pt at large

Buckwheat Zydeco: Lafayette, Louisiana Lands in Cambridge, MA

Since January 1, 2016…RIP a hall of fame list of musicians and  some of my heroes.

Prince, Merle Haggard, Maurice White (founder of Earth, Wind and Fire), Paul Kantner (co-founder of Jefferson Airplane), David Bowie, Glenn Frey (co-founder of The Eagles)…and now Stanley Dural, Jr., (1947-2016) better known as Buckwheat, founder of the band Buckwheat Zydeco that brought zydeco music from the bayous of Louisiana to the boroughs of New York City.

These musicians, one of whom is likely on your all time fave list, will never again be heard in live performances. If you’re of a certain age, losses like this are happening all to frequently. They hurt. Celebrate the creators of the sound track of our youth while they’re still rockin’.

Below a REPOSTING of Buckwheat Zydeco appearance in Cambridge,MA, in 2011
Original at http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/02/buckwheat-zydeco-lafayette-louisiana-lands-in-cambridge-ma.html

As always, comments welcome.

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Buckwheat Zydeco
The Regattabar, Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA
February 8, 2011

Imagine James Brown with a big-assed silver and white accordion slung over his shoulders and you get the drift of Stanley Dural, Jr., better known as “Buckwheat,” the leader of legendary band Buckwheat Zydeco. While other roofs in New England are in jeopardy of falling in with the weight of snow, Buckwheat raised the roof at the Regattabar last Tuesday.

Let’s back up a minute. Zydeco is not a household name around here. Lafayette, Louisiana, a hotspot of Cajun and zydeco music, is around 1500 miles away. And here we are with nearly every one of the Regattbar’s 225 seats filled with people who clearly know the music and the man playing it. What’s the draw?

Clue: Dural’s entrance is classic old school showman. The band, led by veteran session bass player Lee Allen Zeno, warms up the crowd with a few funky pop grooves. After he figures he’s greased the skids, Zeno starts to pitch. “2010 Grammy Award winning artist…. Coming all the way from Lafayette, Louisiana,” and pauses.  “I said…2010 Grammy Award winning artist…” and we get the idea. The hollering begins.

The band lays down a good ol’ flame throwing 32 beat intro, the entry door to the Regattabar is swung open and Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr., on the arm of his son who plays the B-3 Hammond organ, parts the crowd in a slow high fiving royal stroll to the stage. The cheering is universal, heartfelt, and loud. And is not lost on Stanley.

He carefully hangs his black suit jacket at the side of the stage, extends his arms, and his son Reginald drapes a huge gleaming accordion over Dural’s shoulders. There was a day when Dural would have picked up the accordion like a po boy sandwich but he’s getting on in years – and besides, the visual effect is impressive, sort of like watching a surgeon have his sterile gloves fitted over his hands before he begins major surgery. Except you’ve probably never seen a surgeon with a gorgeous pile of silky black hair swept up in a pompadour.

The room is in a state of quiet expectation. Stanley strides to center stage. “ We gonna party tonight, stand up! Cambridge… stand UP!”

Damn, we did. Within seconds, Buckwheat Zydeco digs into a groove that does not quit. People are dancing in the aisles. I rub my eyes. Remind me. This is not Randol’s in Lafayette. This is the Regattabar in Cambridge, a venue not known for audience participation.

A master showman like Dural has Cantabridgians dropping decorum like it’s a hot biscuit. When bassist Zeno says, “comin’ at ya’” he isn’t kidding. For the better part of two hours, Dural banters, he teases, he strides into the audience and peals off sparkling riffs on the keys of his accordion, he projects a megawatt smile. He makes you feel like he came all the way from his home in the bayou just to play for you. And you believe it.

Cross Otis Redding’s passion, Bob Marley’s sense of social justice, and James Brown’s fierce showmanship and you get Stanley Dural, Jr. His veteran band - two guitars, bass, drums, washboard, trumpet, and B-3 organ can turn on a dime. Stanley Dural, Jr. has been playing music since he was 4 years old.  He was tutored by his father’s friend, the late accordionist Clifton Chenier, the godfather of zydeco.

Dural’s Buckwheat Zydeco band has been a presence for more than thirty years. Along the way, their zydeco sound has sampled sounds of funk, R&B, reggae, blues, soul, even country, and bits of all of it are on display tonight. 

When he says he’s about to play a song by his favorite artist and teases us while we guess the identity, he shocks us by identifying “Hank Williams” then rolls into a version of “Hey, Good Lookin” with a rollicking New Orleans beat. With very little prompting, the buttoned down Cantabridgians sing along like it was a Mitch Miller show. A corner of the bar is filled with dancers. My goodness.

Entertainers like Dural feed on the energy they create and by now Dural is feeling the love. The Regattabar has become his sandbox, we’re his toys, and he’s gonna play with us. “OK we’re dividing the room. This half of the room sing…” “Now this half….” Once again, audience reticence has been checked at the door - the lusty response sounds more like a high school pep rally.

Dural talks Lafayette smack a mile a minute and runs his words together faster than those notes fluttering out of the Hammond B-3, which he plays for the last part of the set.

“I feel like rippin’ it up,” Dural says after returning for his encore. I’m not sure if he says this every night and I don’t care. Dural is working us over pretty good.

 “I got this from the swamp,” he says (he’s referenced ‘the swamp’ in his patter several times and seems to want us to know that he’s not far removed from his Louisiana roots).

“Men, you should try this, it worked for me.” And he launches into “Jackpot,” with the refrain, “Honey, I’ve been lucky all my life, but when I found you, I hit the jackpot.” Applause rings out from the women. Once again, we’re singing the chorus.

  Dural’s not done with us yet. He’s got a message. Along with the playful music, I’ve heard snatches of lyrics relating to social issues all night long. Dural digs hard into his B3 and wrings out powerful chords that galvanize a gospel tent - we’re feelin’ it. Near the end of his reggae inflected “Why We Can’t Live Together,” with its refrain, “Peace… Love…and Happiness.” We’re on our feet – again – in a fist pumping, call and response reggae influenced tandem with the man.

“What do we  want?” he calls.
“What do we need?”
What do we deserve?”
“What do we demand?”
“What do we want to give our children?”

“Peace… Love…and Happiness,” we volley back to each call.


The world has become a more hopeful place. Dural is giving us respite from the headlines. It may be an illusion but it’s a potent one that pastes a smile on our faces far into the winter night.

“I got this from the swamp… we gonna be alright. Take this to your best bank, we gonna be alright!” he intones with minister’s conviction and makes his way to the door, shaking hands, taking hugs.

I hope he’s right.

Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural, Jr.: Accordion, Hammond B-3, electric keyboard, lead vocals
Lee Allen Zeno: Bass, background vocals

Sir Reginald Master Dural: Rubboard, background vocals, Hammond B-3 organ
Paul “Lil’ Buck” Sinegal: Guitar

Olivier Scoazec: Guitar

Gerard St. Julien: Drums
Curtis Watson: Trumpet

Bass player Lee Allen Zeno with pt - I met him at Cafe des Amis in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. The man has played with some of the best in the business.

 

Stanley Dural, Jr. exudes infectious energy and connects with the audience from the jump. He's at home on the Hammond B-3 organ - ended the show with a rousing version of "Why We Can't Live Together."
 

This photo pretty much sums up the energy level of the night.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

A country illuminated, one street at at time...reposted on 15th anniversary of 9/11

Upon re-reading this post from September 2001, I am stuck on the last sentence, feeling that the hopeful glow of those little candles has been snuffed out by the turning tides of national and global events.
Where are we now? Who are we now? How do we become whole? This is going to be decided by the way each of us re-lights those candles.

A COUNTRY ILLUMINATED, ONE STREET AT A TIME
Guest commentary by Paul Tamburello
September 20, 2001

Halfway down my street, I started to cry. The primitive emotion uncoiled right from my gut, rose through my throat and out my mouth. Tears, runny nose, contorted face, all within seconds. A well of emotion that had been forming since Tuesday morning had been tapped and rushed to the surface like a geyser. I was relieved that it was dark, but knew that if any of my neighbors had witnessed these Friday night tears they’d have understood at once.

Let me start at the beginning, which was Tuesday September 11, 2001, a day America was changed forever. No need to go into the details, you know them all.

