The Lutheran community at Columbia University travels to New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina clean-up

By Kate McNamara, Barnard College student

Under the leadership of Columbia University Campus Pastor Janet E. Blair, a Lutheran pastor, we began planning for a trip to New Orleans in January. Pr. Blair, with the help of Lutheran Disaster Response's What A Relief! College volunteer program, helped to make budgets, recruit individuals, and plan all the details of a week in New Orleans.

Working together we put together a budget of approximately $4,500. Each of the 10 individuals going wrote to their home congregations, campus groups, friends and family. We were humbled by the gracious responses of our home churches and those whom we solicited. Our group was also very fortunate to receive a grant from Thrivent and a check from Bishop Bouman. We also had two good old-fashioned bake sales on campus to help up reach our goal.

The Trip: Sunday, March 12, 2005:

Seven of the ten group members flew into Louis Armstrong International Airport on Sunday and met up with Lutheran Disaster Response. Our group was fortunate to be able to stay in the "Hilton" as it was called by all the other volunteers who were living in large tents and sleeping on cots. Christ the King Lutheran Church in Kenner, Louisiana, was like the Hilton for us: air conditioning and air mattresses were a real treat. We stayed in the fellowship hall with a youth group from Texas and a group of adults from Kansas.

Monday, March 13, 2005:

On Monday morning, everyone woke up and attended breakfast. Breakfast and dinner were probably two of the most fun parts of the day. All the volunteers with Lutheran Disaster relief had breakfast and dinner together in a big tent. Each morning we would have a great meal and then have morning devotions. Monday morning everyone went through group orientation and learned about the city, the homes we would be working on, and important safety measures to be sure to take. It was very important that everyone wear protective gear at all times because of the large amount of mold that can cause respiration problems. Our group was assigned to a home in New Orleans East. The eastern part of New Orleans was hit hardest by the storm because of the way the storm spun into the city. We were told that we had the "gravy work,"? but boy did we not think it was gravy! We took down wall board, took out nails, and made huge piles of debris in the front yard to be picked up by sanitation crews that constantly go through the city.

Tuesday, March 14, 2005:

Gillian, Caitlin, and I flew in from New York to make the group a mighty 10. We arrived at the airport and were picked up by a group member, drop off our suitcases at Christ the King, and head out to help the rest of the group finish up with the Gravy Work in New Orleans East. It was truly shocking to see New Orleans; the magnitude of the destruction cannot be put into words. Porta-potties line the streets, power lines are down, and stop lights do not work. It looked like the storm happened only days before because nothing had been fixed.

Most of the suburbs are abandoned, only a few people are living in their front yards in trailers provided by FEMA. Rebuilding is not yet happening in the City of New Orleans because the flood maps have not yet been redrawn so many people live in uncertainty. People are unsure if their homes are going to be bulldozed by the state and made into a park called the "Green Space"? or if they will be able to rebuild their home. Our job was to finish gutting the home and then spray the studs and floor with bleach to eliminate the black mold growth.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006:

We finished up the home in New Orleans East and took the rest of the day to explore New Orleans and learn more about the destruction. We decided to take a trip to the Lower Ninth Ward, an experience I will not ever be able to forget. It looked like a war zone which is best described by photos. Homes have been picked up and moved hundreds of feet. Seeing the Lower Ninth Ward was the ultimate reminder of God's power. On Wednesday night the wonderful congregation at Christ the King invited us to supper and a Lenten service. It was so nice to meet everyone and hear how the storm had affected their lives. I also met Reverend Unger, who was so happy to learn more about Triumphant Cross Lutheran Church, my home church, which had graciously donated $1,000 to help Christ the King feed and keep up with the volunteers. I was all too pleased to be a ambassador for TCLC. Everyone I talked to at Christ the King was so pleased to hear about TCLC's donation, but more so they were happy to hear that a group of Lutherans from Salem, New Hampshire were thinking about the people of New Orleans, praying for them, and not forgetting about the devastation that they are still living in.

Thursday, March 16, 2006:

Thursday was the most interesting day for the group. We were assigned in the morning to a new home in New Orleans. The homes being gutted by Lutheran Disaster Response are chosen based on forms that individuals have submitted to the church. Many of the individuals attend Lutheran churches in the area, but some do not. Our first home on Thursday was owned by an 83 year old woman who did not have flood insurance. The home was also shared by her granddaughter and the granddaughter's two young children. We worked on the house for three hours in the morning until we learned, after knocking down dry-wall, that the termite damage was so extensive that the house would have to be bulldozed. It was a really depressing break for our group. We were saddened that our efforts might have been in vain, and even more saddening was seeing the toys and clothing of the young children who had lived in the home that were so destroyed by the eight feet of flood water.

After a depressing morning we were reassigned to a home in a low-income area. When we arrived at this home we realized that our first job really had been "gravy work." ? We arrived at a home that looked like any other normal home from the outside. All of the houses have spray paint, usually a cross with symbols in each segment. Unaware of what the symbols meant, we were working on the new third house and didn't realize that this symbol meant that three people had died.  It had the symbol 3HR, which meant 3 human remains. We realized that there were people who had died in this home, unable to escape the flood waters, a not so uncommon occurrence. People had been into the house and taken the bodies out. We were all sad and taken aback when a woman who was a member of the family arrived to look for insurance papers. She explained that her aunt, uncle, and cousin died in the home and their funeral had just been the week before. Working on this home was a truly overwhelming experience. However we knew that by gutting the house we were saving the family thousands of dollars in demolition costs.

Friday, March 17, 2006:

Friday we received our very own first home! No one had been into the house since the flood and our group was assigned to the task. The home had over 12 feet of water over the roof so the ceiling had collapsed, which made the work even harder. The house was filled with so much stuff, we broke the windows, hopped in and just started throwing books, wall-board, clothing, and furniture our the windows. We were all so thankful for our steel toed boots, respirators, goggles and other safety items; we needed everything. On Friday afternoon we were so proud of everything we had done. A new group from Nebraska had come in and we were happy to show them the ropes; we felt pretty proud to pass the baton onto a new group to get the work done.

Post-Trip:

The Barnard Bulletin, our campus magazine, along with the Columbia Spectator, our newspaper, ran wonderful stories about our groups work. The 10 of us headed home knowing that we wouldn't have wanted to spend our spring break anywhere else. Pastor Blair arranged for us to meet with Faithful Response at the NYC Metro-Synod Office to have a debriefing about the trip and talk about what we had learned.  It was a wonderful culminating event.  Also, on April 23rd we have planned a Jazz Fest with Hillel, the Columbia Jewish Group, who sent 40 volunteers to New Orleans over spring break also, to celebrate, share, and remember a life-changing week in New Orleans.