Day 3

I just noticed that the day of the month is corresponding with the number of days of my trip! That's so awesome! Ok, so today's the real day. No more catch up. This is the REAL DEAL!

And now even Rachel's going to bed. You KNOW it's time for me to go when she goes.

Alright so this morning we wake up at 6. Not by choice but because Rachel's phone rang. I don't think I ever wanted to mutilate a phone so badly as I did at that moment. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 7 and had a wonderful breakfast of waffles, sausage, orange juice and an apple. I found myself a disaster relief t-shirt, we took the obligatory Gaithersburg group picture and made it to our sites! Woo! Hurray for being excited and terrified at the same time!

We went to this guy's house that we had to gut completely. It had been submerged in 30 feet of water. 30! Apparently the whole area was evacuated, and those that elected to stay behind never made it through the storm. I met the homeowner and his son. They're so matter-of-fact about the whole thing. One thing struck me that the son said. While I was asking him about it, he said that it was so long ago, he could barely remember the details. That's right! It's been 3 years. And they're still trying to get their home back. So besides running around taking a lot of pictures (almost 300 so far!), I helped sweep up debris, pull out nails and shovel up old tile. Doesn't really sound like much, but it was back-breaking manual labor. This community service thing is hard work! We got there at about 8 and worked until 4. There was such a huge difference in the house by the end of the day it was pretty amazing. Walking around outside and feeling the warm breeze on my face (it's 80 degrees down here btw, holy crap, winter is gonna kick my ass when I get back) I could see myself living in an area like this if I wasn't so terrified a hurricane was gonna come and take it all away from me.

Another story I heard today was of a woman who was 8 months pregnant. When the evacuation was announced she refused to leave. Her husband (or boyfriend?), I'm guessing only because he didn't want to stay, left her there. When it started flooding she made it up to her roof. When the water level rose above her roof she climbed into a tree. WHILE PREGNANT! Can you imagine?? So yea. She was rescued and had the baby a month and a half later. A girl. Who, no, is not named Katrina. Yes, I asked. And I guess the bf/hubby came back because he was the one who recounted the tale. I don't thing I'd TAKE him back if I were her!

Some of these houses down here are amazing. A code went into effect that required that if you were going to rebuild your house or try to save it, you had to elevate it 12 feet from the ground. So a lot of the houses I've seen on here are literally on stilts. They're like treehouses...only your HOME. I can't wait to show you. It's pretty amazing.

Another amazing thing was my shower afterwards! It's so good to feel CLEAN after breathing in asbestos/fiberglass-dust all day. Ok so I had a gas mask on. But that stuff was everywhere! Our dinner was really nice, too. Then there were games of Dominos and Boggle and now I'm on here baloggin. But not for much longer 'cause I'm tired and we're getting up just as early tomorrow.

There's a thunderstorm going on outside of our community tent right now. The wind's been getting fierce, too. We did have a tornado watch earlier and we had a place set up to evacuate to, but it seems this is the worst of it. That's good. I can't do much help if I get sucked into the sky by grandfather twister. Somehow I equate a tornado with grandfather time. Go figure. Alright, I should really go to bed now. I'm glad I won't have to write 3 posts tomorrow.

WOO! stay tuned