IOCC's "Volunteer in the Gulf Coast"

Jim's personal journal from the week.

April 29 - May 5, 2007

Friday

It started raining Thursday night and has continued on into Friday. We are done with the floor and Jeff and I have started hanging doors in the fourth house. Shortly after lunch, Ben tells us to go home. We get our power from a power pole located centrally to all four houses. Long extension cords have to be run from the pole to the houses. Although the houses aren’t flooded, the front yards are. The power pole is in the middle of a lake. The power cords are all under water. Because of the long distances there aren’t enough saw horses to hold the cords out of the water. It’s a very dangerous situation, so we head home early.

We take the opportunity to drive down to the lake front. Nearly all the homes along the lake front were severely damaged. You can see what happened even on the homes and businesses that have been repaired. It is clear that many of the houses have recently jacked up and put on stilts in case a similar disaster comes their way again.

It continues to rain. Mandeville is quickly becoming flooded. Some streets are impassable. Parking lots are full of water. We decided to go to the dorm and take an afternoon snooze.

By early afternoon the rain stops and by late afternoon the water has begun to recede. Since we got off work early we decide to drive to Covington to find a nice restaurant and celebrate new friendships and a job done to the best of our ability.

Getting directions to the restaurant district turns into a comedy of errors. (Never ask a local for directions. They think they know a lot of things that they don’t really know. For instance, getting directions from two gentlemen outside a convenience store:)

“And when you get to the stop sign, take a left.”

“No, you go straight at the stop sign.”

“No, I’m sure you take a left.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. After that you’ll come to a stop light. There’s Shell station there. Bear right and go under the underpass.

“It’s not a Shell station, it’s a McDonalds.”

“No, it’s a Shell station.”

No, you’re confused.”

In fact, both men were correct. At the first stop sign the main road curved a bit, so turning left would ultimately make you go straight. And the Shell station also had a McDonalds in it. We managed to find historic Covington and a very nice restaurant. We ate our wonderful dinner underneath a Magnolia tree. It was a perfect way to cement friendships and bring the week to a close.

Read Saturday's Journal Entry

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