Labor Day, by any other name.

In America, Labor Day is the first Monday in September.  Ever since 1894 Labor Day has been a Federal Holiday to recognize the working class people in this country.  It was born in a time when the working class were at odds with the big corporations.  Sound familiar?  In recent years this holiday has taken on new meanings.  When I was a child Labor Day was the time to return to school.  Times have changed and and kids go to school longer and start earlier.  These days Labor Day is mainly known as the official end of Summer.  Even thought the calendar says it's September 22nd.  There are some purist that would say that we've skewed the meaning of Labor Day.  The holiday is not a tribute to the American worker anymore but a tribute to all the fun things you can do on a three day weekend.

The men and women of Bridgepoint Church.

A year ago, Labor Day 2012 took own a whole new meaning in my world.  Last year, Labor Day was when the cavalry arrived to help me and my flooded home.  Over the weekend with the help of my family, we had managed to remove carpet, padding, and loads of furniture directly into the front yard.  I had cut several holes into the sheet-rock and determined that because of the way the walls were insulated, I could get away with gutting the house at the 2 foot mark.  The problem was we were spent.  The amount of work already done along with the lack of sleep and shock of it all was running us ragged.  I needed to gut this house quickly in order to get ahead of the mold and other issues. Bright and early on Monday morning, men, women, teenagers, and children showed up in force.  The entire body of my small church showed up.  Our church was only two and a half months old.  Work started getting done at a blistering pace. It was all the wife and I could do to keep up with directing all the traffic.  It was a welcomed diversion to the mentally draining event and we had to take full advantage of all the help.

My boys and their friends posing in the debris pile.

Labor Day was just that, a day of incredible labor.  In one day, my home had all the sheet-rock cut out up the my two foot mark.  In one day, a house full of destroyed furniture was haul to the highway (I have a thousand foot driveway) and piled eight feet high.  In one day, all the wet insulation was removed.  In one day, all the things that were salvageable were boxed and sealed.  In one day, my home was scrubbed from floor to ceiling with bleach.  These people, who should have been spending their holiday barbecuing with their family, worked all day at my home.  They didn't ask for money, or favors, or demand payback or have any stipulations whatsoever.  They saw a need and they filled it all in one day.  The emotions of the day were overwhelming.  In one day, I started to believe that we could regain our life.  In one day, my faith in human kindness was restored.  In one day, I realized that we were not God forsaken after all. Sadly, it would take many more days to fix my mental state.  But that's still debatable to this day.

Volunteer from North Carolina.

More help would come in the days and weeks that followed.  A church from North Carolina came down here to work on my house for four days without asking for a dime.  Other friends would help with different phases of the repair.  My floor was replaced by a kind soul that was 73 years young.  For 10 weeks we were homeless, but that was a short time compared to others that flooded.  Most would take 3 to 4 months to get back home. And those that waited for the government to fix their lives would wait for 6 months or longer. Our quick return was due to the incredible people that stepped up and bailed us out.

I will never look at Labor Day the same.  And given the chance, I hope you reach out and help someone in their time of need.  The life you change might be your own.  Enjoy your Labor Day! 

One year post Isaac; Part 3 of 3; Hell is full of dirty water!

Front of house.

It's 5 a.m. on Thursday morning.  We get the boys up and leave our pastor's house quietly.  The twenty miles back to the house is filled with horrifying sights.  Water up to the Airline in places never before seen.  Before getting back to Laplace we witness rescues taking place in the town of Reserve.  Where does this end?  We have to try several streets to get back to ours.  It's 8 a.m. before we see our house with the sun rising over the top of it.  Shock!  I make a decision to send the boys to my Mother in Law's house to eat breakfast.  I'm not sure when they ate last.  In fact I'm not sure if anyone has eaten in the last 24 hours.  I get a flat boat and I ferry my bride to our dream home we built ten years earlier.  Remember that feeling last night?  Well that was nothing compared to my descent into a watery hell I call home.