Friday, after days of assessing whether my fourth graders had been traumatized by the extraordinary pictures of death and destruction, and after holding an elementary classroom version of a Day of Remembrance and Mourning, I just wanted to sit down in familiar comfort of home, and let the metaphorical dust of the past days settle without my watching it or listening to it. I needed to unplug. There had been nowhere to be free of the images of destruction or the conversations, so surreal in content.

The school day had been book ended with our morning meeting and a minute of silence at the end of the day. I welcomed the hours in the middle as a pilgrim welcomes an oasis. I poured myself into having my fourth graders learn the names of the chambers of the heart, find prime numbers in their multiplication charts. practice cursive writing, and see how to write a declarative paragraph. Even indoor recess due to rainy weather was a respite.

Elsewhere else reality had been bent out of shape and I had been bent with it.

There was no where to avoid the topic. The endless loop of videotaped carnage I had been seeing since Tuesday had slowly crossed the border in my brain from nightmare to reality, a nightmare come to life. After school, at a physical therapy appointment, I was asked how the kids were taking the scenes of death. At my health club, a fellow member recounted the previous evening’s memorial service for his friend who was on Flight 11. At my local gas station, the Libyan attendant, with whom I’ve had friendly chats for two years, railed about the ruthlessness of the terrorists. In the back of my mind I prayed that this kind man from North Africa wouldn’t be targeted by hateful citizens seeking retribution for the barbarity in New York.

By the time I walked up to my porch, I was in desperate need of refuge. Stuck in my front door was a small note reading
Dear (Oliver Street) Neighbors,
Tonight at 7 PM, please join our neighbors on Oliver Street by lighting a candle on your porch or outside your door. to grieve for those who lost their lives and for all of us whose lives have been forever changed by the sad events of September 11.
Others all over America will also be lighting candles. We are all a community of Oliver Street, of America, and of the world, even with people in the Arab nations.

I walked into my kitchen, too drained to participate. Then I recalled that just that morning I’d told my students how citizens derive strength in times of duress by using symbols, the country’s flag for instance, to provide comfort and resolve in times of sorrow and grief. Wearily, I got up, found a candle, lit it, and put my own little symbol in the front window.

An hour later, rejuvenated by curiosity, I decided to walk down my street to see whether anyone else had complied with the note.

Halfway down the hill I realized that my little street had indeed connected with other communities in America, in some kind of nocturnal communion. Every house but one had candles in sight. Large candles, small votives, solitary candles, massed candles.

The emotional dam I’d built to contain uncertainty, loss, and grief, burst. I cried for me, for the country, for the families of the dead and missing, and for our assumptions about life in America which were blown up with the World Trade Center. But my tears were redemptive as well. I could see that my little neighborhood was surviving on its own, in its own little way, and was part of other little streets across this great and flawed country surviving and regenerating in the same way.

I never thought I’d see anything as powerful as the fireball I saw on Tuesday. Somehow, in time, the small glow of those candles on my neighbor's porches is going to outshine that horrible sight.

Paul Tamburello is a teacher and writer who’s taught fourth grade in Brookline since 1970.

Louisiana Flood of 2016: August 25 - Our Savior's Church Volunteer Crews Roll Into Lafayette

THURSDAY August 25, 2016

An act of God sometimes brings out the god in everyone in its wake...

8:30 AM Head out the door from my wonderful Lafayette friend's house with google maps pointing the way to 1201 East Broussard Road. 

8:45 AM

The lobby of the church is crowded. Most are volunteers who will soon be mucking out houses. The rest are a rear guard who've been making sandwiches, setting out tools, printing work sheets for crew leaders, fielding phone calls. They are the spine of this operation.

Happy to see crew members that I've enjoyed working with, Christina, Francine , Rob, Philip, a new guy Ben Winter and Tamika, wife of Francis the barber. And twenty -something Tyler who it turns out is pretty good at wielding a sawzall. "I'm used to the heat. I've worked in Saudi Arabia," says Philip. Maybe so but I'll bet it was way drier than right here right now. The crew chief job rotates between men with appropriate construction or ability backgrounds who are available for the day. Rob is today's crew chief.

9:00 AM Meeting

Setting the stage: What's needed right now? Money.

Bryan Rhinehart says that many people around the country want to send supplies and are determining what we need. He just got off phone with man from Texas who was about to ship a load of supplies that just were not what was useful. Bryan diplomatically explained what was needed right now is money to purchase the appropriate tools volunteers need to get the demolitions done and buy the kinds of fans and dehumidifiers to help dry out the houses we work in. Bryan reminds us to be sure to repack the orange buckets with flatirons, hammers and other tools, some of which have gone missing, so the next crew will be fully stocked to do the demo work in the next house.

And good news that yesterday there were 60 of us volunteers with their shoulders to the wheel gutting houses.That's a record... so far.

Time for the morning prayer, the kind of fairly non-denominational prayer that covers a lot of territory, from gratitude to reverence to a plea to keep all of us safe while we work.

"Once again, God, we will be your hands and feet and eyes. The church is used to using our mouths to speak the gospel, now we're going to do the gospel...whether it's giving a hug or listening to homeowners stories... what they need is hope and when we show up as your army we do that." I can give an Amen to that.

Pastor Jacob Aranza adds something to cheer about: "Last week we did 25 houses between Monday and Friday. This week we've done 35 houses as of today. We are making a difference. We're getting better at what we''re doing, accomplishing more every day so be encouraged by what you're doing because it's truly being Christ out there." All true but every day we get into a flooded home, the only preaching done is with hammers, mops, wet vacs, sawzalls, shovels, wheel barrows and fans.

A minute later, he introduces a man whose house a crew gutted yesterday and who is so grateful that he showed up to  work on a crew today. What goes around comes around.

I'm happy to be in this army. I may not march under the same flag but I sure do march with the same conviction to be a difference maker. Look, I know darn well that we don't all share the same politics but this is way beyond that. People here have the same DNA as their Cajun and Creole ancestors. That's where the Cajun Navy got its commission during the worst of the flood.When it comes to lending a hand to a neighbor in need, nobody on earth comes close to how people from southwest Louisiana show up and give it.   Including a bunch of non commissioned residents with boats - "The heroes hailed from the Cajun Navy, the nickname for an impromptu flotilla of volunteers who had no admiral, no uniforms, no military medals awaiting them for acts of valor. It was conscience, not a commanding officer, that summoned them into treacherous currents to carry endangered citizens to higher ground."

 

Daily routine: Meet at 9:00 AM, morning prayer then break into work groups.

Humidifiers like these rent for $250 a day. Industrial sized fans for $40 a day. OSC leaves them in houses we muck out, picks them up after the house has dried out...cost? ZERO.

9:15 AM

After a brief morning prayer, a combination of an ask to Jesus to look after our safety and the well being of the homeowners whose flooded homes we are about to muck out, our work groups get assignments - location of homes to be worked on, jobs to be done, tools necessary, likely time frame to accomplish the job, homeowner's names and telephone numbers. There isn't an ounce of doubt in this room. Everyone is rowing in the same boat in the same direction toward the same goal.

Note the crates of humidifiers. Pastor Jacob Aranza, after extraordinary an extraordinary gift of $150,000 from a friend of the church, got his hands on every one he could find. We leave them and/or industrial size fans in every home we visit. Twofold purpose: help dry the home faster, reduce the likelihood of mold growth. Actually, threefold. Those fans, dehumidifiers  and mucked out homes are reminders that someone cares and offers the kind of immediate action and hope  and sense of community and  togetherness and connection in an extraordinary time of need that the Red Cross and FEMA cannot supply right now. Rob reviews the strategy for what's to be done in today's houses.

Time to grab lunches, exchange cell phone numbers and hit the road in a convoy with a mission.

10:15 AM First house  Breton Rd. in Lafayette

A previous crew and the homeowners  have done most of the demolition and organizing. "They asked us to help clean up debris on the floors," Rob says as he reads the punch list for the house, "so we take mops and buckets with us." Then pack all their belongings in boxes, move some large furniture to the dry garage where all is being stored for the time being. Like the others, homeowner John seems a bit dazed but is putting 1 foot in front of the other. His son in his 20s is very helpful. Honestly, I have no idea how they are managing to process all this dislocation and disaster. Most Americans have little idea how devastating this flood from a no name storm has been.

