Five years after Hurricane Katrina, many along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi are still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt or repaired. Coronado has annually sent at least one team of volunteers to work with Mississippi United Methodist Disaster Response.

Gulfport, Mississippi Journal, December 5 – 11, 2010

The Team: A small but highly determined group, comprising Bill and Jason Grau (Team Leaders), the rest of the Grau Group: Geoffrey and Elyse, and the faithful followers: Bob Bernhard, Bob and Vicki Hammond, Gil Juarez, and Mary Perry.

Sunday December 5th –

Gulfport isn’t as far away as Waveland (MS), a site to which we have made many trips, but by the time we have driven that far, the difference isn’t significant. It’s still LONG.

Camp Gulfside, our mission home for four trips, is no more. Those temporary Navy-surplus buildings at Gulfside and four other similar sites have been replaced by two more permanent facilities, Camp Hope and Camp Love, situated farther inland, each of which can house 34 men and 28 women in two large separate bunkrooms, one for men, one for women. We’re in Camp Love. The tiny kitchen but large dining/common room at Gulfside are replaced by a smaller room, with a more efficient kitchen but fewer tables -- less room for puzzles and dominos games. Any nostalgia for Gulfside is mitigated by the knowledge that we no longer have to go outside to a separate unheated building for showers, particularly when the temperatures are predicted to be in the 25 – 50 degree range. In all of our trips to date, we have been fortunate to be either the sole group in the building, or one of only two. This gives us the luxury of being able to spread out in the bunkrooms and not having to wait in long lines for those showers.

  Camp Love bunkroom

Upon arrival, we were greeted not only by our Host Site Coordinators, Stan and Jennie Lowery, but, as an added surprise, by those Wandering Missionaries, Jim and Margie Winkelbauer, who were on their way to Colorado but stopped to see Stan and Jennie. Then, when they found out that the Coronado group was coming, they stayed an extra day to visit with us for a little while. Last year, the Winkelbauers had spent the entire week with us at Camp Gulfside, so we got to know them pretty well. On Monday, they will depart, headed for wherever the Lord directs them – an interesting existence, driven by an enormous amount of faith.

Anyway, we all arrived, claimed our bunks, and headed out into metropolitan Gulfport to The Shed, a restaurant which has gone to great lengths to appear to have been thrown together from junk supplies salvaged from dumpsters. Their specialty is barbecue, and we weren’t disappointed.

After dinner we came back for our orientation meeting with our Host Site Coordinators, Stan and Jennie Lowrey. Jennie emphasized that we were here both for “task” (getting the physical job done), and “mission” (getting to know and listen to our “customers,” all of whom have experienced disaster firsthand and have waited for a long time to get back on their feet). Stan outlined the tasks that he hoped could get done, and then Bill discussed work assignments. This is a veteran group, and we all looked forward to getting at it the next morning.

Monday, December 6th –

The First Day, on which everyone sets out to assigned tasks, trying to take everything they think they will need, at the same time knowing that additional trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s would be required.

  Camp Love warehouse

Jason and Bob H. went forth on a Punch List mission, which took us (several times) to two houses, 29 and 18 miles away. At the first house, all we had to do was to connect one outside drain from the kitchen sink to another outside drain, which presumably fed into a septic tank. As we all observed last evening in our orientation meeting, there is no such thing as a “short plumbing job.” This one was close, but we still had to make a trip to the hardware store to buy additional fittings.

The other house, the 18-mile one, involved a number of items – replacing a couple of circuit breakers, installing a safety cut-off float switch in the condensate drain line from the air handler, putting a plastic bushing/clamp around a couple of wires leading out of the top of said air handler, and putting up house numbers. The last task sounds pretty easy, right? It would take too long to narrate a blow-by-blow, but I’ll summarize. We were supposed to put up the number 34 North Washington Street, a converted church building out in the proverbial boondocks. Before we left Gulfport, we had to buy a number of supplies, including the float switch. In the same neighborhood was a Lowe’s, so we bought some pipes for the drain job, plus the numerals 3 and 4. The numerals were supposed to be 6-inch, but Alberto Arriaga, Camp Love’s Construction Coordinator, was with us on this shopping trip, and since 5-inch was the biggest that Lowe’s carried, Alberto said these would do.

