(saw buzzing)
- Basically like that, all the way down.
With that being said, it's a pretty dangerous tool.
If somebody wants to give that a try.
Are you right-handed? - Yeah.
- You can start it slow and then work your way up.
It's kind of a sensitive trigger.
(saw buzzing)
(horn music)
- [Freddie] Welcome to our New Orleans mini series.
Each of us has chosen one episode that
specifically hits home for us to walk you through.
First up is me, Fred, describing our
volunteer day with lowernine.org.
So, Devin started off this day telling us that
we needed to wear clothes that we could get dirty in,
that we didn't mind potentially getting paint on.
- It is about 10:30 in the morning. We all were on time.
We're on our way to a nonprofit,
and I think it'll be a lot of fun.
I'm excited to do some volunteering.
- We will not be drinking, so that's all I know.
- That morning she revealed to us that we were gonna be
doing some volunteer work with Lower Nine,
which is an organization that is dedicated
to rebuilding people's homes that are still being
affected by the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina.
So we were in staying in the Warehouse District,
which isn't too far from the French Quarter.
So it's like city vibes, really fun.
Where we were going was about a 20 minute drive away.
We had to drive across a bridge.
And there was a stark different between where we were
staying and where the headquarters of the Lower Nine was.
Before this day, the most that I knew about
the Lower Ninth Ward was that it was the area
that was hit the hardest by Hurricane Katrina.
It suffered the most devastation.
I think they had one of the largest amounts of people
that had to relocate and move away.
I didn't realize that things were still
so terrible there today, in 2018.
- I want to introduce you to Laura.
- Hey! - Hey Laura!
- This is Ladylike. - [All] Hi!
- We drive up to this purple house,
which is the Lower Nine headquarters.
We meet three badass ladies.
They welcome us on board immediately.
We are automatically a part of the cause.
- You're gonna spend a little while at a work site,
doing some residential construction,
which is (mumbles) - Oh hell yeah!
- Awesome! - I'm excited. This is great.
- First thing we're gonna do is get you guys a t-shirt,
so if you wanna come inside.
- Ooh. - Yes!
- And by the way, purple, green, and gold are the
official Mardi Gras colors in the city of New Orleans.
This isn't just stuff we think looks good.
- All right, let's go get our free swag. Shall we?
- What was striking to me was that a vast majority
of the people who permanently work with this organization
didn't seek out to permanently be involved.
They kind of hopped on a bus and volunteered
and then ended up staying; they just never left.
So that was the most exciting and striking thing to me,
that these women were just so taken by the work once
they got there that they couldn't see themselves leaving.
So, Julia took us on a tour. We got in the car
and just sort of drove throughout the Lower Ninth Ward.
So for us, the big issue in 2005--and there are people
who don't even refer to it as Hurricane Katrina,
they call it the federal flood--and what that means
is that the federal flood protection systems,
the levees that were built, failed catastrophically.
What you're basically looking at is a body
of water that was man-dredged with a wall
that protects the neighborhood,
in theory, from that body of water.
But the wall is essentially just
like an inverted concrete T.
And you can tell just by looking at my hands,
if a bunch of water or a bunch of force hits
one side of the underground wall, it's gonna come down.
And what happened up here was that quarter of a mile
of that wall fell flat, was pushed flat by 25 feet of water.
And the resulting flooding,
which was basically like a tsunami or like a tidal wave,
washed houses off their foundations completely,
for a good portion of the neighborhood.
- Laura informed us that a lot of people who lived
in this neighborhood had lived there their entire lives and
were just completely uprooted when this hurricane struck.
There were no street lights.
None of the land was being properly taken care of.
That's the kind of infrastructure failure
that I'm talking about when I talk about getting out
this way and things not being as safe as they should be.
- She showed us different homes that still had flood lines.
- You see those certain markings
along the door frame of the house?
It took a month for water to fully recede here.
- She showed us just vacant properties
that hadn't been touched by the government.
The grass was just super high. They weren't maintaining it.
- The fact in the matter is that this neighborhood is
geographically separated by a body of water
called the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal.
And there are three bridges. All three raise and lower.
So you could spend a good 15 or
20 minutes on one side or the other.