 

Working with another great crew this morning, Rob as leader with Bill Winter, Francis Jones' wife Tamika, Christina, Philip and two men whose names I can't recall. Homeowner John and his son have already cleared out a bunch of stuff and we pack clothing and knickknacks and belongings into crates and put them into the garage. Every sheet of drywall that took on water has been removed by a previous crew. The big guys muscle a refrigerator and a huge atelier into the garage. Every homeowner we meet is vocal about how much they appreciate our help. I think they're in a mild state of shock about how fast their lives have turned upside down. The houses in which air conditioners work are less taxing to work in. Those without feel like being in a hot yoga class without any of the benefits.

 t
Move items to dry areas; several inches of water in this house which was several feet above the street outside; the drainage ditches allow excess water to be carried to larger drainage areas unless they are overwhelmed by a sudden maximal rise in water as in the case of The Flood of 2016.Think about this. "The Amite River at Denham Springs got to 46.20 feet, beating the previous record in 1983 by almost five feet..." Cresting at over 46 FEET.

 

Sheetrock cut along the studs at 4 foot mark, the edge of a 4x8 piece of sheetrock. Now a standard practice, crews remove any sheetrock if the  bottom had been in contact with water that had penetrated the house. Left intact, it would become overcome by mold and lead to a condemned house. We are done in about an hour. The best way to foil mold is to muck out the entire house, remove sheetrock, insulation, carpeting, cabinets and vanities that were sitting on the floor then dry the house out.

 
Assessing whether kitchen cabinets need to be removed...in this case, luckily no.

Tamika, Ben, Christina, Philip, Gary?,?, crew leader Rob,take a breath before we are joined by anoither crew and drive to the next project over at Bald Eagle Drive. All have taken time off from their jobs to roll up their sleeves to volunteer to help.

 

12:00 PM Another crew joins us..Tamika, Christina, Ben, Francine, Rob, Jake, Ryan, Derek?

Time for lunch! Turkey sandwich, some little snickers bars, a mandarin orange, and tater chips. Then a delivery of pizza! 

Today is one of the first days we've had a chance to socialize. I don't remember taking any breaks until lunch. Everyone is in motion, shoveling, bagging, scraping, pounding, sweeping, teaming up to move big stuff out of the way.

Jake has just joined our crew. He works for Allstate and is a musician. He used to live in New Orleans, learns that I've spent time in New Orleans, gives me his iTunes site info. While checking that I discover he's an author too!

Jake understands what I'm talking about about when I repeat why southwest Louisiana is so special, tell him about my first visit, how I would meet someone, how they would tell me their names and where they lived then introduce me by name to their friends and by the way if they were having a BBQ would invite me to join them. That pretty well describes this special part of the world.

I've heard about faith-based faith-based organizations but have never been involved with one and feel lucky, I surprise myself and think maybe even blessed, to have found Our Savior's Church when I was looking for a place to help with the relief work. This group is not only purpose-driven but exceptionally well-organized from top to bottom with clarity of purpose and has the organizational skill to set up teams, identify team leaders, have supplies and tools for volunteers to use, identify locations to visit, what to do when we get there, provide us with lunch and food and tools and if I may say so fill us with the spirit of giving, helping, and volunteering. As far as I'm concerned, this is an efficient, empathic big time humanitarian spiritual mission.

As we are gathered together for lunch, one of the volunteers in the insurance business tries to explain what happens if black mold ruins the house....

My best effort to explain what he said: a house will condemned if it can't pass code because mold has overtaken the house which will happen after about 18 days of not being treated, you have to sell it, you have no money, you will give keys to the bank, they will foreclose, will knock it down because no one can sell it, it becomes the bank's property, owner may be able to rebuild. The clock is ticking for this house, it has been about 13 days since it was flooded.

He continues: FEMA can step in and give relief to people who do not have flood insurance through a combination of, depending on your income level, if in a lower bracket, you can qualify for temporary food stamps, if you did not have flood insurance and have damage to your home, you can get anywhere between $15,000 and $30,000 to help bring things back, it won't cover everything but will help. Also you can qualify for an SBA Loan, a disaster loan not so much on credit worthiness as it is to hurry up and get you some money so you can rebuild and have money to pay contractors at a 7 or 8% interest rate. (A December 28, 2016  FEMA Roundup: Louisiana August Flood Recovery)

I speak up. "I am so impressed with this organization, finding it online, seeing that it is faith based but purpose-driven with leadership and ability to carry it out. The first morning I walked into the lobby, Pastor Jacob gives an overview of what's happening around us, asks us to join hands for a blessing...I'm a Yankee from Boston but let's just say that we just don't do this. I feel  good about holding hands and getting a very clear sense of purpose...There are crew leaders like first day Bryan Rhinehart and second day Ryan Wilbanks and then Rob and Bryan and today, Rob Babineau and Ben Winter who know their way around are the lead guys. Then there are people like Christina who never stops moving. If you're around Christina, you don't stand still or you'd be embarrassed! (laughter)."

"I've read about faith based organizations but haven't known what to make of them, never been in a situation to join one because frankly there aren't as many events like this that demand such organizations. I read on the website what the church was all about and talked to Lindsay on the phone, really great representative,  I said that I'm a retired fourth grade teacher, not a plumber or electrician, don't have skills but i am a skilled grunt laborer, can you use me. She said yes, so here I am and really feel gratitude that I'm here. I'm doing something for someone else but the fact of the matter is that I feel like  I'm doing something for myself. it's really turned my head around."

"When you're serving people the biggest blessing is what happens inside of you," says Gary Morel, the guy who was explaining FEMA.

"I would not have believed it until I experienced it this week. I've been in the Peace Corps when I graduated from college but India was removed from my own culture. I've been coming down to Lafayette for years, I know people here, I know the culture, how special the people here are, and what a unique place this is. When Lindsay said I could volunteer I wanted to come down to help people i really admire, I got excited and packed my bag," says I.

"I owe people," says Gary," people who helped us put things back together after Katrina. In the dozens of houses we've been in if I get tired I say, uh uh, keep going, when people were helping me and my grandparents and my aunts and uncles put everything back together after that storm, they didn't complain."

He continues. "We have three kids, our little ones  are in school now which is huge. Last week when they weren't in school, my wonderful wife wanted to get involved...she went to Costco every morning, loaded up the trunk, I'm in tears thinking about this, I'd be working in a house thinking we're making a difference and I see my five year old walking in the door giving something to people in need, I'm thinking you can't recreate that for your kids, you can't say I want you to be gracious, I'm going to show you what that looks like. They went to their rooms, went through all their stuff, each of them had packed a bag, everything that they loved that they wanted to give other kids went into that bag. You talk about blessing others...it's doing more for me (he is choking up with tears)..."

Murmurs of agreement around the group finishing lunch.

"You reconsider what your problems are, you think I didn't make that sale ...well a problem is when someone doesn't know where they're going to put their kids to sleep tonight, he says." Pretty powerful stuff.

"I don't think you're here by accident, either. You were brought down here to experience this," says Gary.

"I'm not a particularly religious man but the more I do this, and I don't use this word a lot, I feel blessed to be down here and now I feel like I'm gonna cry too. I'm not used to this but to do something that makes me feel so damn (excuse the language) good is an extraordinary feeling. Earlier Bryan said 'Thank you for your sacrifice'. I said I don't feel that I'm sacrificing anything, as a matter of fact i feel guilty by how much I'm getting out of this," says I.

"I wish we could freeze time and help everyone," says Gary.

Sometimes an act of God can bring out the god in everyone in its wake is what I'm thinking.

And there's more.

I go on (again) about the way the way people connect, and I've watched it happen with the crew here...when they first meet they ask, who's your mamma, where you from, you have brothers and sisters, oh your sister is a friend of my cousin (the best one I ever heard is someone described as being her daughter-in-law‘s sister‘s husband!)... it's like Francine says that down here we connect the dots, I love it and I get a kick out of it every time it happens, it's another reason I come here," says I.

"I love that you experience that. It's a reminder not to take this stuff for granted. You're a blessing when you bring this up and tell people how exciting it is for someone from other places to feel that...a lot of people don't venture out from what you see, for a lot of people this is all they've known so it gives them an appreciation that here's someone from the northeast and is completely new to this and say to themselves wow this really is a special place, it's a healthy reminder..." says Gary.

