Don't demo til we say so! (l to r) Stacie Wade, Pam Blaize, and Olivia Nelson make sure that every house scheduled for demolition gets worked for accuracy and demo policy. LA-RFO Photo by Spec. Larry Gleeson. Back to Features

Making the Call!
Demo team works the process to get the right house
By Dave Harris, public affairs specialist, Louisiana Recovery Field Office

In a war, studies show Soldiers don’t necessarily give their all because of duty, honor, country, Mom, baseball or apple pie. 

They give their all because of their buddies. 

So it is in this war, fought by the Civilians on Louisiana Recovery Field Office’s demolition reconciliation team supporting FEMA’s response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

Talk to one of the teammates, and she pays tribute to the others. It’s a consistent pattern. No one wants to let the others down. 

Their mission: make sure thousands of New Orleans houses are properly demolished and, most importantly, don’t allow even one house that shouldn’t be demolished to go down. 

Their combined eagle eyes have achieved total victory. Not one house in their charge since the team was formed has bitten the dust without their consent. 

 “It doesn’t say demo until I say it says demo.” 

A list of properties - anywhere from a few dozen to 300-plus - arrives from FEMA, said team lead Olivia Nelson, National Environmental Policy Act – NEPA – compliance officer.  

 “We make sure each property has a tax assessment sheet that has to be included – broken down by sectors along with a color photo of the subject property, which helps the contractor identify the structures prior to demolition. 

“I check the lists again, making sure the properties are listed under the correct sector.”  Once a determination has been made that the list has been broken down properly, “then the properties are forwarded to Contracting, here at the RFO.  

Contracting notifies the respective contractors that the properties are ready to be tested for asbestos-containing material – ACM.” 

Olivia said that teammate, Pam Blaize, then bulk-loads the properties into the Corps’ demo application database and records the date the properties were forwarded to Contracting for ACM testing and tracked by the assigned file number. 

“There’s a seven-day turnaround to this office,” Olivia said. 

Once notified by the contractor that the testing is complete, the third member of the triad, Stacie Wade, attaches the ACM report to each property record and lets Olivia know the tests are attached and ready for review.  

Stacie said testing needs to be done within seven days. “I keep up with all those tests, and if they’re not back in seven days, I notify the contractor and let him know we need these tests. 

“I go in and review each one of the ACM reports to determine whether we concur with the inspector’s findings and whether or not the subject property should be demolished as RACM - Regulated Asbestos Containing Materials - and/or C&D – construction and demolition, or without asbestos.”  If there is a discrepancy, a revised ACM report is requested from the contractor.  

Once the demolition classification is determined, there is a waiting period until the demo packet is received from FEMA. When the demo packet is received, the team records the date into the demo database and verifies addresses.   Any discrepancies are reported to FEMA immediately. 

“Now it is ready to go for demo. We run a report, using the demo database, to determine which properties should be forwarded to Contracting for demo. They in turn, notify the respective contractor that these properties are good to go!,”  Stacie said. 

Most folks look forward to the end of the week. Not this team. 

“FEMA usually brings demo folders on Friday – it’s the worst day, because we have to get all that out,” Stacie said. “Monday is not as hectic, because we get it all posted by the weekend.” 

To Stacie, the job is anything but undesirable or monotonous. “This is the best job I’ve ever had,” she said. 

Pam said she doesn’t want to let her team down, even though her father recently passed away. She said that staying busy on the job helps keep her mind off her family worries. 

Meanwhile, Olivia divides her long hours between two jobs, the other being at the New Orleans District for eight and a half hours, Monday through Friday, and then she reports to the LA-RFO in the evenings during the week and 12 hours on Saturdays.  The majority of her time is spent reviewing several ACM reports.   

“Some addresses might have the wrong photograph or the owners may change their minds and a property may come back as ‘do not demo,’” she said.  These types of errors get our attention right away because this means that the wrong house could mistakenly come down. 

“My best days are when everything is in order and we have everything we need – I never know how many I need to send back. I have a deadline for everything to be reviewed by the time the FEMA packet arrives. So far I have accomplished that. Nolan [Raphelt, area engineer] has never asked me, ‘what’s the holdup?’ He has been satisfied.  

“Nolan trained us well and turned us loose.” 

With this team, it’s all for one and one for all. 

“If one of us drops the ball, we can’t get the job done,” Stacie concluded. “We’ve got to keep the ball rolling.”