Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago, a group of us headed to New Orleans to gut a ruined house. When portions of the levee along the London Avenue Canal collapsed in the aftermath of Katrina, many homes in the Gentilly area of New Orleans flooded. We called ourselves the First Draft Krewe, because ScoutPrime and Athenae at First Draft organized the group who went to work at 1773 Sere Street under the direction of ACORN, which has overseen the reconstruction of 3,500 houses in New Orleans.
Our job was to strip the house down to the bare bones, removing all the inside materials which were rotted, mildewed, and ruined. The house had been completely submerged by the floodwaters. Trust me: it's a shit job, but we wanted to do our small part to help the folks in New Orleans come back.
When we (they really, because I could not do the heavy lifting) got to the kitchen, it was in terrible shape. Cockroaches and termites abounded in huge numbers. Many of us believed the house would be demolished in the end, because of the sorry condition of the kitchen. So why were we doing the difficult and dirty task?
The folks next door, who were well on their way to restoring their house, were quite grateful to have the mess next to them cleaned up. That was reason enough, and you never know. You do the assigned task without too much thinking and questioning because the folks at ACORN, who know what they're about, send you there.
The picture above shows the First Draft Krewe along with our partners, a fine group of students from Elon University, at the end of our work day. As you see, the pile of trash removed from the house is taller and wider than our rather large group.
Now the hero of this post is blogger Sinfonian, who recently returned to 1773 Sere Street to check it out. Pictured below is the termite- and roach-infested kitchen as it looks today.
I could hardly believe what I saw in the picture. Check out the house today at Blast Off!, Sinfonian's blog, at the link above. His story of the return visit and the other pictures of the house are simply amazing. (Links no longer active, alas.)
Thank you, Sinfonian, for taking the trouble and telling us the story. Hugs and kisses to you. What a beautiful, happy ending - for a change. It seems as if I've been hearing way too much bad news.
Here's my post on our work day.
H/T to ScoutPrime for alerting me to the story.