"Last night at dinner I talked about this with my hosts Bernard and Rubia who say, Paul, the reason for that is that Louisiana has the lowest rate of emigration out of the state than any other state in the union. People are born here, live here out of choice. Many move away says and end up returning." says I.

Derek Morel is the brother-in-law of Pastor Jake. They married sisters, met at Derek’s wedding where Jake was playing the music. Gotta love these small world stories.

12:45 PM Second house Bald Eagle Drive, Lafayette, LA

There is mold in the house. Rob goes inside to take photo to send to the church for a determination. Jake, a crew chief who has joined us with several other volunteers to take on this big project, talks about two other products, Sniper (for which you need to use a fogger) and conchromium, effective but expensive because they are full strength. The mold has not advanced to the stage of dangerous black mold yet. We are forbidden to go inside until we all don respirators and N-95 masks.

90 degrees and humid. A familiar scene. What used to be inside many houses is now in piles of pieces of sheetrock, rugs, paneling, torn apart cabinets and vanities. Eerie. There's no sign of water. From the outside, the homes look intact. Inside, ruination. The first house we worked and had its air conditioning working, no so here. This house is going to be a bear to clean up. "They asked us to try to save the cabinets and the vanities but we can't guarantee that we won't break them while we're cleaning up so I have waivers to ask them to sign before we begin."

Joining us are Dwayne and his wife Deborah who moved here 7 weeks ago from West Virginia after Dwayne lost his job as a coal miner. They  know something about loss and dislocation. What timing! Deb, born in Brazil, sees Our Savior's Church online says, "This is the church for us. Helping serve others is the way I was brought up.”  Good choice,Deb.

Another familiar sad scene. The homeowner stands in the garage shuffling recovered items from one place to another. This is one of the most heavy duty demolition places we have worked in. Nearly all the sheet rock at the 4 foot level needs to be removed. All the insulation on the outside walls needs to be removed. We drag hundreds of pounds of torn up sheet rock and molding and insulation to the curbside.

Not a good sign but we can work with this as long as we wear respirators or N-95 masks. We are ahead of major mold growth. Once black mold takes hold, it's a different ball game.

Make a plan, begin tearing out and hauling out sheetrock, insulation and later remove bathroom and kitchen cabinets, big job.
 
Pile the debris over the drainage ditch (coulee) running alongside the street to help keep the water down


Inside out houses, common sights in several parishes.

 

This is the first day we use ShockWave Mold Prevention , a concentrate in which you add a couple of teaspoons per gallon and spray to treat mold and mildew to keep it from spreading. Rob sprays all the wet 2 x 4's that are the framing foundation for the studs all around the exterior house. Before he begins I sweep off the insulation and sheetrock debris on the 2 x 4s on which the studs are erected. It is safe to use, has a pleasant odor but we are not mold specialists and cannot guarantee it will totally remove mold. We will ask homeowner to sign a waiver stating that. Good idea. At lunch we talk about two other products, Sniper (for which you need to use a fogger, says Jake) and conchromium, effective but expensive because they are full strength.

Rob, Jake, Ben and two of the women in the crew use power tools to cut away sheet rock and door frames so we can carry them out. The floors are covered with debris which we don't have time to finish cleaning up today, we'll be back tomorrow.

3 PM a massive thunderstorm rolls in with sheets of rain for about 30 minutes. The drainage ditch level rises about a foot, some of the debris we have put along the roadside slides into it. The lawn is squishy underfoot, the water table is saturated. We will need to return your tomorrow. Rob, Jake and Derek, Jake's brother in law, say that if the houses are not cleaned up within 18 days it will be too late to demo the walls, pull out the cabinets and bathrooms and sheet rock since mold will begin to form, be too dangerous for us to enter. Hazmat teams will be necessary, too dangerous for us to breathe air that has mold.

We are determined to stay ahead, air this home out and make it habitable again. It won't be pretty. But we will beat the mold before it gets up a head of steam.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Louisiana Flood of 2016: Our Savior's Church Crew at work August 24 Afternoon Crew

August 24, 2015, afternoon

Earlier stories begin here http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2016/08/louisiana-flood-of-2016-historic-unprecedented-catastrophic-1.html stories recounting my volunteer work gutting flooded houses on crews organized by Our Savior's Church in Lafayette, LA from August 22-27, 2016

Second house today

12:30 PM Woodlawn Road, Maurice, LA

Roy and Joyce have lived here 50 years, The possibility of a flood was about as likely as being struck by lightning. Their children and another crew already carried roomsful of possessions into the covered carport. After 61 years of marriage and 50 years living in the same house, that’s a lot of accumulated memorabilia and possessions.

 

Overwhelmed with the task, Roy and Joyce sift through fragments of their lives.

When our crew first entered their house, Roy and Joyce were watching TV in a room jammed with dry furniture, knickknacks, books  and anything that had not gotten  wet. They seemed dazed.

The crew assesses damage in the living room, the driest room in the house, filled with possessions that haven't been soaked.

While our crew removes and molding, Roy absentmindedly looks through fragments of his life scattered in soggy piles in the carport. I could tell he was not focusing well and needed to focus on something of the past that he could relate to instead of thinking about the overwhelming task of what lies ahead. That’s a tall order for a man of 82.

We got talking. He becomes more animated the longer we stay. This is the kind of reclamation Roy needed, someone to talk to, someone to tell us how he’d be walking down the street and someone would rush out of a store and say "Mr. Sorbet, you were one of my best teachers,"  and give him a big hug. Pastor Tim would call this preaching the gospel with our ears. 

Angie is in the kitchen washing the pile of pans and dishes in the sink. Standing in the carport, Roy reminisces about  entering college, being drafted into the army and serving in Korea, going back to college to graduate,  teaching for 20 years in local schools then teaching at a jail for 20 years.  He stands a little taller, the weight on his shoulders lightens up. Floodwater hasn't dampened the pride he has in his life's work.

Those stories help ease the sting of watching us drag ruined mementos, heirlooms, sheetrock and debris to their street outside. Joyce is calm and thankful in spite of ruination around her. She feels the respect we have for their property, being careful with what can be salvaged, asking her if in doubt. I watch her calibrate how much she can let go of and what she wants to hold on to.

The crew chief has a huge burden of responsibility. What's not up for discussion is anything the crew chief knows will not pass inspection to be rebuilt if it is not torn out right now. Every piece of wet flooring, cabinetry, wood siding, wall paneling, has to be removed. Mildew is the enemy in this climate and will begin to take hold within days and make a home uninhabitable. Otherwise, Inspectors will deny rebuilding.

The story here is the same everywhere. Miles of coulees (1,400 miles of City-Parish roadside open ditches 500 miles along side city streets and 900 miles along side parish roads) meant to help drain rainwater were overcome with unprecedented rainfall, enough to fill Lake Ponchartrain, got overtopped, greedily spread up and overland and relentlessly and rapidly flooded the land for miles, coming down south all the way from Denham Springs to the parishes around Lafayette.

Most, like Roy and Joyce, say their homes have never flooded, that they have no flood insurance, and are dealing with a this particular fact of southwest Louisiana life, the presence of water in abundance, water that sustains them in farming rice and crawfish and raising cattle and can also destroy them in massive unprecedented floods like what will be known at the Flood of 2016, no official name but a title that will live in searing memory of the tens of thousands of people from Baton Rouge to Lafayette.

People have seen their share of flooding in southwest LA but absolutely nothing compared to this. Nearly every homeowner we work with talks of water rising so fast and so unexpectedly that they had to flee for their lives, water in a matter of hours up to their knees into the typical one story homes that dot this entire area, roads becoming impassable, cars abandoned, lifetimes abandoned as they fled with what they could carry in their arms and pray to god they could get to high ground And survive it. it had to have been frightening to see your entire neighborhood becoming a lake, an unimaginable nightmare.

Speed kills. You often see that as a road sign or plastered on a billboard. After unprecedented rainfall in Louisiana two weeks ago, it applied to water that rose faster than even the oldest residents ever experienced. It killed 14 of them and displaced tens of thousands.

The crew arrives at 1:30 PM. Most of the homeowner's salvageable belongings are in the carport.

 

Crews stashed most of what was dry into the den and any other dry place they could find; fans provided by Our Savior's Church help dry out the wood framing.