The finished drain

So we drove 29 miles+ for the short plumbing job, and then came back to the 18-mile job, 34 North Washington Street. Except that, after some searching and reading of posted building permits, we discovered that 34 North Washington Street was in fact 35 North Washington Street, leaving us with a leftover 4 and no 5. So we headed back toward Gulfport until we came to a Wal-Mart, where we had to buy a couple of minor wiring items for the float switch connection and hopefully the right house numerals. Wal-Mart had 3’s and 5’s, but they were only 3 ½ inches. So we bought them anyway, drove back to the house, and put up the reduced numerals. We examined our work from the street and decided that a postal carrier would have to have field glasses to find the house. And, to boot, Jason re-read the work order and found that the “6 inches minimum” was in the handwriting of the Building Inspector. No wiggle room here, so we drove all the way back to Gulfport to the Home Depot – and they had 6-inch numerals. Then we drove all the way back to the 18-mile house, took down the small numerals, and put up the larger ones. At this point, we felt that we had discharged all the items on the Punch List with flying colors, so we returned to Camp Love, having put over 100 miles on the car.

The 29-mile house, where Jason and Bob did the drain work, was surrounded by quite possibly the biggest junkyard we had ever seen – we had to wade around old toilets and all manner of other trash that had been liberally strewn around all over the yard.

  The yard

But apparently there was no contest between this house and the one on which Bill, Elyse, Bob B, and Mary worked. This one not only had the junk but animals – chickens, bunnies, dogs, and goats – the latter of which kept getting out of their pens. Mary would put them back, and they would get out again, and the games went on.

  The goats

In addition to the coping with the menagerie, they worked outside all day in 20-degree weather (which at least makes a good story), putting up soffit and trying to cope with rafter tails that weren’t always cut in a straight line. Mary reports that Elyse did a masterful job of cutting, trying to reconcile the straight soffit with the uneven rafters.

  The "Infernal Soffitt"

Then, to add to the adventure, on the way back to camp, the extension ladder fell out of the back of the pickup truck onto the side of the road – fortunately onto the shoulder side and not into the middle of the road. No damage was done to anybody or anything, and everyone felt that they were being watched over.

Geoff, Gil, and Vicki’s house had flooring problems in the kitchen. Previous workpeople had put down lauan panels over the old floor and then had put peel-and-stick tiles on the lauan. There were two problems – the lauan had been nailed down with finishing nails, and there had been cooking oil or something similar spilled on parts of the lauan, with the result that nothing stuck very well to anything. So our crew removed the tile and some of the lauan, fastened all of the lauan down with screws, and replaced much of the tile. The floor report concludes with, “It looks great now.”

There was also a spot on the ceiling where a cabinet had been; previous worker(s) had tried to make the spot match the rest of the ceiling, but they had used drywall tape in inappropriate places, with joint compound that was too thick, so Geoff pulled it all off and they started over. There was a popcorn finish on the ceiling, but the patch that our crew tried to spray on didn’t work properly, so they scraped all of that off to let things dry overnight and return to tomorrow. Vicki also painted a ceiling trim board that Geoff and Gil had cut, ready to be installed as soon as the ceiling was finished. A final task was to re-caulk around the kitchen sink, which involved removing the old caulking first.

There was nobody home at either the plumbing or the soffit house, and the renovated church building had yet to be occupied, but Gil, Geoff, and Vicki’s group got to meet their family. Vicki adds notes about them – “The house is a double wide modular home with a nice front porch and many flowers and plants. It contains many lovely wood antique pieces from the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Steve Breun met us at the door and welcomed us. We did not get to meet his daughter Dawn until after lunch. She is 31 and was in an automobile accident at age 15. She has undergone many surgeries to save her legs and still has circulation problems that are being worked on. Steve’s wife Millie is visiting her sister up north and will arrive back tonight.”

Tuesday, December 7th –

The Bobs B and H set out for what we will call The Vertical House, which was a solution to putting a family with five daughters on a very narrow lot.

The house is about 13 feet wide and looms 27 feet in the air, with a shed roof.

