"Touching victims, one room at a time" The family room in a New Orleans home and a workshop for gutting volunteers from around the world. LA-RFO Photo. Back to Features

Volunteer Division!
Helping volunteers stay on track means 3,000 homes ready for repair
By Michael Logue, Public Affairs, Louisiana Recovery Field Office 

On this rainy day, twelve volunteer groups were huddled at the Salvation Army headquarters in west New Orleans with FEMA, Corps, and City of New Orleans officials, trying to get their arms around the daunting task ahead. 

By early spring, about 4500 homes need to be gutted 18 months following Hurricane Katrina, their owners requesting help from the City of New Orleans and unable to do or afford the work themselves.

Before a resident can repair an uninhabitable home, the structure must be guttered to a height above the waterline so that repairs can turn the hazardous building into a safe home again. 

Some volunteer leaders like Richard Brown from Samaritan’s Purse were looking for work. “We are getting 60-90 volunteers a week from across the United States.  If you can give us the houses, we can get the work done.” 

Across the table, representatives of groups like Rebuilding Hope in New Orleans (RHINO) and ACORN (Association of Community Organization for Reform Now) were facing a similar challenge, magnified hundreds of times. 

And now the scary part.   

“New Orleans is hosting as many as 25,000 volunteers coming on spring break from all over America,” said Jessica Vermilyea, the deputy state coordinator for the Luther Disaster Response. “We have to focus our resources.  These people want to help and we need to be ready to utilize them.” 

The workers are many, the veteran groups are totally committed, and the work projects are plentiful.  The problem: efforts to date to gut 1800 easy-to-find homes had left large scattered sectors of homes, with groups not sure where to start next, and the lists of homes no longer current after 18 months of social upheaval. 

Volunteer groups were fighting duplication and inefficiency, sometimes doing more goose chasing than gutting.  Some enthusiastic workers were arriving at locations to find houses already gutted by other groups or the landowners.  

In too many cases, the building was no longer there, taken under the voluntary demolition program, or the contact information was out of date as owners moved here and there. 

FEMA asked the Corps to help coordinate the development of a master property list and assist groups in identifying properties eligible for the gutting program. 

Developing the master list fell to Master Sergeant Jim Gray, a member the Louisiana Recovery Field Office liaison team.  Given a mission and a team, the All-Army Gray knew what to do. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Corps has one mission now.  We move debris!  Tell me what you need and we will get this done.” 

The groups began discussing some of the issues that had plagued operations in the past and some of the challenges that lie ahead.  MSGT Gray brought the group back into focus. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, you have 90/10 cost sharing until August 29.  May 5 is my personal deadline to get this done. Here is what I propose.  I will scrub the master list.  You let me know what houses you have done.  I need address and zip code.” 

Gray assured them that, if the groups provided the Corps the addresses and zip codes, the Corps would keep up with the gutting crews need to have debris removed and keep a current list in front of them at all times. 

“I will maintain a pool that everyone can either add to or draw from,” Gray confidently proclaimed.  He rewarded the groups with Army Strong optimism, “If you can do that, people, we are done.  We are done.”

The groups divided into smaller working teams, each looking to the master sergeant's master list for their work assignments. 

A team of volunteer house gutters.  Photo by Patty Mixon, LA-RFO.

As other homes are demolished or gutted by others, Gray knocked them off the list. The groups  pushed from the other end and by mid spring had met meet in the middle with a completed gutted list, and several thousand residences ready for repair and occupation. 

The gutting task, as dirty a job as it is, brings a lot of satisfaction to all participating.  Every pile of debris in front of a gutted home is one life and one household that are closer to back to normal. 

The occupation of almost 5,000 homes could allow as many as 20,000 residences to find normalcy and economic stability, and return that many New Orleanians to work, school, and community activities.  That is about 5-6% of the City's posted population!

For many homeowners, the gutting process is somewhat like a funeral, with damaged homes once belonging to parents and grandparents.  The hand-to-hand emotional support and encouragement volunteers bring is as important as the service they provide.

An ever-present concern is keeping volunteers provided with meaningful and satisfying work, and plenty of it.  One leader lamented, “It had gotten to the point that we are excited when we find a house … hooray, someone needs their house gutted.”   

Gray’s efforts with the master list help volunteer groups have a wave of work ahead of them, to keep spirits high on both sides of the recovery.  

   
Left, the planning meeting.  Right, "Army Strong Gray"

The groups also look to the City of New Orleans for a list of other projects when they outrun their workload. 

“They can paint, landscape parks, whatever.  Just let them see that they are contributing,” Vermilyea said. 

One volunteer questioned how to keep the young workers excited if there was not a human connection with a house.  Volunteers get an emotional lift from bonding with a face, a personal situation, and a direct contribution to a family. 

“They need to understand they are helping the neighbor next door, or the neighborhood as a whole,” answered a second worker. 

The volunteer groups delivered as promised.  Debris piles and volunteers dotted the city landscape for weeks.

Armed with the list managed by the "Army Strong" MSGT Gray, the company of volunteers had became a Volunteer Division, with up to 25,000 strong, coached by a Master Sergeant. 

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