A "class picture" of the crew - Kneeling, Stephen, Francine; standing, Tracy, Jake, Ryan, Will, Philip, ?,Bryan, Rob and the homeowners Roy and Joyce(center)

debris removed from the house is piled on the roadside.

Unprecedented flooding

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/08/15/how-over-2-feet-of-rain-caused-historic-flooding-in-louisiana-in-less-than-72-hours/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2d45d2455d6a

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/18/us/louisiana-flooding/

in one part of southwest LA more than 31 inches of rain fell in 15 hours

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Louisiana_floods

Flooding began in earnest on August 12. On August 13, a flash flood emergency was issued for areas along the Amite and Comite rivers.[10] By August 15, more than ten rivers (Amite, Vermilion, Calcasieu, Comite, Mermentau, Pearl, Tangipahoa, Tchefuncte, Tickfaw, and Bogue Chitto) had reached a moderate, major, or record flood stage.

UPDATE AS OF JULY 2018

An update on drainage, coulee cleaning by LCG

https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/multimedia/photos/collection_7a6a2238-8c36-11e8-89a7-47a45ae896e1.html#13

One of several remediation projects to improve the capacity of the Lafayette city/parish drainage system, a $4.2 million project underway as of July 20, 2018.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. who was on volunteer crews with Our Savior's Church from August 22 - 27

 

Louisiana Flood of 2016: Our Savior's Church Crews On The Move August 24

August 24, 2016

Sometimes it takes an act of God to bring out the god in everybody...

Previous posts about the Louisiana Flood of 2016 begin here

Crews organized by Our Savior's Church in Lafayette, LA get to work in Youngsville, LA

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I doubt any of the words could describe Youngsville today.

8:45 AM Boy, oh boy, is this church ever organized. As a volunteer who asked, by phone from a town 1635.4 miles from Lafayette, to help in a massive cleanup campaign after rain inundated a huge chunk of Louisiana, I never had to spend a minute trying to figure out what to do or how to fit in.

Two days earlier, Monday, August 22, I showed up at 8:30 AM, saw supplies piled up all over the spacious church lobby. Friendly chatter of friends greeting each other did nothing to mask the calm sense of purpose I felt in the room that morning and every morning since. I signed in at a volunteer desk. There would be a meeting at 9:00 AM. We would be organized into work groups. The work each day would last till about 3 PM. Lunches and drinks would be provided. Each team would have a crew chief. The crew chief had a list of houses to be mucked out and a list of what needed to be done in each house. Tools were available if you didn't bring your own. Everyone would find a job they could do.

I had never set foot in this church, or known any of the men and women associated with it before Monday morning. Nervous about how the day would unfold, yes. Nervous because I didn't feel a clear sense of direction and purpose? Heck, no. I took a deep breath. Our Savior's Church had it covered.

By now, I looked forward to the 9 AM group meetings led by a pastor who relayed useful information and gave some love to the four men who were prime movers and organizers and donors to the effort. To my surprise, I began to look forward to the prayer a pastor would lead before we formed work groups.

Prayer can cover lots of territory. Not only ask for our own safety, strength and well being but of compassion for the people we were about to serve. And the fact that in most cases we were the only source of assistance the people would get. The flood destruction was extraordinarily all consuming. Meteorologists don't throw the words "1000-Year Storm" around lightly...or ever.

9:00 AM We form a circle. Next week, workers from out of town are joining the local volunteers. I'm a little ahead of the curve, and frankly, grateful to connect with so many local volunteers.

"The next two weeks are really critical," says the pastor. "There are hundreds of homes that no one has visited. There are hundreds of  homes where people are living where there was three of four feet of water inside. You are such a blessing to them. We're gonna pray, and meet with team leaders. Yesterday we mucked out 13 homes..."  Whoops of applause.

"Anyone who need help, send them to the website.Anyone who want to give, send them to the website. They have no access, take their names and numbers, we will call them. We don't want the internet to be a hurdle to anybody. If anyone wants to help, tell them 9 to 3 at the Lafayette campus here."

"Let's pray. Father thank you so much for this moment we have to serve...we think that the gospel comes only from the mouth but God the gospel can come from a listening ear when someone is overwhelmed, it comes from hands that are ripping out drywall,  it's going to come from the heart when we feel compassion for these people...today we'll use all the parts of our bodies to show the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that you protect us, bless those taking time off from work, bless those coming to help from afar, people doing something they've never done in their lives...we're grateful in Jesus' name... Amen."

With that, he sends us off to meet with team leaders, grab our lunches and ice chests full of water and get to work. We are mobilizing.

Five minutes later, today's team leader is going over the check list for the first house we'll work in. We share our cell phone numbers to stay in touch. Today's team: Angie from New Iberia, Philip, Francine from Maurice, Tracy, her husband Steve, Bryan's wife Kimberly,  another Paul, Kimberly Rhinehart, Bryan Rhinehart

My Boston Red Sox cap got some attention. Ryan's wife Katie reintroduces me to Pastor Tim and we have good laughs about the Yankees and the Red Sox, our respective baseball teams. Stephen used to live in Pittsburgh and chips in about the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball stadium. 

Tracy's husband Steven asked me why I came down here from Boston – I tell him the same story I tell everybody – it's all about the good kind openhearted friendly people in southwest Louisiana which is one of the most unique places I have ever been in my life.

Pastor Tim says they will be doing another survey at houses in deed this Saturday. He says that many people from out of town are arriving to help next week. I believe I got here at a perfect time since I'm working with local people. Who are exactly the kinds of people I want to be with.

People have been making jambalaya and gumbo and bringing to neighbors and complete strangers who have been flooded out.

9:45 AM Our convoy rolls up to East Leblanc Road in Maurice LA

The house is built on pilings. A little over two feet of water rose was enough to rise above them. If the house was a "(cement) slab on grade" type, it would have been a total loss.

"I've got moisture meters so we can see where the water problems are," says Bryan as we meet owner Chris."We're going to try to open the house up and get you dry."  The top layer of flooring has to go. What he talks about with the carpenters in the crew is if the under-layer is tongue and groove, they decide to pull up a section in the corner to find out. He asks Tammy if we can move a bunch of furniture in all the other rooms in the house so we can begin.

"I'm learnin' about all of this, y'all,"owner Chris says as she listens to the talk about the flooring in her house. "That makes about all of us!" says Bryan. The wave of laughter pops a bubble of tension. We're ready to see for ourselves and go from there.

"This is an ideal house to work on,"  says crew chief Bryan.

"The way these older houses are built, the walls are hollow with no insulation so the air that gets inside those walls is going to migrate up through the roof and help ventilate the house," says Rob, born and raised not far from here.

"I bought the house just this May. It was built in 1945, no insurance since I was told it is on such high ground that it would never flood." She says now she's going to get it all in really good shape so during the next flood she'll be in good shape and can join people us from Our Savior's Church  in order to do the kind of work we're doing for her. "Praise Jesus," she says. She may or may not show up at the church's Sunday services but when the call goes out for volunteers, you can be darn sure she's going to answer the call.

This woman’s going to be all right. She's  for whatever we can do,  even if we need to remove things that she wanted to save, like an air conditioning unit she just bought. "We'll  will cut it away from the plywood. You can douse it with a disinfectant for the mold after we get done."

9 AM Get organized at Our Savior's Church...PastorJacob, working every angle, contacting as many friends and businesses he knows of, has amassed tools and supplies to equip every work crew, everything needed to muck out a house is here...

crews collect supplies for the houses on the day's work list given to each crew chief..

Arrive at East Leblanc Road in Maurice LA.

Dry is the key. Anything wet has to be hauled out. Bryan has a handheld device that can detect moisture in hard to see places, like flooring and sub flooring and behind kitchen and bathroom vanities and counters. Everything that was under water has to go. Wet sheetrock and flooring and behind ceiling and floor molding leads to mildew then black mold then to a condemned home. And it has to be mitigated within 10 to 18 days or the house is a goner.

10:15 AM ...every member of the team picks a job  removing kitchen and bathroom cabinets, mopping, carrying out carpets, furniture, debris from kitchen and bathroom.

The cajun cottage was built on pilings in 1945.
 
This home was luckier than most. "It's a good old Cajun house with good bones and built for southwest Louisiana," the owner says. As you see from the mildew on at the bottom of the house, the flood water rose over two feet and flooded the house.

My Lafayette host who works for FEMA says that when homes began to be built on concrete slabs instead of pilings after World War II, that made them especially vulnerable to flooding from surface waters.

