Eleven Meade County residents do mission work in New Orleans
By KAREN KENNEDY While months have passed since Hurricane Katrina and its resultant flooding devastated New Orleans and surrounding cities, the area is still very much in a post-disaster state. Much work remains to be done before people can truly begin to rebuild their lives. With the knowledge there are still many people in need of assistance, a group of 11 Meade Countians (nine women and two men) traveled to New Orleans to find out how they could make a difference. This group – organized by Becky Flaherty through Catholic Charities’ Operation Helping Hand – rented a van and traveled on a mission to New Orleans. The group departed from Meade County on April 27, returning back home on April 30. Missionaries who traveled to New Orleans were: Shawn Lanham, Rachel Popham, Kenny Brown, Debbi Medley, Marilyn Matthews, Karen Benham, Julie Nevitt, Susan and Mark Popham, Carolyn Barr, and Becky Flaherty. Arriving in New Orleans, the group encountered street after street of heartbreaking destruction and people who continue to live under horrendous conditions. “There remains much work still to be done down there,” stated Flaherty. The group was assigned the home of a 72-year-old widow, a retired schoolteacher who finished her career as an administrator for the Arch Diocese of New Orleans. She lived near the levee but had been told by her insurance agent there was simply no need to purchase flood insurance. Since right before the levy broke, the homeowner has been living with her father three hours away from New Orleans. After the flood occurred, it was three full weeks until she was even permitted entry to her home to see how it had – or hadn’t – survived the hurricane and ensuing flood. And now it was another nine months until the homeowner had assistance in sorting through the contents of her home. The job of the missionaries was to totally gut the first floor of the woman’s home. All the furniture and appliances had to be removed and, once that had been completed, dry wall was torn down. Cockroaches reared their ugly heads a bit too often. Literally everything was covered with mold and mildew, said Flaherty. “The smell from the mold and mildew was bad,” said Flaherty. “We were offered masks. We all needed to take breaks – to leave the house for awhile – to get away from that smell. But everyone returned back to work.” The group worked hard, using sledgehammers, hammers, and wrecking bars. The next step was to spray bleach over all exposed areas. This will need to be done two more times, said Flaherty, and then another mission group will come in to rebuild the home. Working 14 hours over a two-day period, the missionaries were told they had saved the homeowner several thousand dollars as well as saving the state a nice little chunk of change. The savings can then be used for other necessary cleanup and relief efforts. “So little was salvageable,” said Flaherty. “For me, the saddest moment in the trip was when I took an armload full of clothing out to one of the garbage piles. The homeowner was standing there and when I tossed my pile on top, I saw what was left of her wedding dress. So did she.” The woman was able to keep the tiara from her wedding veil, some ponchos her mother had made, and a small desk. “It was a pretty small pile,” said Flaherty. The first day the homeowner seemed to be going through a sort of grief process, said Flaherty. By the second day she had perked up a bit and seemed more hopeful. While in New Orleans, the missionaries stayed in a Catholic Charities retreat house which contained just one big room and one bathroom for everyone. There were also three other men who had stayed on from another group sharing these quarters with them. “We reminded ourselves this wasn’t a vacation. It was mission work,” said Flaherty. Since they finished their work a bit earlier than expected, the group had a little time for a tour of New Orleans. They were able to see where the levies had broken. They drove by countless abandoned homes and vehicles. On many of the streets, the sound of birds was often present yet no typical neighborhood sounds, noted Flaherty. Electric lines were still dangling in some places. The only encouraging sounds were that of machinery, which indicated there was rebuilding in progress. As hard and heartbreaking as it all was, not one of the missionaries regrets the trip and many hope to return. “The homeowner couldn’t believe that 11 people she didn’t even know would drive all the way from Meade County to do this for her,” said Flaherty.
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Photo courtesy of Shawn Lanham