Thursday - June 14, 2007

Well, yesterday afternoon's tour was not as bad as we anticipated! The lower ninth ward had most all the up-turned cars gone. Many of the houses that were displaced, like having the roof on another house, etc., moved onto them, were all cleared away. There has been a lot of growth of greenery, where houses used to be. There are some FEMA trailers there and we met an older woman who was living in a "handicapped FEMA trailer," she said. It appeared to be a bit larger and had an extended walkway up to the door.

We also got to see the rebuilding of the levee and the temporary levee. We went to Musician's Village in the ninth ward, where there are many Habitat Homes being built. We took lots of pictures of them. They are very colorful. This was an exciting thing to see. There is a lot of "coming back" evident this year. We are happy about that. The hardest thing to deal with for the disaster relief team is the fact that two years after the catastrophe, Aug. 29, I believe, the Corps of Engineers will no longer remove all the rubble. So, Alan Coe, the director of the Disaster Relief Team for the UCC, is working with teams to get as much of the demolition done before that date. We are glad to be part of that effort.

Marty :-)