Cleaning Up Sandy's Mess

Blog Post by HFI Reservist, David Durham from Nashville, TN 

November 20, 2012: Arrived in Ocean City, NJ late last night. We'll be working every day in Atlantic City. Great group - our team leader is a Jersian from upstate and knows what he's doing. More later!

Day 1 with Sandy:
We are staying in Ocean City, NJ in an old abandoned inn that Campus Crusade now uses for summer camps and such. The only heat is space heaters, but it could be a lot worse.

Right now there are reservists from the four corners of the country. No two days will have the exact same reservists, so imagine the logistical challenges for the staff, who, by the way, are an amazing group of people with very large hearts.

All of our work is in Atlantic City, about 20-30 minutes away. As you drive through the streets, you might never know there was a hurricane 3 weeks ago, except for the piles of debris waiting to be picked up in front of the houses. But all you have to do is go inside someone's house to see the damage. For Becky and me it was a flashback to the Nashville flood of 2010. The effects of Sandy in this area, South Jersey, are not as dramatic as what you've seen in the media -- Staten Island, the Rockaways, etc. Consequently, many of the people here have felt overlooked.

Another dynamic we've seen is a form of denial; when the last flood in memory was over 50 years ago, it can take a while for it to sink in that, unless they get rid of everything in the infrastructure of the house that was touched by the flood, there will be serious consequences. We're told that many of the residents felt they had dodged a bullet when the water receded and the streets dried up. Only now are many of them realizing they need help, and Hope Force seems to be one of precious few organizations on the scene. We did meet a Red Cross team today that was going from house to house checking on people. This denial is in sharp contrast to Gulf Coast residents, who have lived through so much that they know what to do and to do it without delay.

Our work here is simple: mucking out houses. Pulling up carpet, flooring, tearing out drywall and soaked insulation. Good thing, because Becky and I specialize in unskilled labor. :-)
There is a good chance Hope Force will be staying on into the rebuilding stage, so they need your support.

Day 2 with Sandy:
Today our team worked on one house the whole day. We basically have to gut the entire house and will go back and finish on Friday.
We are still struck by the relative absence of similar work going on in Atlantic City. The house we worked on today, like the others, had no exterior damage to speak of. Nor did any of the other houses on the street. But we could pretty safely assume that if this house was in such bad shape on the inside, most if not all of the others are in the same boat.

There is a Police Athletic League building directly across the street, where you can see the water marks left by the flood -- about 3 to 4 feet high. Our leaders can only speculate that 1) as I mentioned yesterday, people wrongly assume that everything is OK if their house is now relatively dry; 2) the few who had flood insurance are waiting for the contractors; or 3) some who fled the area have not yet returned. Whatever the case, the relief agencies are definitely not walking on each other here. We have seen only the Red Cross and heard that Samaritan's Purse is here.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We will leave at the normal 8:00 am time to work on a couple of sites, then take off early afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner with the Hope Force staff and other reservists. Although we are chilly (the space heaters got nixed because the breakers kept getting tripped), we are definitely not starving -- a lady who cooks full time for camps in New Hampshire is cooking our dinners. Tonight was roast beef.

Thank you for all your support -- and Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving with Sandy:
My third and final post on our adventure in New Jersey, cleaning up after Sandy.

On Thanksgiving Day we worked on Diana's house. Diana is a delightful lady who charmed us all, in spite of the loss she has suffered in the storm. Praying this is a fresh start for her in more ways than one.

The biggest thing we missed, of course, by being in NJ on Thanksgiving was being with our three sons, two daughters-in-law and grandson. But this wasn't just any Thanksgiving -- it was the day that Jonathan and Sami Durham were to announce the sex of their baby, due in April. So Becky and I took a break from our work and went to the nearest Dunkin Donuts and had a Skype-together with the fam. So which is it, a boy or a girl? To answer your question, we bought PINK FROSTED DONUTS for everyone on our team -- there's going to be a Lady Durham! All Jonathan could say was, "I'm in so much trouble."

Once we finished mucking out Diana's house, as with all our "clients," we briefly prayed with her and her best friend/neighbor, Tea, before heading back to our base. Up to that point, Diana had been upbeat and positive -- but once we started praying, the tears flowed freely as three weeks' worth of emotion poured out. She told us it was her best Thanksgiving ever. I think Becky and I would say the same.

The Hope Force staff topped off our Thanksgiving Day with the most amazing feast, as staff and reservists crammed into a tiny space and savored a true love feast. The only thing that could top Janet's cooking and Cherie's decorations was the warmth of the fellowship of 28 people who were previously strangers, now united in the awareness that we had received much more than we had given that week.

Becky and I heartily commend Hope Force International to you -- perhaps you need to give to their ongoing work in New Jersey, or maybe train as a reservist. In an age when talk is cheap, this is a great way to put feet on your faith.
www.hopeforce.org

David Durham is a cultural affairs consultant, educator and musician, with over 30 years of cross-cultural experience. He considers himself the world's richest man, with a loving wife of 27 years, three amazing sons,two beautiful daughters-in-law and a grandson. He is intrigued by the beauty of cultural diversity and the question of why we're on this planet to begin with.