Cleaning up Irene

 My feet have blisters, my arms are scraped and I haven't been this tired from work in a long time. Thanks to Samaritan's Purse (SP), however, I feel great.

 Following the destructive swath cut by Hurricane Irene, I had the chance to join the organization's disaster relief work for a day and a half in New Bern, NC. As they have done in over 90 locations since 1970, they will remain in NC for some time to help those who need (and ask for) it. When I left they had 113 requests they were going to accomodate. Find them at samaritanspurse.org.

 My former boss at the census, Lee Carter, referred me to the organization, and if I was looking to get out of my comfort zone-mission accomplished.

 I can't remember working this hard physically for quite a long time, probably not since college in the early 90s when I worked for a moving company. That was the job, incidentally, that helped push me even harder toward a white collar profession.

Anyway, in the two days there, the team I worked with, including Jim Tate, my census co-worker who drove up to New Bern from Grovetown with me, worked on damage from the storm which knocked trees down and power out.

 Day 1



Before



After



 After arriving late Monday (Aug. 29) night, and sleeping on an air mattress in the open bay of the daycare center at New Song Church, Jim and I joined up with two veterans of disaster relief, Bill and Bob, the next morning and got to work about 40 minutes away in Vanceboro, NC. Within five minutes of starting to try clearing two lots from the effects of two downed-and huge-oak trees, my shirt was covered with blood, sweat and snot (thought I was going to say tears, didn't you). Luckily the blood was just from a tree branch and not from my first attempt ever at using a chain saw. 

Tools of the trade

 We were there along with the Greenville Power guys as they had about a 200-yard stretch of road where they had to restring power lines. We did not start work until we were assured that power to the downed lines that ran through our yard (or swamp) was dead. I must say after watching them at work, I have a much greater appreciation for the work they do and can see why after an event like Irene it takes power a while to be restored as they have many things in different locations to fix.

 We sawed limbs from the mighty oak, lifted and carried stumps and generally tried to make the lot as free from debris as possible. We got there at 10 a.m., after suffering a blown tire on the trailer carrying our Bobcat, and did not make it back to the church until just after 5:30 p.m. I was just happy to get my steel-toed boots off my feet and my nasty, sweat-stained clothes off my body and jump into a nice hot shower.

 The previous night, it had been Jim, myself and one other volunteer bunking in the center, but by that night, the number of (male) volunteers sleeping there had grown to 12. I thought I was back out with the chain saw with the amount of snoring going on, not to mention the hum of a sleep apnea machine. I was able to tune it out at some points and got a little rest.

Day 2

Jim Tate and I were back out with Bill and Bob, also joining Lee Carter, his friend Dan from South Carolina, another Jim, an SP writer named Chelsea and an SP camera crew. As Jim and I had to leave around 1 p.m. to come back, I didn't think I was going to be nearly as dirty or disgusting as the day before.

 Wrong!

 We stayed in the suburbs of New Bern and arrived to find a house with a large pine tree resting on it's roof, as well as poking into its attic. Before attacking that, we raked downed limbs from the tree from the backyard (chainsawing them as appropriate) and carried them around to the curb.

 The man next door had a tree down in his yard, so he enlisted our help as well. I split off with Jim and Lee while the rest went through the preparations for removing the tree from the roof. I had chainsawed a little the day before, but after getting the blade pinched on a big piece of the trunk, had turned the saw back over to Jim as not to slow us down further. Tempting fate, they let me take the saw and we went about attacking the tree, whick thankfully was much smaller than the previous day's. We got it hacked up, raked the man's yard and had the debris to the curb in a decent amount of time.



Bill works the roof



 Meanwhile the rest of the group was getting situated to get the tree off the roof with Bill taking to the roof with the saw. I never saw how it went as I playing anchor, holding the end of his rope on the front yard while he cut the tree off the backside of the roof. I still don't know why they wouldn't let a rookie like me just give it a shot.



Lee Carter and Jim Tate



 At dinner the first night I thought I was going to have to turn in my man card as the guys at the table I were with were grizzled veterans of disaster relief and other charity work. I had been happy I didn't chainsaw myself or others around me that day, but was not able to participate in the discussions when they talked casually about things like building houses, including doing the electrical wiring or putting up or taking down sheet rock. I nodded knowingly when they told stories of guys on jobs who didn't know the correct way to mix concrete (and I haven't looked that up yet), or just concentrated on my food like it was trying to escape.

 It was a wonderful experience and one I would do again. Unfortunately, I'm sure the need will arise again, probably sooner than later, especially with the way Mother Nature has been treating the East Coast in the past weeks. Despite my lack of experience, the SP people welcomed me with open arms, never judged me and gave me the support out on the job to be effective.