If you live in this neighborhood and
you need a police car, or you need an ambulance,
those services come from the other side.
So that's when you run into the effects
of what I would refer to as environmental racism.
(serious instrumental music)
- So once we finish the the tour,
we drive to the house that we are
gonna do some work on for the day.
- [Ladylike] Hi! - Good morning, hey everybody.
- I'm Devin. - I'm Andrew.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
- This is Freddie, Kristen, Chantel, and Jen.
- All right, good morning! - Hi!
- How are y'all doing? - Good!
I work for lowernine.org, and I've been
working there for about a year and half
rebuilding houses and doing renovations.
- We get folks from all over the place to work with us.
We have a very small staff,
so we rely heavily on volunteer labor.
Without them, we wouldn't be able to do what we do.
Today we're working on a client's home
here in the Lower Ninth Ward.
She is a longtime Ninth Ward resident,
and we are gonna be repairing termite damage.
This is the part of the house that we've already worked on.
- Andrew walks us through all the damage that the homeowner
who is still living at this house is dealing with.
- So, from here to here, this was all
completely ripped off and gutted.
So it's finally looking like a house again.
So if you can imagine she had half
of her wall missing for couple weeks.
A little bit nerve-wracking, but she's a trooper.
- And he's also teaching us about contractor fraud.
And I had no clue what contactor fraud was
or that this was a rampant issue that
people were dealing with post-Katrina.
- So the situation with her house:
she bought a modular house right after the storm.
It's kind of typical shotty workmanship.
The contractor fraud aspect was very prevalent down here.
After the storm, people took advantage of folks that
were looking to get back into their house quickly.
People decided to invest in modular homes,
which is a smart idea in theory,
because it's like a little bit less expensive.
They're built somewhere, and then they're driven
or shipped wherever your property was and plopped down.
- The contractors would take large upfront payments
and do some of the work or do all the work
with shotty materials and then take off.
This is a concrete fill that was stacked on this foundation.
They basically did that, come in with a truck,
set the house down on that, and then that's it.
So, part of the problem with that is,
the wood that was used in certain parts of the house,
like the parts we replace, wasn't pressure treated.
It wasn't the correct kind of the wood for the climate here.
And that is what led to the wood getting wet and rotting,
which an open invitation for termites to come in.
Here is some pieces of termite-damaged wood.
You can see here, you can break this apart with your hand.
Not great for a structural joist.
- [Devin] Is something growing in it?
Oh my god. - Yeah, it could be.
When we demo'd this part of the house,
there were lizards falling out,
and there were millions of ants.
- Oh my god. (Kristen laughs)
- Yeah, there was creatures living in it.
- When he started walking us through the damage,
he would tell us this thing, that thing and I would say,
"Oh wow, we have our work cut out for us."
- So, this side was repaired as well.
So we had this all opened up.
Right here, there was a termite nest about
the size of a basketball. - Oh my god.
- But then he kept showing us more and more and more damage.
It just seemed like it didn't stop.
There were so many things going on.
And I was like, "Wow. This is a lot of work."
- This is our access to the entire bottom of the house.
So you can see the damaged installation.
When we got here, it was all sagging,
and it was very musty in here
because that stuff was getting wet.
And so it's retaining water and that's gonna
keep the wood wet, and the termites really love that.
So we're gonna be spending some time down there.
You can see here, this bottom plate,
which is also very structural, is completely gone.
You can pull it apart with your hands.
What we're gonna be working on is pulling these
pieces out with some big crowbars.
- Okay. Sounds like we should get started.
- Yep, let's do it. - Let's do it.
- So, we divvy up the teams.
Devin and I are assigned to work underneath the house.
And then Chantel, Kristen, and Jen
work on the siding of the house.
So, Devin and I, we suit up and we put goggles on.
And then we get underneath the house
and it is a sight to see down there.
(rock music)
and then pulling out the insulation,
putting it in a trash bag.
- Devin and I, we went to work.
We cleared pretty much half the basement,
and we got all of that moldy, moist fiberglass
and insulation out from the bottom of the house
so that it could be replaced with proper insulation.
it felt really good to get all of that out of the house.
