Army of LDS volunteers provide hurricane relief in and around Houma

We had an exciting weekend. Quoting HoumaToday.com, "A yellow-shirted army of faith came to Houma and neighboring communities this weekend, with nearly 1,400- volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveling to the area to lend a hand with hurricane-relief cleanup projects." Anyone driving along Hwy 311 may have seen tents on the grounds of the LDS Church near Savanne Road or at the Living Word Church still under construction near Interstate 30. Staging site for the event was at the Living Word Church. Prior to the launching of the work, volunteers got to hear from Elder John Anderson (a high-ranking representative of the LDS church), Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet, Louisiana Senate President Joel Chaisson II, and Martin Luther King III (eldest son of MLK Jr.). Kevin Voisin, VP of Motivatit Seafood, played an active role in organizing the Mormon Helping Hands volunteer event, and in identifying needs. When United Houma Nation Chief Brenda Dardar-Robichaux got involved, the effort took on a whole new dimension. The United Houma Nation is affiliated with King's Realizing the Dream campaign, which seeks to assist and empower disadvantaged communities. Brenda called King, who, in turn, sought help from the LDS Church because of their ability to organize large numbers of volunteers for efforts such as this on short notice, and within days, the large-scale project was organized with volunteers coming from throughout the southeastern U.S. for the weekend. On Saturday morning, I took some photos including the tents surrounding our Church and the activities going on at the Living Word Church staging site. Then it was time to roll away the camera, roll down my sleeves, and jump into the action. Early Sunday morning, there was a brief LDS service held at the Living Word Church, then volunteers continued their work throughout the morning, focusing heavily on areas further down the bayou (Dulac, Dularge, etc.). I was not involved on Sunday.

Hurricane Ike's devastation

Words cannot describe the devastation of storms like Hurricane Ike as well as pictures can. Check out the pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, taken mostly in Texas, that were and are continuing to be compiled by Gary and Teri Trayler of Corpus Christi, TX at their website. Thanks goes to my daughter Lori for bringing this website to my attention. Former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton have once again linked arms and established a fund, as they did after Hurricane Katrina and after the deadly tsunami that occurred in SE Asia. Supporting this fund, called the Bush Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund, will help communities and families living along the Gulf Coast that were affected by Hurricane Ike.

Restoring Louisiana's vanishing coastline

Last night, I had the opportunity to view a compelling documentary entitled "Harvest to Restore America's Coastal Heartland." This documentary eloquently described how important the coastal region of Louisiana is to the entire nation, then introduced the concept of "pipeline sediment delivery" as a means of saving our coastline, wetlands, livelihood and lifestyle in this region. Quoting from the website, "...pipeline sediment delivery holds the promise of expeditiously recreating the natural system of barrier islands, marshes, and ridgelands that provide the only practical long term hurricane protection both to America’s energy hub and to the port and city of New Orleans." The documentary showed how pipeline sediment delivery works, how it’s being used in other countries around the world such as in Dubai. The documentary is well worth watching, and shows what can be done if we put our minds to it. Governor Bobby Jindal just returned from Washington, where he met with the Louisiana congressional delegation and, among other things, discussed the need to move ahead as quickly as possible on projects that will help to save our vanishing coastline.

Making better use of disaster debris

In 2004, after Ivan the Terrible made landfall on the Gulf Coast between Mobile, AL and Pensacola, FL as a strong category 3 hurricane, I joined others in assisting in the cleanup in and around Pensacola. I couldn't believe the height that the tree debris was piled up on both sides of street after street as far as the eye could see. On some streets, I couldn't even see residents' homes behind the debris because it was piled so high. After Katrina, the sheer number and height of the piles of tree debris placed in open areas of New Orleans, such as in school football fields, was astounding. When I saw the damage done to trees in and around Houma after Gustav, there was no doubt that the same phenomenon of piling of debris was about happen once again (see above photo). I told some of my friends, watch how much debris gets piled on the streets in Houma, Thibodaux, and other severely affected areas. This leads to the question, "Where does all of this debris ultimately end up? Unfortunately, for the most part, no good use is made of it. Most of it is either burned up or removed out of the public eye to decompose. It is fitting that Biomass Magazine this month has a lead article that addresses this very issue, discussing the possible conversion of debris left behind by catastrophic events to more useful products. Detractors of biomass bring up energy costs associated with growing and harvesting biomass crops to convert to biofuels or to burn for electricity. In the case of debris, we have a readily available biomass source that is already sitting on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up and utilized, if we had appropriate infrastructure in place to deal with it. Another article in Biomass Magazine discusses a venture at Raceland Raw Sugars (a sugarcane milling operation located between Houma and New Orleans) to produce briquettes from excess sugarcane bagasse. Both articles directly address the all-important issue of transportion costs that currently prevents the utilization of potentially valuable biomass products that currently largely go to waste.

Ike's impact on Terrebonne Parish

While it is understandable that much of Hurricane Ike's impact in the gulf region is focused on Texas, it's impact on Louisiana should not be overlooked. In Terrebonne Parish alone, some 15,000 homes were swamped by storm surge created by Ike. Governor Jindal has been very vocal about the false economy of not taking action toward coastal restoration and strengthening the levee system, then spending fantastic amounts of money to repeatedly repair flooded homes and businesses. Rita was far more devastating in Terrebonne Parish than was Katrina in 2005. Similarly, even though Terrebonne Parish took a direct hit from Gustav, the flooding that was created by Ike will be harder to recover from. Imagine having a home flooded out by a hurricane, only to see it get flooded out again only three years later. Ike exacted a severe psychological blow to those living in vulnerable communities in lower Terrebonne Parish. Experts on coastal restoration point out that 40 years ago, Ike wouldn't have had anywhere near the impact that it did in 2008 in southern Louisiana. They also have pointed out that a stronger levee only two feet higher would have prevented almost all of the flooding that occurred in Terrebonne Parish.

