Home >> WLC Response to Hurrican Katrina >> Press Coverage
(This article originally appeared in the November 2, 2005 edition of the Woodbury Bulletin)
Cleaning up Katrina’s mess
By Patricia Drey, Staff Writer
Woodbury Bulletin
After returning from a weeklong trip to the coast, Travis Dahlke’s boss told him he looked refreshed.
Dahlke agreed. He did feel refreshed, although it was strange considering
he had spent the week cleaning kitchens infested with flies and maggots
and moldy piles of wet dog food while breathing in what he said was “just
the worst smell I had ever smelled in my life.”
Dahlke went with one of three Woodbury Lutheran Church volunteer teams
to Ocean Springs, Miss. to help its residents clean their homes, which
were flooded and torn apart by Hurricane Katrina.
Armed with face masks and Vicks VapoRub to help filter and overpower the stench, the groups helped Mississippi residents sort out any salvageable items, pile up the rest and then knock the walls out of homes and clean what remained. Each team cleaned out about three homes, group members said.
While the job was disgusting — volunteer Scott Boyd’s team referred to opening the flooded refrigerators which had been warm and untouched for five weeks as “Christian Fear Factor” — team members said they returned feeling good about what they’d done and leaving the people they’d helped feeling better too.
“Everybody got off the van sounding like they’ d been on the most fabulous vacation,” Vicki Strong said of one group’s return.
The work was unpleasant, but at times it was even more difficult watching the residents they were working alongside deal with the devastation.
Volunteer Ann Gibbs worked to help an art teacher clean her home. The woman needed to take a few seconds before throwing away each piece of destroyed art work that she’d created personally, Gibbs said.
“Every single thing she had ever done got wrecked,” Gibbs said. “You can just see the strain.”
The first team helped another woman whose husband had died in February, said volunteer Kathy Boyd. She had not been able to bring herself to throw away his clothes, but the hurricane had made the job necessary.
“She needed a lot of breaks,” Kathy Boyd said. “She would walk over to the pile and get a pair of jeans and just hold the jeans.”
Woodbury Lutheran Church members decided they wanted to do something to help victims of Hurricane Katrina after the storm touched them personally. Youth Pastor Derek Broten ended up weathering the storm from the New Orleans hotel where he was staying, and another member of the congregation had family members living in the affected area.
Since the church started its effort in early September, it has sent one semitrailer full of supplies and another 20,000 pounds of bleach along with other supplies delivered by the Orphan Grain Train organization. Area schools have donated backpacks and school uniforms and more than 10 area businesses have made donations.
The job of “finishing what Katrina started” — as volunteer Scott Boyd put it — has only begun in Ocean Springs.
When the most recent group returned Oct. 23, there were still thousands of homes, about 20 percent, that needed cleaning, Vicki Strong said.
“It’s kind of depressing to come back and say we did four houses,” said volunteer Bruce Strong. “There’s still so much left to do.”
Volunteer Kevin Doyle said he’s “almost shell-shocked” to think that since Hurricane Katrina, so many more disasters such as Hurricane Stan, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Wilma, the earthquakes in Pakistan and the mudslides in Guatemala have hit. Still, he feels he must do his part to help.
“We can only do so much, but we’re called to do it,” Doyle said. “That’s what the body of Christ is supposed to do.”
Permission to reprint this article was granted by the Woodbury Bulletin.