Katrina - 5 Years Later...
This week, I drove to New Orleans as part of a Mission Trip to help rebuild homes that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After five years, there are still literally thousands of people who are still homeless or living in trailers that FEMA provided in 2005. Most of these people are people who have little or no income, have lost family, often the main income earner, are elderly, widowed or disabled. There is no funding that these people can get to rebuild. They have nowhere to go, and in the richest nation in the world, the shame we saw when the poor were left behind when Katrina hit is still here, albeit not on National TV, since it is not a current story anymore.
The good news is that not everyone has forgotten these people. The Louisiana United Methodist Disaster Response Organization has been building homes for people who most need it - every single day since Katrina - over 1600 days! They rely ENTIRELY on volunteers like myself, and countless others who travel to New Orleans and other affected areas every week to work. This week, we are helping to build one home for an elderly lady who survived Katrina with her husband, only to lose her husband to a stove explosion in the FEMA trailer they had been living in for years. The area we are working in has had over 20,000 homes repaired or rebuilt by volunteers since 2005. Over 3000 homes have been completely built from scratch. Katrina's storm surge sent over 20 feet of water up to 30 miles inland, destroying homes, cars and lives.
I toured St.Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward on Sunday. They were the most devastated areas, and the Lower Ninth Ward is still less than 15% renewed. It is hard for people who are not here to understand or even think that this situation exists so long after Katrina, especially when we see aid to Haiti and Chile and other places.
The volunteers here come from all over the the world - U.S. , Canada and elsewhere. The organization that coordinates the volunteer work is to be commended for their dedication and perseverance, and just for managing to keep on doing the same thing every single day tirelessly for over 1600 days.
I am only here for a week - around 40 hours of work. It does not seem like much, and it would be easy to say that it does not make much of a difference. Tell that to the over 20,000 people who are back in homes today thanks only to the Volunteer Organizations.
The good news is that not everyone has forgotten these people. The Louisiana United Methodist Disaster Response Organization has been building homes for people who most need it - every single day since Katrina - over 1600 days! They rely ENTIRELY on volunteers like myself, and countless others who travel to New Orleans and other affected areas every week to work. This week, we are helping to build one home for an elderly lady who survived Katrina with her husband, only to lose her husband to a stove explosion in the FEMA trailer they had been living in for years. The area we are working in has had over 20,000 homes repaired or rebuilt by volunteers since 2005. Over 3000 homes have been completely built from scratch. Katrina's storm surge sent over 20 feet of water up to 30 miles inland, destroying homes, cars and lives.
I toured St.Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward on Sunday. They were the most devastated areas, and the Lower Ninth Ward is still less than 15% renewed. It is hard for people who are not here to understand or even think that this situation exists so long after Katrina, especially when we see aid to Haiti and Chile and other places.The volunteers here come from all over the the world - U.S. , Canada and elsewhere. The organization that coordinates the volunteer work is to be commended for their dedication and perseverance, and just for managing to keep on doing the same thing every single day tirelessly for over 1600 days.
I am only here for a week - around 40 hours of work. It does not seem like much, and it would be easy to say that it does not make much of a difference. Tell that to the over 20,000 people who are back in homes today thanks only to the Volunteer Organizations.