I believe work hard and play hard is a great philosophy. I had been looking forward to my fishing day with David Ulmer all week. Gary Buenas joined as well as David's son Dave who lives in the region.

It was going to be a calm beautiful day witrh a chance of rain late. We get out on the boat and get to the fishing grounds. it was a fort on an island. Fort massachusets was the name and it was named after the ship that came there after the fort had been abondoned by the confederacy. I was the first with a pole in the water and proceeded to catch a 20" speckled trout 30 secons into the day. More than the last trip in mexico so my day was already good. We proceeded to land 7 of those fish between 14" and 22" 2-4 lbs each. A great start. That was the first two hours maybe. We also caught a few white trout as well as a few catfish. THe catfish in the ocean are called bullheads and are unedible. They look exactly like the mudcats in clearlake which are edible. The fishing slowed down there. We moved and fished at a place called the rockpile. The rockpile is where the boats coming into harbor would throw off their balast rocks used to stabilize large ships for crossing the ocean. We caught zip, zil nada and only were there 30 minutes. We then mover a few 1000 yards to a man made reef.

We got into some fish. We caught probably 70 white trout with only a few to small to keep. We lost maybe ten of them bringing them to the boat. At one point David was getting tired and sitting and reeling in trout. You would throw your line light give it a couple twitches and wham fish on. We caught another 10 catfish that we broke free. A couple of stingrays which after last weeks accident we cut at the side of the boat and did not bring on the boat. Witgh all that the fishing could have ended and we all would have been feeling great. Throughout the day we caught an occaisoal red fish. Some 20-35 lbs each. The fight was 20-45 minutes and an incredible fight. We were using light tackle and 12 lb test so it was a challenge rather than the chair big gear and just reeling them in. We wanted the fight and the challenge and got both. Thanks David.

We ended our day by having a feast with our group that was around as well as those from the other groups who were meandering. On the weekends there are no services and we are on our own. It was great hanging out with the other groups and sharing our stories.

I would like to back track and explain how the churches rebuild is handled. There are several church and private groups in the area.

On our site and all major sites is a group called Samaritans Purse. They are the largest group and are associated with Billy Grahm presents. They evangelical and are here to rebuild and recruit. There volunteers are here for months not weeks. They have paid staff to run their organization. they have contract workers to feed and supply these crews. We eat with them, and we share the grounds with them. We do not work with them and they are well funded and well stocked machine. We do not use their materials or their staff. They are a first responder group all over the world and the gulf is the first time in the US that they are going into repair/rebuild mode. In third world countries they do complete builds but here they normally just do the mud and mucking and then pull out.

The city is the central organizer for all these volunteer efforts. Presbeterian,Methodist, Mendonites, Redcross, etc.. are all coordinated by a central group. There is overlap but not at the same time. We have worked on houses that other groups have been at. It is triage of housing. Post Katrina repairs only is the standard. The variance comes from the assessors. Those who prioritize the damage based on economic need. I was able to do some assessments and it was so varied. There are those who are so poor that they never did a thing to their house and they have rot so bad you can see ground through the bottom plates and joists and plywood to the ground. We have to seperate the mold issues and address those. Then wait for the owner to get the rot repired before we go back to do new electrical and sheetrock. then there are those who had some nmoney and tried to build a bigger, better home than they had before and ran out of money. There are those who have no house just a slab, no insurance and no money. Habitat is again coming to the rescue but it is slow going for them as well. 30 houses is great but it took 14 months and they are only half done.

I will give one more thing to imagine. Imagine petaluma, santa rosa, windosr and healdsburg was under water and every house needed sheetrock and electrical done to it. Thats whats left just in Mississippi just in Biloxi, Gulf Port, Long Beach, and pass Chrisitian. Under the 10 year plan it will only be close not complete.

Brian Garrison

Friday is the best day to describe an typical day for us as we now know our routines. We all get up around 5-5:30 am. We eat at 6:30. Devotions at 7:00. 7:30 Norm and I meet with the leadership here for our days needs. 8:00 we try to get the groups out. We work until 4:30 then pickup as fast as we can to make it back as we are sometimes an hour normally 1/2 hour away from the camp. We then cleanup as dinner is 6:30 sharp. We meet as a group after and break apart around 8:30. It is a long day and staying offsite I have to drive 30 minutes each way each day as I have commute traffic both ways.

Last night Gary, Norm, David and I had worked hard to get a womans water heater installed and lit as she had twin 2 month olds and a 16 year old she is raising. We fianlly had it all together and we still could not get the thing going. It was 9:00 pm when we finally called it a night. This is what I get for leaving a little early.

When we work we are always wet. it is 70-80 degrees with high humidity. it takes half our energy just to move. It rains off and on and it gets more humid. We do not take rain days here we just work around it. I had not been dry once all week either from sweat or from rain when this morning we had a little Santa Rosa weather show up. Foggy and 57. all the other groups from where ever were shivering and complaining while a lot of our group was in shorts and t shirts.

The weather couldnot have been more perfect so we did take a small exscursion. We out into the bayou in the wild life preserve. It was amazing to watch osprey fish (osprey the bird do fishing the verb). There was a bald eagle. We watched for alligators and the only one we saw out of the water was dead but the stench made the photo opp a little hard. It had to be 12-15 long and it was a male.

Beautiful day incredible waterways. It was a perfect way to end our week.

brian garrison

Thursday was another great group day. I believe this was the day Jim in the sermon spoke of stories and how important they are (I am writing late because we really are busy).