 
The crew chief's high tech moisture meter told the story. Water seeped under all the vanities and cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, which had to be removed.

 
Bryan's moisture meter detected it. We removed it.

Several inches of water inside means everything that was immersed has to go...if not black mold will form, work will not be permitted without HAZMAT suits and special permits.

The top layer of flooring in the kitchen needs to go. I use a heavy rectangular bladed  shovel, turn it upside down says Rob, to pry up the flooring.  Once I pry up one spot, I   begin to take take long arcing swoops under the flooring to rip up larger sections. Other crew members haul out the pieces as I pry them up. I worked as a carpenter's helper building houses during summer vacations in college. Tearing a house apart is a rueful experience. 

Occasional pow wows to discuss strategy; every room needed mitigation.

A laser beam shows where to cut drywall if it had been soaked at the bottom at where the 2x4s frame is located; repairing the AC unit means that the house will dry out much faster.

Time to smile while working away; conferring with the owner; sweeping and clearing out anything that's wet. Not evident from the photos - the women on the crew were incredibly efficient and tireless, hauled debris and dismantled moldings all day long.

What goes, what stays? Cathryn thanks the crew for the hard careful thorough work that will likely pass inspection later.

Tearing out the wet flooring of the bathroom; same thing happened in the kitchen.

 
An all too familiar sight in southwest Louisiana after the flooding in August 12-14, 2016

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

+++++++++++++

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/18/us/louisiana-flooding/

in one part of southwest LA more than 31 inches of rain fell in 15 hours

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Louisiana_floods

Flooding began in earnest on August 12. On August 13, a flash flood emergency was issued for areas along the Amite and Comite rivers. By August 15, more than ten rivers (Amite, Vermilion, Calcasieu, Comite, Mermentau, Pearl, Tangipahoa, Tchefuncte, Tickfaw, and Bogue Chitto) had reached a moderate, major, or record flood stage.

 

Louisiana Flood of 2016: August 23 - Our Savior's Church Volunteer Crews Gut One Home, One Garage, Cleanup One Home in Abbeville

Tuesday morning August 23, 2016 Our Savior's Church Volunteer Crews Mucking Out Homes - Day 2 for me.

The Washington Post noted that the "no-name storm" dumped three times as much rain on Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina on the days after August 11. It dropped the equivalent of 7.1 trillion gallons of water or enough to fill Lake Pontchartrain about four times. Hurricane Katrina, by comparison, dumped about 2.3 trillion gallons of rainwater in the state (though more in other states). The flooding rains also dumped more water than had Hurricane Isaac. According to the National Weather Service Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center, the amount of rainfall in the hardest-hit locations had a less than 0.1 percent chance of happening or was a (less than) 1-in-1,000-year event.

Because the rain was not associated with a named storm, there was less warning to the public for emergency preparations.

9:00 AM

"You are making a difference," one of the pastors says as we gather before heading out.

"A woman asked her neighbor for help, the neighbor said we only do our member's houses but told her about us. When she called, she started crying when we said we could. We're going out there every day from 9 AM to 3 PM Monday to Friday and mornings on Saturday. I know you have lives to go back to. Some of these people have no lives to go back to. You guys are playing such an important role. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

 After driving through neighborhoods totally devastated by flood water, I begin to grasp the utter scale of destruction. And the commitment of Our Savior's Church to help anyone who asks for it. There are 200 homes on their list as of this morning. No one asks whether the homeowners are church folks.

"We started picking people up in dump trucks when the rain started. At one point early on, we had 8 dogs, 2  cats, and a rabbit and a bunch of folks in here." He points out four men who led the rescues from the beginning, tells us that they are organizing crews in this lobby to make lunches to send to the volunteers and hot food for people living in homes with no electricity or ability to prepare any kind of food. Whoever is in charge of logistics here thinks in macro and micro terms.

Before we organize into teams, we join hands as the pastor leads a prayer."Even though we aren't showing up with a suit and a bible, we are speaking the gospel based on our actions today...." This is a big tent blessing.

He prays that we be safe and protected as we work, asks for blessings for men and women putting their businesses on hold as they volunteer today, thanks Pastor Jacob for his leadership...ends with "We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen."  To me, the blessing and prayer feels as secular as spiritual. Everyone here is guided the voice of one of our better angels speaking to us...help thy neighbor.

Prayer complete, we break into teams. The crew chief has a list of addresses for the day, what is to be done, even an estimate of how much time it would take a crew to get it done.

The morning is not without humor."Where you from?" asks one of the pastors. "Wow I was supposed to speak in Boston this month. But I'm from New York City so you can't wear that Red Sox hat here!"

"I'll turn it around when I see you coming!" says I. Laughter. And one of my crew mates says "He found us online and came down to help!"

My home town doesn't seem to matter any more. Fellow volunteer Francine  and I agree that we are both skilled grunt laborers. She asks how i ended up here, told her my story (same reply as the one I replied Tuesday afternoon - below - and several other times this week). "It's  a different culture, it's special, it's different from anywhere you will ever go," Francine says. True.

Glad that several of my crew from yesterday are in my crew today, including Francis who has been a barber in New Iberia for 25 years.'"Y'all can follow me to Abbeville." says Bryan. We're off.

We drive south past fields full of high as an elephant's eye lush sugar cane toward Abbeville. It's eerie to grasp that days before this region was in the midst of a 1000-year storm. Passing homes along the ride, it looks like luck of the draw, some homes inside out, others seem intact. The closer we get to Abbeville, the more pervasive the destruction. I'm in the convoy, cruising down LA 14, pass The Donut Palace, over Bayou Vermilion to Abbeville.

 

10:15 AM Our work convoy arrives at Morgan Street, in Abbeville, LA

Today the  little coulee that runs next to Tammy's house looks like it could barely fill a bathtub. On the days after August 11, it had swollen and grew to the size of a rogue bayou that mercilessly inundated the neighborhood.

Tammy's home on Morgan Street, Abbeville, LA, flooded big time. It had to be gutted floor to ceiling right down to the studs. Walls in the bathroom, utility room, major portion of flooring, wall paper, wood paneling, floor molding, all have to go. Here we are, on a sunny day, robin's egg blue sky, tearing her house apart and carting it onto the yard in front of her street.

Hot as hell inside, everyone works finds something useful to do. Not much chatter. All I hear is the screeching of wooden floor and molding being torn from the studs, scraping of blades to remove wallpaper, hammering in the bathroom to remove just about everything that was inside it. I'm working with Christina and Tracy, both energetic and seemingly indefatigable, scraping wet wallpaper off wood paneled walls.

Everywhere I drive I see ruins. What must be going on inside those homes? As the sense of shock subsides, feelings of utter displacement. loss, and often depression grow as insidiously as the mold in the house.

An ugly truth: I'm stunned when Tammy says people stole stole two room air conditioners from her ravaged home. She tells us not to remove a large piece of cardboard that she will tape in the window to prevent people from seeing inside.  "YOU LOOT, WE SHOOT" signs don't fit with every notion I have about people around here.

Unbelievably common sight. I feel like I'm driving through a futuristic movie set in which the oceans have flooded the world.

Mind boggling to see mountains of debris outside every house in the neighborhood.

Today the  little coulee that runs next to Tammy's house looks like  it could barely fill a bathtub. On the days after August 11, it had swollen and grew to the size of a rogue bayou that mercilessly inundated the neighborhood.

Assess damage and tear out anything that had been soaked in the flood.

 

Walls, floors, plumbing fixtures...everyone picks a job, sometimes working as teams, sometimes alone, but always with a sense of purpose to...

cut out portions of flooring, floor molding, sheetrock, wood paneling, anything the flood water touched. We tell Tammy about a product called Concrobium Mold  Control. At around 12:30 PM, leave Tammy's home after two powerful and active hours in which we gutted her home.

You've heard the expression "Many hands make light work" ...well in this case, "Many hands transform a monumental overwhelming problem to a homeowner into one in which their home has been saved from devolving into mess of black mold."

Like other homes, the flooding happened so fast as water ways from the north were overpowered by 7.1 TRILLION gallons of water that fell on the state.

Tammy breaks down in tears of gratitude as we leave her home. She asks us to leave some debris so she can point out original materials to FEMA when the time comes.