Breeze Way

The water is past my waist on the driveway.  I pull the boat around to the back door and get Penny out. There are snails in the water as big as my hand.  I put my shoulder into the back door and open it to 14 inches of dirty water.  The white tile shines through the dirty water to reveal "balls" of worms. Thousands and thousands of worms clinging together in balls all over the house.  Is this what it's like to face an Egyptian plague?  We walk through the house trying desperately to save at least one more thing.  We stumble in the bedrooms.  Did you know that carpet floats?  Nothing is untouched by the waters.  Every object sitting on the kitchen counter has an orange ring around it.  To this day, I don't know why.  Dear Lord, how many things did we not think about picking up.  I realize that under our bed is electronic equipment and video tapes. Videos of my boy's first steps and words in this life.  All sitting under 14 inches of sewer water.  My wife is in the fourth bedroom. Her grandmother lived with us in that room.  Penny stumbles on the carpet and hits a tub of her Granny's things and it falls into the water.  The tears roll without stop now.  We are in the middle of hell, 14 inches deep in dirty water, rolling balls of earthworms, and no clue what to do.

Left over worm debris.

We make several trips during the day to retrieve things and let the boys see the house.  There is little we can do.  I just sit on the edge of the boat in total shock.  Day turns to night and we venture back to our pastor's house to get some sleep.  Friday morning comes, my house still has three inches of dirty water in it.  My parent's home has drained.  We stay busy that day ripping wet carpet out of their house.  We have to keep busy, if not the weight of it all will crush our fragile mental state.   Saturday morning comes and the water is barely out of my house.  That's all I need.  We work like animals to remove the carpet, padding and destroyed furniture. The pile in the front yard grows by the hour. Then a thirty pound weight rolls off a work bench on to my 12 year old's foot. Mind you, we are all barefoot in this slop.  Then my 16 year old catches his foot on the wrong side of the carpet tack strip.  Thick pasty blood rolls onto the sewer stained floors.  Is it not bad enough that my dream house, that I designed and built myself is destroyed?  Is it not bad enough that everything I've worked my whole life for is full of sewer water?  Let's add injured teenage boys to my list of nightmares!  This is truly a low point.


What can you do?  I have two teenage sons.  We can't give up or quit.  It would scar the boys for life.  We must rebuild and show them that all things are possible with hard work.  Despite the harshness and brutality of it all, there is hope just over the horizon.  The cavalry will show up on Labor Day.  It's not who you would expect and definitely not the federal government.  The question is can I keep it together until then?  I'm unsure of everything at the moment.  When Monday finally gets here, my faith in God, faith in humanity, and mental state will be recovered.

One year post Isaac. Part 2 of 3. It just won't stop coming!

View from the back yard.

We get up Wednesday morning.  The power has been out.  It's rained all night.  The two horse pastures that are next to my property are full of water already. We check the weather on our phones.  We are horrified to learn that Isaac is stalled in Barataria Bay. The rains will not let up and the winds will continue to pack Lake Pontchartrain.  Worse case scenario.  I get a call from my Dad.  His travel trailer is in a low spot so we have to move it.  We hook up his truck and the rear tires sink up to the axle.  We fight for three hours to get his truck out.  We use boards, blocks, and bricks.  Then make a train with my tractor and my brother in law's Jeep.  When it's finally out, I turn and fall into the hole the tires made.  I go underwater, then when I surface my family is screaming at me.  A small water moccasin his on my back.  After all that excitement, I look across my land and see something I've never seen before.  Water is everywhere.  This has never happened before.  Not in Katrina, or Gustav.  What is going on?


We head back to the house to change into dry clothes.  I keep going outside every few minutes.  I'm just in a daze.  Surely the water will stop coming soon.  But the water creeps up on the porch and I know it won't stop. It's time to start picking up things.  We get all the computers and such up on top of things and I instruct the boys to put all the guns in the attic.  We hear the thumping of large helicopters.  The subdivisions nearest the Lake are underwater and the National Guard is performing rescues.  Then my wife gets a text from one of her co-workers.  She lives in the nearest subdivision.  She waded down her street to safety with nothing but clothes on her back and a phone in her hand.  It's coming this way.   Night falls and I know the waters won't stop. We try to settle the boys but the wife is upset so I tell her, I'm not opposed to leaving.  I tell her to pack the valuables and the boys to stack furniture on top of each other. The house won't stay above water for another hour.  I wade to my parents house to tell them we are leaving.  By the time I get back the water is seeping in the corners of the house.  I tell the boys to grab their school clothes, a sleeping bag, and the dog and get in my truck.  The wife has already loaded the valuables but she's still fretting about every little thing in the house.  By the time I force her out the door we are ankle deep in our own house.


