground's "House of Excellence" media and resource center and made phone calls to confirm the status of rental properties available to folks moving back to New Orleans. I also called Martly Roland, referred by Mike Neuman earlier in the day:

 

Marty Roland, 3rd Leg consultants, an engineering firm doing green and natural work.

romar1@ix.netcom.com 504 453 2898 Located Mid city near Fair grids Coffee.

Marty met Mike at the Green Building Trades Conference that RRI cosponsored with IHM. Marty has family in Michigan who he and his wife and 2 cats stayed with for several months after Katrina, until they were able to get back and repair their house. Marty invited Mike and Bob to present on a panel in New Orleans, but they only got part way by airplane, and could not make it in. He picked up Felipe and I, took us home for supper, then to an amazing meeting of folks who are working to help facilitate efforts to restore the city. It was a deep view into the issues and politics of the situation. Marty is creating a course called Sustainable Urban Governance (transparent and accountable management of public wealth)

 

Marty is also involed with the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project which if passed by Congress would hire 100,000 Gulf Coast residents to rebuild New Orleans and the surrounding region. The residents, who will be given subsidized tickets back to their neighborhoods, and then rebuild and repair houses, schools, levees, parks and other civic buildings. See www.SolvingPoverty.com to learn more about this and the conference: Louisiana Winter, Jan 14 - 20, 2007 for college students to come together, learn about the isuues and promote the legislation.

 

After the meeting we returned to St Mary's and gave Marty a tour of the facilities. We talked about the issues discussed as we drove back, and of the Earth Charter, which he had been promoting a few years ago.

 

In the evening I talked with Zeek about his experiences with Habitat for Humanity who is doing gutting and rebuilding here in the New Orleans area.

 

Jan 4, 2007

I am talking with Vanish from Wisconsin, who is learning electricity and helping to fix up a new friends' FEMA trailer. It turns out he is from Lansing MI, and knows about Urban Options. I told him about the PV Certification Program and renewable energy connections. Emanuel and Frank from Switzerland love traveling to see the world learn good things. I share how to have a personal wiki with them and a number of others.

 

 

Habitat for Humanity New Orleans area 504 861 2077 Alyse