Onward. We head down South Main Street past a huge oil drum with Steen's Pure Cane Sugar emblazoned on its round contours.

I cannot overstate the power of Bryan's blessing before we leave. Holding hands in a tight circle in Tammy's now stark living room, asking Jesus to give some love to Tammy in her time of stress, and let her know that there is a community of people who are willing to help her in her time of need just as he helps others in their time of need. Bryan's not on a pulpit. Matter of factly, he's doing what is important to him, what he feels called to do. He might be invoking Jesus but to my mind he's talking about Jesus the carpenter, the man who put a roof over people's heads.

Tracy and Christine hug Tammy after the short prayer. Tammy sobs, tears of gratitude. Prayer and hugs are the most powerful gift at this moment especially when accompanied by action. I'm not particularly religious but there is something going on here that's very moving and if God has something to do with it, so be it.

"Acts like that are so kind and generous," I say to Tracy. She turns around, looks me in the eye. "You're a part of this too, you know." That's about when I had to hold back my own tears.

In an enormously helpful pro-active outreach program, Our Savior's Church published "a list of documents that will be helpful to you for cleaning out your home, dealing with FEMA, and other issues related to the flood." http://www.oursaviorschurch.com/2016/08/23/helpful-documents/

Tuesday afternoon

Rt LA 167 heading for LA 14

We head for a second job. Crew chief Bryan says it is too easy. We are such a good crew that he wants to bring us to jobs that suits our work ethic! Francis laughs and says he wouldn't mind a piece of the shade under a nearby tree but, like us, he loves the compliment. Bryan pauses to say a brief prayer. Every time he says the word energy he really lands on it. That was us!

On to another house in Abbeville..."A-town" as someone in the group said.

It is surprising how just a few inches of water can cause damage, this house is an example. Chad and Laneta are members of the church. We move furniture from their house to her mother's garage in another  part of town. Six degrees of separation stories ensue.

Lunch arrives (an example of how fabulously organized the church operation is). Everyone begins to connect, SW Louisiana style.

 

Make a plan...

We haul heavy dining room furniture, some kitchen furniture, bedding and blankets, heavy chairs into a U-Haul truck that Chad and Laneta rented. Less than an hour later we've moved it into a house that they had moved from.

Chad, Tracy, Laneta, Laneta's mother Myrtle. After unloading, people begin to talk, and I try to keep track of the connections. Francis knows Laneta by her nickname "Pixie". Tracy and Chad, who, by the way, Francis has known for years, get going about what school did you go to, who’s your mamma, father, who are your sisters and brothers, cousins, where do they live... this is SOOO much a SW Louisiana conversation, before long they find who they know in common or what similarities they have in schools, relatives, locations they live in, friends they have in common!

Late Tuesday afternoon

"What's your story," crew chief asks. I tell the same story a bunch of times this week.

"Well, first it was the music and the dancing in the food. As I kept visiting, it became clear that the most unique thing about southwest Louisiana is the open  openhearted, kind, generous, good-humored,people I keep meeting here."

I got going. "They may not all think the same way the same politics but when it comes down to something where people need help they show up. If they're from Our Savior's Church, they give out a lot of love, a lot of hugs, and while they don't shy away from praising God in crew meetings before and after each job they do it in a way that is openhearted not aggressively religious and actually made me feel really proud to be a member of the group and realize, confirm actually, that I'm doing something important. When I began  i felt like I was doing something for someone else but the more I got into it I realize actually I was getting way more out of it than I was putting into it." 

When I start telling my Lafayette hosts about my experience working with the crew yesterday I get emotional, when I begin telling some of the crew members about it today I nearly cry, tears of gratitude for being just where I want and need to be. I swear I see Pastor Jacob smiling somewhere about that one.

FOURTH HOUSE

2:30 PM 300 Cherry Street Abbeville, LA where the Cathryn lives, Half of our crew is there already, the house was not flooded.

but the garage had loads of stuff stored in it and all of it was soaking wet, pitch black and a little stinky and totally disorganized. Cathryn tells us what stays and what is goes.

We spend about 45 minutes mucking out the garage, removing mostly everything in wheel barrows and by hand and putting it in a massive pile in front of her house. The scene of  gutting a flooded house is being repeated in thousands of houses throughout the region. Once again, a friendly hug goes a long way.

 

PT and Francis the barber from New Iberia

Our crew...back row Philip, Stephen?, Francis, Ryan; front row Rob, Christina, Francine, Tracy

We form a circle and hold hands this circle sort of like an athletic team in which everyone puts their hand of the middle, one the top of the other as Ryan prays. Between the spirit of the blessing and the experience Cathryn has of having a nightmare situation cleaned up by a full crew within 45 minutes moves her to tears. She knows of many people who have not had this kind of help and support and is incredibly thankful. Many of us give her a hug as we leave – it is a scenario that is happened before and will happen again.

At first I came here wanting to offer my help and support a combination of physical labor and a sense of connecting with people in need. The fact is that during each and every minute that I am sweating, stooping, bending, lifting, hauling, scraping, filling construction grade 3 mil plastic bags with all manner of debris from busted up sheetrock to ruined personal possessions, I feel I am being  useful.  The Marge Piercy poem "To Be of Use" comes to mind.

I feel grateful for being able to help, especially help these people from southwest Louisiana who are in one of the most unique subcultures in the country. I've said this before. Kind, welcoming, helpful, good-natured. Many of these people have been through horrible storms and natural events in the past 10 years, everything from Katrina and then to Rita and then to the great floods of 2016. I can see people holding it together while they put one foot in front of the other,  minute to minute, day by day.

I know I am in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, doing the right thing, for the right reasons.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Louisiana Flood of 2016: A Tenacious Crew of Volunteers Guts A Flooded Home August 22,2016

The Louisiana Flood of 2016
Monday, August 22, 2016
Youngsville, LA

First Day of Volunteer Work Gutting Houses in Lafayette Parish with Our Savior’s Church of Lafayette, LA.

Pastor Jacob Aranza welcomes us volunteers warmly, LINK to earlier story, introduces crew leaders, who divide us into teams.

There is nothing haphazard about this operation. Scouts have visited every house that a crew will work in. They've met with the owners, made a precise list of what is to be done, what tools are likely to be needed, possible obstacles to be overcome (rooms crowded with furniture, access into the house), the emotional state of the owners.

My team's fearless leader Bryan Rhinehart reminds us that they're under stress, that we are dealing with all their earthly possessions, they may be in a state of shock or denial or even angry, are facing devastating losses, and that we are still guests in their house offering to lend a hand."This is what ministry is all about," he says, "encourage each other if you get tired. Remember, you're doing this for them.I'm trusting that God is going to give me everything we need today."

A mentor of mine once said, " It doesn't make a difference who gets the credit if the job gets done." All I know is that I'm where I want to be,doing something important to me.

Our convoy heads from the church to a home in Lafayette. The Lafayette home sustained damage with several inches of water inside. Most of the gutting had been done by another crew. After we load possessions onto a truck, a neighbor leads us to his garage where he is storing his friends furnishings until they rebuild.
  

The next home on our list is in Youngsville, ten miles south of  Lafayette. "This is going to be heavy duty. The house took in two feet of water," Bryan says.

There were no  creeks I could see nearby. The overflowing dumpster was my first glimpse of what I would see for the rest of the week, totally unexpected loss of home and hearth. A home that had to be literally turned inside out to be saved.

The smell of wet sheetrock and cement fills my nostrils behind the N-95 dust mask wrapped around my face. Hammers and crowbars pound and pry. A shop vac sucks up a sheen of gray water and plaster dust from the cement slab of what’s left of a bedroom. Every so often a ten-pound sledgehammer in the hands of the crew chief thunders into the kitchen cabinets that had been soaked and needed to be yanked out. Short muffled conversations between the nine of us gutting the house help coordinate who was doing what.

The house set back from the road in Youngsville had taken at least two feet of water. “It happened so fast,” the owner says. “I’ve never been flooded before. I could hardly believe what I was seeing when it got up to my knees.”

You’d never guess that most of the crew had known each other for only three hours. Work is methodical and efficient. Heavy-duty trash bags that weigh thirty pounds and debris by the wheel barrowful are carted out and piled next to the blue dumpster, already full. My first day of volunteering organized by Our Savior’s Church is working like a well-oiled machine.