Stan tells tales of the original building crew, up on homemade scaffolding, installing 4’ x 8’ sheets of Hardi-panels – might have passed on that one. By the time we got to it, things were at the finish trim inside and work on two decks outside stage.

Anyway, Jason went out with us to drop off a trailer load of lumber for the outside work. Bob & Bob had decided that, given the choice, we would work on the inside trim first – door frames and baseboard – so we loaded up our car with a chop saw, an air compressor, a brad nailer, air hoses, and an extension cord. Why bother to mention anything as trivial as an extension cord? Well, when we uncoiled it to plug in the saw and the compressor, we discovered that the plug had only one prong – some previous worker had actually put that cord back with the others. Stan to the rescue – he brought out another cord – good thing this house was fairly close to the camp.

Our day proceeded slowly – measuring, mis-measuring, cutting, cutting again, nailing in place – thank Heaven for the pneumatic brad nailer. In the middle of the afternoon, Gil and Vicki joined us, and that speeded up the whole process considerably.

Stan gave us our choice of working inside or outside, and we chose inside. Bill had thought we were going to be working outside, thereby using up some of the lumber that Jason had hauled to the site. That didn’t happen, so Jason came over at the end of the day and hauled the trailer back to camp. Tomorrow is another day.

Mary reports that her group – Bill, Jason, Geoff, and Elyse finally finished up what was becoming The Infernal Soffit, noting that God looked down and was pleased – with enough caulking, the job was quite presentable. They also put up T1-11 on the porch ceiling. They finally met their homeowner, John Holquist and his son, who are staying with inlaws and stopped by to feed the menagerie.

Vicki and Gil continued their efforts to make the ceiling patch match the rest of the ceiling. This involved sanding, spraying with Orange Peel texture, and painting. Fortunately they had covered most of the rest of the kitchen with plastic from the walls down to the floor, or everything would have been decorated in Orange Peel. They also got to meet Millie Breun, who had flown in from New Hampshire the night before. The ceiling job done, they packed up and joined the Bobs at the vertical house (see above).

Wednesday, December 8th –

Today was downright RAW – probably not as cold as yesterday, but damp cold, with a breeze that cut right through you.

We worked in only two groups. The two Bobs, Vicki, and Gil were joined by Jason and Geoff at the Vertical House (owned by one Silvia Fleming, whom we have yet to see). The latter two did a magnificent job on exterior decks and stairs. The side deck is pretty well done, while the front one boasts a 6-foot wide set of stairs – almost as wide as the house. The Bobs continued on door casings and baseboards, which are beginning to seem endless. Vicki spent the day with a caulking gun, making the trim work look downright professional. Gil oscillated back and forth between trim and outside stairs.

Mary reports that she, Elyse, and Bill continued work at the Holquist home, caulking, trimming and drywalling the air handler closet, which had to be built before the drywall could be installed. She goes on to note that three of the five goats got out of their enclosure and stood on the woodpile, driving the four dogs crazy trying to herd them back into the pen.

Never a dull moment at the Holquist house.

Thursday, December 9th –

Usually I would start this narrative with the activities at the house where I happened to be working, but this time the activities at the Holquist house trumped everything else. Mary reports that the day started off great. They were met by four really cute dogs who love Elyse and Mary – possibly because of their appealing personalities or possibly because they brought treats.

Everyone set to work, finishing up their tasks – fitting boards on the porch. Bill looked outside and noticed a man from the power company, presumably there to read the meter on the temporary power drop to the house. Then Elyse asked why the saw wasn’t working, asking Bill to check the cord. ‘Twasn’t the cord – the man had turned off the power to the house, presumably for non-payment of bill.

So the crew returned to camp and were then redirected to a town called The Kiln, where they installed drywall in the air handler closet (which seems to be becoming their specialty – Mary reports that Elyse does an “awesome” job taping joints). There they met Mrs. Ladner and her 6-year-old granddaughter, who is planning on painting her room pink, purple, and green – should be lovely.

When they finished, they drove over to the Fleming house, where the rest of us were working. Which brings me to the rest of the work. Jason and Geoff continued with the decks, stairs, and railings – creating a real transformation to the exterior of the house. The Bobs and Gil finished the baseboards, thereby disproving our conviction of yesterday that the job would become infinite. Vicki continued with her caulking, making all of the trim inaccuracies look good.