It felt like we were just unclogging an eardrum.
Just like puh!
That was a huge job, there was a ton of it down there.
There was so much debris.
There were like seashells in there, trash, bugs.
Things just flying all in our eyes. It was insanity.
And, hopefully, we've made their jobs easier
in terms of making sure that they get all the crap out
so that they can redo everything properly.
Devin and I could really see the progress
as we kept going further and further under the house,
but I think Chantel, Jen, and Kristen,
they had a little bit of a harder time
because it takes a lot of physical strength
to get that siding off the house.
- The trick with this is to find a good spot to start
and kind of get it started while another person
fits their pry bar in and you it a little further
and further, so you get that sweet spot
where it actually starts to come out.
That takes a little bit of experimentation.
- Because of where the house was built,
which was in Missouri, the type of wood that was used
wasn't equipped for the heat, so it swole up.
I think once they got into it they were like,
"Oh shit. This is literally why it's taking
so long to get this house into livable conditions."
Because even though it was a botched job,
it was still very difficult to get
those planks off of the side of the house.
And there were three of the them
and it was still very difficult.
- [Chantel] One, two, three. (wood cracking)
- He wants a little bit of mallet.
Oh! It's coming.
- Ohh. - Oh yeah.
- We've got it. - We've got it.
- I'm just doing it slowly 'cause there's
a lot of nails. - Yeah.
- [Freddie] We said goodbye to the homeowner and we left.
I think what was going through my head,
once we left the home and realized that there
was still so much work to be done,
was just this overwhelming feeling of sadness that
this older woman was taken advantage of at this level.
I think I just kept imagining this homeowner
as being a member of my family.
She was really warm and she was in such good spirits,
and I think she was really happy to have Lower Nine
helping her to get back on her feet.
But, it's been so long. It's 2018 and
she's still not living in proper conditions.
And that's the part that hurts the most.
She should be living in a home that's comfortable.
She should be thriving at this point.
And she is still dealing with the devastation.
And she has people in and out of her home
multiple times a week trying to right the
wrongs that these contractors have done.
I was happy that we got to help, even a little bit.
- Okay y'all, so I know what we did this morning was
a little bit different from what we did last night.
I'm interested to hear what y'all thought
about the work that we did today.
- I think it was really cool that we were
able to meet with Lower Nine and talk to them
and see the work that they to do rebuild homes.
Yeah, it was really special to kind of just
be a part of the work that's being done there,
even for just like a little bit.
- Yeah. - These people work,
like, all the time on this.
And it was really special to kind of see people who
are really dedicated to rebuilding a neighborhood.
It's interesting because you see a lot of homes
that look a bit newer, and you're like,
"Oh, these homes have been rebuilt."
But there's also another side to the story.
With the homeowner that we dealt with,
she dealt with a lot of contractor fraud,
which looked as it if was "rebuilt" and done,
but it wasn't done properly.
And that led to years and years
of trying to fix a problem that she thought
had been fixed from the beginning.
- So many parts of this story.
It's like not only are they sad, they're just wrong.
You know, the homeowner took what she thought
was the fastest option to just get into
some sort of structure at she could own again.
The fact that it wasn't even done properly
but she didn't even know about it is
now causing years and years of grief.
The type of damage on her home is the type
of damage you'd see on homes that are like ancient.
(murmuring in agreement)
Not like ten years old.
- We all know that your house affects you mental state.
Where you live and where you call home affects who you are.
And so the fact that this community
is being held back is so disappointing.
Just so cool that the lowernine.orc exists to help
the community and to rebuild everyone's homes, you know?
It's really awesome.
- So, this was my first time being this up
close and personal to natural disaster relief.
And I just can't help but think about everything that
happened with the 2017 hurricane season in Puerto Rico,
and that's just the continental US.
There are so many other natural disasters and
devastations that have happened around the world.
It's hard for me to even form wrap-up thoughts
because my mind is just so astounded
with how devastating and sad it was.
I wish that we could to do more. I wanna do more.
I don't want this to end.
Everyone please go to lowernine.org.
Please donate if you can. Volunteer if you can.
Whatever you can do, even just spread the word,
that would be amazing.
(calm piano music)