The "D" Stands for Disaster-part two

Hurricane Ike arrive a week after Gustav and did almost as much damage in Pearlington. While everyone was watching the hurricane on TV headed straight for Houston and Galveston, Ike caused the coastal tides to flood Pearlington again. We heard reports of the same roads being flooded the same depth. And, once again,, the tents just floated out into the woods. That meant that all the work the logistics crew did pulling the tents out of the woods was reversed. A few more tents were squished beyond repair. Pearlington wasn't destroyed the way Houma was but it still had headaches. Here's one of the squished tents:
The camp was lucky in that it had been packed up for evacuation while Houma wasn't. Pearlington was the only camp who managed to do just what we needed them to do. They had carefully taken down the dining tent and stored it. All the heaters and air-coolers had been stored in a sea container. I couldn't believe how much stuff they managed to cram into the container because when I worked there last winter the durned thing was absolutely crammed with stuff. In the time since I left in April the worksite manager, who knws the tools better than I did had culled out what he didn't need and made so much room that you could walk to the back of the container. Five months ago I had counted it a great achievment the day I could see the back wall--but I still couldn't reach over the junk to actually walk back there.

So Monday we went to put the dining tent back up and take things out of storage. You'll see them bringing cots and mattress, heaters, coolers and all sorts of things out of storage and into the camp. And here's the cool thing I want you to see: one of the families PDA had been helping came over to help Jeremy and Heather put the camp back together. I tried to get their son, Tyler, in the picture. He's about five and carried stuff right along with everyone else.


Wed morning update- We got rained out Monday afternoon but we worked all day yesterday. Check back later and see the pictures of putting the tent up. I have to go right now to finish breakfast and drive to P'ton. I have volunteers in New Orleans coming this weekend and I move back there tomorrow morning to buy groceries. For once it will be simple to order food. Because we cleaned out the fridge for evacuation we simply need "everything." Shopping will be simple, if expensive.