After most of the trim was finished, Bob B and Gil helped install balusters on the railings, while Bob H set out to establish a speed record in the finishing of the interior stairway, somewhat of a challenge since the treads were not all the same length and the walls weren’t straight. Fortunately, this set of stairs is due to be painted, which means that all the gaps can be filled with caulking. That house is using up a number of tubes of caulking.

Tomorrow everybody is hurrying to finish up all those tasks so they can depart Gulfport right after lunch.

Friday, December 10th –

Well, there was still frost on the car windows this morning, but it did warm up as the day wore on – about time!

The electrical escapades of the Bill-Mary-Elyse group still grab the headlines. They returned to the Holquist house, armed with a generator from the Cape Love warehouse. They set up the generator on the tailgate of Jeremy Grau’s truck (which always accompanies us on these Mississippi expeditions, with or without Jeremy) and continued work on the porch trim. (For those readers who are not familiar with Jeremy’s truck, a little description is in order – Jeremy has set up two little “houses,” containing his collection of tools. The houses are set on 2 x 6 boards mounted on the sides of the truck, across the bed. The roofs of the houses hinge up, powered by battery motors, to expose the tools.) Anyway, while Bill and company were working, a couple of electricians showed up to install an electrical panel at the house, and one of them pointed out that there was a fire in the truck. It seems that the crew had set up the generator so that the muffler was exhausting right against one of the 2 x 6 supports, charring its way right through the wood. The generator got moved, but there’s going to be some embarrassment when Jeremy gets his truck back.

And on to more mundane matters at the Fleming house – Jason and Geoff put the final touches on the porch railings and stairs, Bob B and Gil put the final touches on the baseboard trim, Vicki finished up most of the caulking, while Bob H dragged on with the final stages of the inside staircase. This was something that Jason and Geoff could probably have finished in about an hour, but it came out well, even if everybody else was pacing around wondering if it would ever get completed.

And thus we wrapped things up and returned to camp and unloaded all the borrowed tools. Shortly thereafter, Bill and group returned with Jeremy’s charred truck and did the same.

Somebody reported on the “Punch List house” that Jason and Bob H had gone to on the first day. The owner had just received his Certificate of Occupancy, which meant that the circuit breakers, the wiring connections, the float switch, and even the new house numbers had all met with the approval of the Building Inspector. With all the continuing projects that we have worked on over the years, it’s nice to have some completely finished.

So another week on the Gulf coast of Mississippi comes to a close, and we packed up and said goodbye to Camp Love and to our hosts, Stan and Jennie. We decided that, interesting as Camp Gulfside may have been, you couldn’t beat showers in the same building, especially with the temperatures we’ve had to endure all week.

Celebrating Bill's birthday (once again at work in Mississippi) 

It’s also time to recognize the leadership of Bill and Jason Grau. I had not worked much with Jason previously, but I was continually impressed with his skill, his speed, and his patience with us slower mortals. Thanks also to Mary Perry, our Financial Coordinator. And thanks to the rest of the group, who, five years later, keeping coming back to help people rebuild their houses and their lives. As Mary’s group reported, the expression on the face of the six-year-old granddaughter made it all worth it many times over.

Respectfully submitted,

Bob Hammond, Chronicler

Appendix – For those who may be interested, here are a few statistics that Jennie gave us.

There were 250,000 homes damaged or destroyed by Katrina (not sure if this is just in Mississippi or overall). In 70% of Hancock County, 34% of Harrison and Jackson Counties, housing was damaged or destroyed. The MEMA (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) cottages that provided temporary housing are being taken back, except out in the country and a few in town – occupants can buy them at a pro-rated price.

 The MS United Methodist Disaster Response – In the first year, there were 38 sites, now 2. [Some confusion here, since we thought that there were five camps, a la Gulfside – maybe there were a lot more little sites.] In the last four years, there have been 158,000 volunteers (a $100 million dollar labor value!), over 13,000 rehabs and at least 100 new builds (some of these were partnered with other organizations). The Disaster Response organization now ranks in the top five home builders in Mississippi.