Consider this. We will be paying in excess of $400 million to complete the 700-mile partially built border fence between Mexico and the U.S., not to mention the billions it costs each year to patrol the border. Perhaps we should take this money and spend it on coastal protection projects and let the illegals do the building. Sounds like a win-win solution to me.

Above picture was taken from the Houma Courier.

Post-Gustav Report

Here it is, Thursday evening, September 11, ten days after Hurricane Gustav roared through Louisiana, causing the largest evacuation of people in Louisiana’s history, and nearly half of the State to be without power. Although I evacuated to Thibodaux, only 25 minutes from Houma to be on higher ground, because Thibodaux is in Lafourche Parish, I could not officially return to Houma until Friday due to the curfew imposed on re-entering Terrebonne Parish to see what damage may have occurred to our property.

I stayed with our new Bishop, Chris Diket, and his family. I arrived Sunday morning at his house. By early Monday morning, we could hear the wind pick up, and by 10:00 am, Hurricane-force winds were slamming into Thibodaux. We could see the eye of the storm going over Houma on TV, and we knew it would be a matter of minutes before we would be without power. Chris’s daughters were looking out the front door when a carport ripped off from a house across the road and sheared an electric pole in half, causing the wires from the top half of the pole to dangle in the middle of the road, making the road in front of their house impassable. Large trees started falling on people’s homes. Shingles and other debris were flying everywhere.

After a few hours, the storm passed. It started raining fiercely, and the Diket home started springing so many leaks that there weren’t enough pots and pans to contain them. The wind was still blowing too hard for the Bishop and I to get on the roof to put a tarp over the most seriously damaged area. For the balance of the day, the Bishop was very busy answering phone calls. He had an hour-long conference call with New Orleans Stake President Scott Conlin and the other bishops in the Stake from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. This was repeated every evening while I was in their home.

On Tuesday, the Bishop and I spent most of the day on the Bishop’s roof, tacking down shingles and tarpaper. I think we did a pretty good job of stopping the leaking.

On Wednesday, I sat in a line of cars for over two hours to get gas for the Bishop’s car, while the Bishop stood in a nearby line at Lowe’s to pick up some essentials. We rode around afterward to assess damage done at nearby members’ homes.

On Thursday evening, I found a back way into Houma and decided to see how well I could handle the night without air conditioning. I was amazed that there was no shingle damage at our house. Most of the neighborhood homes had shingle damage, some quite severe, but not a shingle was missing at our house. Staying overnight was pretty awful. I regretted that I didn’t stay a fifth night at the Dikets. My generator quit running properly after a while so I didn’t even have a fan running Thursday evening.

On Friday, I went to the work place, and was shocked to see the level of damage done to our greenhouses. I was equally shocked to see that six out of seven carts of breeding canes were healthy and green. How was this even possible, since we were all under mandatory evacuation? I fully expected the breeding canes to be dead or in very bad condition from lack of water. One of our senior technicians apparently stayed in the main building to ride out the storm, so he was on the premises to care for the plants. A big aluminum door that blew in from the front of the greenhouse damaged most of the plants on one cart. I helped move salvageable plants from this cart to an area where they could be hooked up to a watering system. I spent the balance of the day picking up glass after the above-mentioned technician had a shard of glass go 4-inches deep into the calf of his leg. Another scientist on site rushed him to the local hospital. Our Bishop found a used generator for me to use until we got our power back, which I was deeply grateful for. Nevertheless, I set up our tent in the evening and slept outdoors, and found the outdoors to be much more pleasant, because of greater airflow and temperature drop outdoors.

On Saturday, I learned of the severity of the damage done at the farm from Ed Dufrene. Apparently the shop area took a real beating. I went in to the work place for about four hours, spending the whole time picking up glass. After leaving work, I went directly to the church, amazingly getting there exactly when a shipment of supplies arrived from the Church, so I assisted in offloading the supplies from large trailer truck. In the evening, I slept in the tent again.

On Sunday, I picked up glass again at work for about 2-hrs, then cleaned up and went to church. We had church in a small room rather than in the main chapel area. We actually had about 1/4 our normal attendance. I was surprised that there was even that many people at church. I slept indoors this time with a fan blowing on me, and let some kids in our neighborhood sleep in the tent.

On Monday, one week out from Hurricane, we no still no power. We were given the entire week off at work, but several people volunteered to come in, to assist in the cleanup. Most of us spent the day picking up more glass. I stayed over at a friend’s house, to do my laundry, to watch Monday night football, and to have a comfortable night’s sleep.

On Tuesday, power was back. Hurray! No more generator noise! Blue tarps are everywhere on people’s roofs. Streets are 6-ft deep with piles of wood on both sides of the road for long stretches. Stores are crowded and half empty. We made a few crosses at work, worked on the automated irrigation system to accommodate the plants re-located a few days earlier.

On Wednesday, I picked Judy up at the airport. It’s good to have her back. Things are definitely starting to feel more normal now.

On Thursday, I finally have Internet service back. The wind is blowing at tropical storm strength outdoors to remind us that there is another hurricane out there in the gulf called Ike, and that we just barely passed the peak of the hurricane season.