I ease the truck down our lane.  Going just fast enough to create a wake that keeps the engine out of the water.  It takes us half and hour to get to Airline Highway (the main highway).  We had to try three different streets to get there.  Once we get on Airline we come to the National Guard command center.  They are still rescuing people.  There is a line of coach buses on the four lane highway blocking everything for at least a mile.  At this point we think the entire town of Laplace is underwater.  I roll down the window and ask a state troop how do I get past.  He says, "drive on the shoulder with some respect or get in one of these buses bound for Houston".  I say my thanks and move on.  I ain't going to Houston.  We make our way about twenty miles down the road.  Our pastor and his family welcome us into their house.  It's late, the boys have been drugged with Benedryl, they bed down on sleeping bags while we tell our pastor and his wife about our long day.


Penny and I go lay in a bed shortly after midnight.  There will be no sleep tonight.  We lay there holding hands with tears in our eyes.  Our house is filling with water and there's not a thing we can do about it. I think to myself, "this is the worst feeling in the world".  Tomorrow will prove me very, very wrong.

One year Post Isaac. Part 1 of 3. Preparing for a small storm.

Hurricane Isaac

It's Monday the 27th of August.  Tropical Storm Isaac is wobbling across the Gulf of Mexico.  He's not that strong of a storm but models put it on a bee line to Louisiana and it has to cross some of the warmest parts of the Gulf.  It will strengthen before it gets here.  We've survived Katrina, and more recently Gustav but the slow moving, heavy rain forecast has everyone on edge.  It's time to start prepping for a hurricane. The kids are excused from school so we stay busy by securing the house and property.

It's a standard routine.  We've prepped for many storms in the past.  We take all the plants, chairs, and other things off the back porch and pack them into the garage.  All my wife's bird feeders have to come down and put away.  By noon the garage is overloaded and I have to go to school to secure the concession stand.  Everything is put indoors.  Doesn't matter if the garbage cans stink, they have to be put away.  What doesn't fit is tied down.  With that done I head back to the house.  Take a little time to check the updated models.  Still a Tropical Storm but they have it as "near stationary".  This is not good.  Memories of Hurricane Juan enter my mind.  It was 1985, and Hurricane Juan parked off the coast for five days.  Barely a Hurricane, Juan dumps more that thirty inches over Louisiana.  I remember seeing deer, rabbits, and other wild life standing in the middle of the Interstate because there was no other dry land.  This storm needs to move faster.  I'm wore out from all the work of the day. We devise a plan to move the vehicles in the morning and get some sleep.

Lights and lanterns.

Tuesday morning comes and they upgrade Isaac to a Hurricane.  The outer feeder bands are starting to pass over every so often.  There's not a lot left to do. I take my tractor out of barn and park it on the back porch. The boys help me put small 110 window unit in and set up generator. We gather flashlights and other things to prepare for when the electricity gets knocked out.  It's a long, slow day.  Endless updates are coming over the news channel.  They keep slowing down the storm.  The storm will make land fall over night. They always do.  We get comfortable for the night when the electricity starts to flicker on and off. We already ran the A/C hard so the house is cool and we get some rest. Surely everything will be fine.  We've lived through much worse.  Tomorrow we will get up and be busy keeping the ditches clear and dealing with debris, but this is just life in Louisiana.  The thinking is this storm will pass, threaten, then leave like all the others.  But Isaac has other plans.  By midnight He stalls again.  Being on the western shore of Lake Pontchartrain is about to but us in the bulls eye of this storm.  Isaac is about to teach us some hard lessons of storm surge that the meteorologists on TV can't explain. Wednesday will be a punishing day.