After a couple of crew members unscrew the plates for the electrical outlets and cut sheetrock at the seams four feet above the floor, the rest of us break it up in manageable pieces and drag it outside. Clothing, dressers, bed frames, mattresses, bathroom vanities, toilets, kitchen cabinets, insulation, carpets, floor molding – everything that belongs inside a house – are in a soggy, pitiful pile outside of it.

One awkward tilt port or starboard while navigating a wheelbarrow full of wet sheetrock, insulation, and debris over a piece of plywood outside the carport and the whole payload will get dumped into the mud below and require precious time and energy to load back into the wheel barrow. I know this from experience – once.

We are soaked in sweat. At around lunchtime someone delivers big bottles of Gatorade and box lunches of turkey and ham and cheese sandwiches, chips, and cookies.

Time to take a breath under the shade of the trees. It feels like a movie reel in which bits of characters are revealed between battles.

There’s Mark, laid off after 25 years in the oil fields, who tells me, “We Cajuns know how to improvise,” while he’s pulling out a bathroom vanity, a burly guy who says he thinks of his father every time he hears Brad Paisley's "He Didn't Have To Be" and his mother every time he smells roses. And Christina, an accountant who used to work with U-Haul and is very handy with any kind of tool she puts in her hand; there's a trim, retired “petro-engineer” who describes how the oil industry has tanked; Robin, a stay-at-home mom, quiet but determined; Ali, a hair stylist, cheerful and sweaty; John the dentist who tells story about bartering some mechanical work on his car at a saw mill in Belize for extracting a tooth of the mill owner right on a table at the mill; Francis, the barber from Lafayette via New Iberia who has four kids who play football and volleyball; Ricki, a retired accountant who looks nowhere near her 72 year age; and Tracy from Youngsville who teaches 2-year-olds at St Anne’s Church and whose dad is a devotee of Pickleball and whose husband’s uncle is Bobby Charles, the guy who wrote the Top 40 song, “See You Later Alligator.” And Bryan, our crew chief with a luminous personality, one of the pastors at the church, a life coach, a flood victim himself, and as good with power tools as with words from the pulpit.

The people in my crew are the kind of Louisiana people that made me want to come down here and help with the volunteer work in the first place, friendly, open, generous of spirit.

By mid-afternoon, everything on the checklist has been completed. We leave two large fans whirring to help dry the house out and load Bryan’s big Ford pickup truck with tools, buckets, wheelbarrows, step ladders, shovels and other necessities the church has provided.

“You’ve got my dad’s number. Call him or call the church if you need anything,” Bryan says to the homeowner. “Monitor that air conditioner. And when the next dumpster comes in, give us a call we might be able to send some people here to get the debris on the ground into the next dumpster.”

Bryan calls us together to hold hands in a tight circle and leads a short prayer. I had no idea what to expect in the way religion would interface with our work. What follows is a heartfelt closure that covers a lot of territory after a day of hard work.

Bryan thanks God for keeping us safe, acknowledges we made progress today, wishes Godspeed to the owner as he continues to clean up and find a contractor to begin rebuilding, that God restore the energy we expended and ease the muscle pains we might feel from the work we’ve done today, says sometimes when we do this work it reveals things in our own hearts that we need to clear out and throw in the trash. (That resonates with me. The work I’m doing feels like the most important thing I’ve done in a long time. Other things don’t need to get thrown in the trash but sure do get re-prioritized.)

Bryan finishes with, “Thank you for your son, Jesus. We look forward to what you have in store for us this week…can I have an Amen?”

“You have restored my faith in humanity,” the owner says as we pull out. I can give an Amen to that, too.

Meet with the owner (blue T shirt); get to work removing sheetrock, floor moldings...once the bottom of 4x8 piece of sheetrock has been wet, the panel needs to be removed before mold grows and removal becomes hazardous.

floor coverings, water, plaster debris;  bathroom vanities and toilet...my Lafayette friend and FEMA planner says that after WWII the US government allowed construction of ‘slab on grade’ homes here, that previously houses were built on stilts or elevated, protected against flood and offered cooling or improved ventilation as air circulated underneath. All but one of the homes we gutted were 'slab on grade'.

break for lunch; pull out kitchen cabinets...anything that got soaked had to go.

insulation and debris by the wheelbarrowful...

 

when necessary, surgically remove the cabinet with a sledge hammer; taking apart the bathroom; the homeowner watches the operation...and says how much he appreciates the help. It's easy to see how overwhelming and disheartening the sight can be to a home owner.

 ....
take a minute for a quick photo; the owner spent three hours in town getting permit to rebuild while we worked. Before we leave, Bryan asks us to make a circle join hand in a compact circle.  "Lord thank you for keeping us safe, that we were able to make some progress today. We wish Jim godspeed in finding a contractor to help him rebuild, that you hold the rains back, that you ease our sore muscles, that you continue to work in our own hearts...sometimes when we this kind of work it reveals things in our own lives that need to be cleared out and thrown in the trash, we wish for that as well...and for your son and look forward to your blessings during this week...can I have an Amen..."

a scene outside thousands of homes in SW Louisiana

Mid afternoon we're done, don't have time to begin another gutting. "You don't need to do this but my own garage about 30 minutes down the road got flooded. If you have time, would you ...?" He barely has time to finish before all of us volunteer to head to his house in Lafayette. His wife and kids are staying elsewhere until everything dries out. One hour later, we've removed anything touched by water in his garage and are off on our separate ways. We have earned our stripes as veteran volunteers.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. and his iPhone

The Louisiana Flood of 2016: Pastor Jacob Aranza Sets The Stage

Our Savior’s Church
1201 E Broussard Road


Lafayette, LA 70508

Monday September 2, 2016

8:45 AM


First day on the job I have volunteered for, far from home, uncertain about everything except that I want to be here. I leave my rented car in a huge parking lot and walk into the in the spacious foyer of Our Savior’s Church in Lafayette, LA. The foyer is abuzz with volunteers ready to muck out flooded homes. All ages, races, backgrounds, and all ready to pitch in for their own reasons. The space is feels like a force field of positive energy. Smiling faces belie a deep sense of intention and commitment for the work that lies ahead.

This church is organized. Tools, wheelbarrows, power equipment, brooms, mops, gloves, safety masks, ladders in orderly piles. They’ve been at this for a week and have logistics figured out. There are 200 homes on their list...and counting.

9:00 AM
A hush descends over the crowd. Pastor Jacob Aranza welcomes us. In a gesture that will be repeated often during the week, we’ve joined hands in a circle. I feel a bond forming with a hundred people I’ve never met.

Pastor Jacob is a master of capturing the big picture. Like a photographer in a darkroom, he allows the details of the picture to slowly come into focus in the developing process.

During the next ten minutes, he delivers a lovely spiritual and social and cultural blessing for who we are and what we are doing and the people for whom we are doing it.

The gist of it is that the median income for families in the parish is $36,518, males have income of about $36,400 and women about $22,700. About 15% of families are below the poverty line.

“Many in the parish do not have more than $500 in savings and they have no flood insurance. Some have friends to help them out but for many we volunteers and this church are the first opportunity they have to get help and relief from the flood.”

People have offered love and clothing but there’s a sense of urgency.

“If their homes have mildew that becomes mold, they may lose everything. Connect personally with the homeowners or anyone you meet who needs help. Use your words or social media to tell people of the out reach the church is making.”

Pastor Jacob, arms outstretched, swivels to look us all in the eyes. “We are the hands and feet of Jesus doing this work.”

We’re certainly the hands and feet of some good power - friends, neighbors, perfect strangers, good Samaritans, the list goes on. If Pastor Jacob wants to call us the hands and feet of Jesus, I’m fine with that. Looking around at the others, most of whom are members of this non-denominational church, I’m feeling it.

Some might say we’re doing god’s work. A lapsed catholic whose only visits to a church are for weddings and funerals, I feel enveloped in a state of grace. I flew here from Boston to be standing right here. I don’t know if the Big Guy ever mucked out a flooded home but if he did he would have done it with apostles like the ones I’m holding hands with.

“Blessings will come back upon us for doing this humanitarian work,” the pastor says.

For yours truly, that blessing began right then and there.

XXXXXX
Pastor Jacob describes the mission at hand
https://www.facebook.com/oscfamily/videos/vb.114604773611/10154115621483612/?type=2&theater#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQA61uTBxGU