Jim had spoke of his mother and her incredible story telling abilities and how we can truly help in region just by listening to the stories of those around us. (I must be honest that I have so little time that I have not even read anyone elses comments on the website so if I give more of the same info I apologize).

While we are here we are listening to the stories around us and when we get we will then have our own stories to tell.

So here are a few of the stories I have heard this week...

I met a man who apprently appreciated his beer. He had decided to rough out the storm at home under full intoxication. Camille had gone up to his front steps but not in his house. He woke up in the middle of the night floating on his mattress. He found his beers in the cooler he kept by the bed and by the time he realized it was serious he wass floating 1 foot off the ceiling. Lucky for him the water receeded after an hour. His neighbors had all perished when their homes were blown down and crushed them.

Hatie was living a rough life prior to the storm. She had to take care of her 80 something year old mother in a wheelchair. Hatie's house was katie corner and run down. She had lost her husband and everything she owned in Katrina. Unfortunately the neighborhood was not the most desireable and what little was not nailed down that remained was stolen. here was a woman who katrina stole her life and then the neighbors stole her diginity.

Another house was a man who worked for the utilities. he had to work Katrina. He had to take city vehicles up to high ground at 2 am and wait for katrina to hit and receed. he then had to go to work without knowing how his family was doing during the storm. When it was all over all he had left was a home that had been under 8' of water. I never saw a wife or kids but i always assumed they were there. I had asked but he had never answered.


These are only a few but I may not be the best to tell them. I would ask that you listen when the team is back and ready to talk.

brian garrison

Wednesday we are finally on a roll. Our crews are all working hard and learning we are really on our own as far as materials and decision making. We have 5 teams and all are ready, willing, and able to work. Our church has surprised me. When it is time to work they work and never complain except when they have nothing to do. I cannot be happier with how well everyone is working and getting along. all the jobsites are busy and coming along.

I would like to take just a minute and describe our team in broad strokes. I am the youngest currently at 42. Our oldest is 89 going on a young 90. We all have different backgounds but I either went to school or was in school at the same time as most of the teams kids. One person on the team has a son in law I went to school with. Another taught at our high school. They are all mentors to me on dealing with what I am seeing and working on. As the only construction person this week the construction is easy and the stories are hard. For others the people skills are easy and the construction is hard. As a team we are complete. I have to kudoos however to Bob Ryan the 89 year old. he has been a surprise and a worry all week but he insists on working evry minute of every day. I went to dinner with him the other day and now I know how he does it. He can pack away food like i have never seen while remaining slight of stature.

It was a hard but good day.

Friday, we were part of the unloading team. SUMA, or Seashore United Methodist Assembly, is our sponsoring organization, the people who provide us with a place to stay, our meals during the week, and our work assignments. They have a lot of people who volunteer to repair homes, but most of them have no way to get the materials they need, like sheetrock or plywood. We offered to rent a truck and/or pull a trailer, and that was a great help to SUMA. They have teams that come in for a weekend, maybe 3 days, and want to work productively the whole (short) time they are here. So we became the supply crew.

The first thing we did today was to deliver about 20 sheets of plywood to a home. A team from northern Mississippi was coming in Friday through Sunday to work on the home, and needed the materials for this work. We all drove to the home, and unloaded the plywood and a front door. It turns out that we picked up the plywood on Thursday but couldn't deliver it until Friday. This was good luck as the home was not secure as they didn't have a door. Since we provided the door and the plywood to a team that was getting right to work, the supplies would be secure. There is a terrible problem around here with people stealing building supplies, and stealing lots of other things, too. Another homeowner, Hattie, had her air conditioner stolen - while she was sleeping! So we minimized the likelihood of this happening for the "weekend place."

After this, we went back to the place where we delivered the sheetrock on Thursday. We delivered some lumber and the rest of the sheetrock. This also worked out better than we expected, as the homeowner asked us to not deliver the rest of the load on Thursday as he was concerned for our safety as we were tired and it was raining. But Friday was sunny, so he asked for the rest of the load, which we gladly provided. (See the photos in the Image Gallery: http://aarpca2.org/xoops/html/modules/xoopsgallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album01&page=2)

After all of this, we returned to our home base at SUMA. Several of us then proceeded to pick up and deliver 5 windows to Marvin's home. We will return Monday morning to install them.

So we had a busy day being the supply crew. It wasn't building or installing anything, but it was also an important part of the work. You can't hang sheetrock if you don't have it.

Now, it's the weekend. We plan to relax, some will do some fishing, others will leave for home, still others will arrive here for next week, and some of us plan to go to New Orleans to see what it is like there.

....

Well, we just arrived back from New Orleans. We went to the French Quarter, had lunch, and took a Gray Line tour of the hurricane affected areas. It was quite different from what we have seen in the Biloxi area. In Biloxi, the primary damage was from the storm surge and the high winds. In New Orleans, the people there thought that they had survived the worst of the storm rather nicely, but then the levees broke, and most of the city was flooded. Since it is a densely populated city, there were house after house that suffered water damage. We saw extensive areas that were basically still uninhabited due to the water damage. We also saw large areas where the commercial areas, such as shopping strip malls, were closed. It will be a long time before the city recovers. (See photos in the Image Gallery: http://aarpca2.org/xoops/html/modules/xoopsgallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album01&page=2)

After that down experience, we went back to the French Quarter and had a really nice dinner of local food such as crawfish, crab, shrimp, and gumbo. That will be our good food experience for the weekend, as the SUMA people don't provide food for us on the weekend. They need a few days off, too.

So it's back to work on Monday, with new assignments and new crews, for the most part.