Call for Volunteers - August 29 is Deadline to Have Homes Gutted

August 29 is Deadline to Have Homes Gutted
By: Steve Cannizaro

May 29, 2006

Aug. 29 is deadline for residents to have damaged homes gutted and secured but it’s not likely everyone who signed up for free gutting will be reached; council working on plan to list contractors who agree to do work at going rate, which is 99 cents per square foot.

For a number of reasons, many St. Bernard Parish residents who signed up for a free gutting of their home by volunteers under a unique parish government program that began in January, simply won’t be reached, Parish Council members are acknowledging.

Instead, only the handicapped and elderly - those 60 and over – will likely be reached on the list at this point, council members said this week.

The council has set Aug. 29, the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina flooding the parish, as the deadline for residents to have their damaged homes gutted and secured, even if they have to do it themselves.

That deadline would hold even if their name hasn’t been reached on a list homeowners who signed up to have volunteers remove storm debris from their homes. Some 1,500 homes have been gutted by volunteers who have come to St. Bernard from many other states but there are still 5,000 homes on the free list to be gutted while officials estimated volunteers may be able to reach only 1,500 to 2,000 more by Aug. 29.

The Aug. 29 date, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina flooding nearly all of the parish’s 27,000 homes, was set as a means to deal with blighted housing created by people who have abandoned their damaged homes in the parish and haven’t done anything with them.

People who don’t have their homes gutted by the deadline face the possibility of the parish taking bids by private contractors to do the work and putting a lien on the person’s home for the amount involved.

The going rate by private contractors is about 99 cents per square foot to gut a residence – for example, roughly $2,000 for a 2,000 square-foot-home.

While council members are insisting the public must get the gutting done one way or another by Aug. 29, they are also working toward a system of encouraging contractors not to raise prices.

The plan would involve letting contractors who agree to keep prices at the going rate be listed free on the parish website, www.sbpg.net, and listed on a sheet of referrals to be handed out to residents.

Council member Kenny Henderson said he is concerned contractors, knowing of the Aug. 29 deadline, will raise prices for gutting work if the parish volunteers can’t reach everyone who signed up to have their homes cleaned of storm debris.

Council member Craig Taffaro Jr. acknowledged that in setting up the free gutting program by volunteers and asking residents to sign up, it created “a false sense of assistance we can’t fulfill.’’ He also said, “I don’t want to create a market where the price will rise.’’ But the best way to deal with that is to create a system in which contractors are encouraged not to raise prices by letting them be on a referral list, several council members said. Council member Mark Madary said he hopes residents will understand parish government set out to do something to help as many people as possible. But in the end, Madary said, it comes down to, “Santa didn’t come this year. If you want the train set you have to go buy it yourself.’’

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In response to this deadline, the CCRP has undertaken a media and volunteer drive. It is estimated that half a million man hours are needed before the 1st anniversary of the storm.

We have managed to source food and housing for up to one thousand volunteers simultaneously.

If you want to come down to New Orleans and help these people keep their homes by giving of your time gutting houses, please call (204) 779-3113 and leave a message. Or, you can contact Geoffrey by email at geoffrey@groovy.net or by phone at (303)572-4396 or (504)210-6998. Kent Davies can usually be reached during business hours at CKUW in Winnipeg, (204) 986-9782. We have networked with several relief organizations who are working on gutting and can likely match accommodations to volunteer needs bearing in mind the city is still a disaster situation.

Although we only have weeks left down south, we will continue this volunteer drive through to the and of August.

- Geoffrey Young

Report from Buras, Louisiana - June 2006

This is Buras, Louisiana. It is located in Plaquemines Parish and is the first place Hurricane Katrina made landfall. The last time myself and Will were in the South, most of this area was still underwater.



This is sketchy land to begin with. In much of it, you can see levees on two sides with only space for a small subdivision or a few houses in between. The levees look very high here compared to the city but this did not help when the eye of the storm passed over.

The area was hit with more than 30 feet of water from at least two different directions as well as sustained winds in excess of over 200 miles per hour. Most of the people who lived here evacuated, but any who did not stood no chance of survival.


Much of Louisiana's shrimping industry was down in Plaquemines and was completely obliterated. We had hoped to be able to help with the reestablishment of said industry, but in Plaquemines, there is no shrimping industry to reestablish. The shrimp boats are in piles at the sides of the roads, or up against bridges. In other places they are in houses and sometimes even in trees.

There is a group of volunteers, the same group which ran the Waveland Cafe in Bay St Louis last year, but they are the only ones save for a few locals. They are managing to provide free meals to people who have returned and are living in tents and trailers.

We went down to Buras in order to fix a mobile satellite unit which has been providing the center, which used to be a YMCA with Internet. We have been asked to procure computers and networking equipment in order to create a community access communication centre as phone lines are still down and internet is far from available. We have sourced a limited quantity of computers in Baton Rouge and hope to be able to get our hands on them within a week or so.

- Geoffrey Young

Report from the 9th Ward - June 1, 2006

Back into the Lower 9th Ward upon arrival in New Orleans. Nothing much here has been touched since the storm hit. Things have been mostly left where they fell, save for a few houses having been bulldozed.




Neighbourhood residents are still scattered throughout the region and many have not had a chance to even start the process of recovery.



Much of the city looks as though it has not been touched. There are still piles of cars under the Interstate 10 overpass and much of the city remains in rubble.



The middle and upper class communities of New Orleans, those who had proper insurance and who could afford to rebuild, are slowly getting back to normal but huge swaths of New Orleans that were once home to communities which were vibrant yet underfunded are still in ruins.

Any rebuilding or recovery that has taken place in these areas has happened largely thanks to volunteer groups from across the United States, with seemingly minimal, if any, government support. So what little has been done is a testament to the strength of the communities that once lived here and complete strangers who want to see them rebuilt.

As the diaspora returns to the city, many to find their neighbourhoods in ruins and crime has been steadily on the rise. There have been 52 murders so far this year, with a city population of around 200,000 people. All New Orleans public school teachers have been fired, leaving only private “charter” schools running. Thus many of the city's under-served communities only have access to private education.

The National Guard have been called in to patrol the streets once again but it is the New Orleans police who are being deployed in the “hot spots” despite their obvious inability to control city neighbourhoods such as the Midtown.

For the next several months, we will be doing what we can to provide support for local organizations, and canvass the region in hopes of discerning needs. Then we will be using what resources and connections are available us to communicate these needs to the wider population which is getting no news of the recovery effort (or lack thereof).

- Geoffrey Young