The Yats are driving home. We couldn’t keep up with the big forearmed
Midwestern women on the sandbag line. But we held our own.

Our levee, the Sny, the world’s largest, is in tact at this point. The
biggest threats to it in the days ahead will be rain and muskrats. It
was muskrats that took out the levee in Missouri on Wednesday night.

Let me conclude our first relief trip to America’s heartland with a
final round of dissimilar and similar. Dissimilar first.

The level of organisation and communication between state and local
goverment, along with charitable agencies, is astounding. Local
organisers spent considerable time with us on Friday morning reviewing
their disaster reponse manual - knowing full well that being from New
Orleans we’ve never seen such a document before. They promised to
send to us on CD ROM. We’d pass along a copy to “Our Mayor” if we knew
his Plano, TX mailing address. Read the rest of this entry »

“We used to have a downtown here in Hull. Now we have a soda machine. It’s next to the post office.”

“You have a post office?”

“No, they closed it. And we’re afraid they’re going to come back for the soda machine.”

The lead supervisor here in Hull is a great guy. But I think he’s
somewhat tired of my incessant questions. Or maybe he’s put out by my
threatened work stoppage.

Speaking of questions, we are of course being barraged by the one
question everyone else in America wants answered by us: “How did that
(deleted) mayor of yours get re-elected?” For a little while “$90,000″
held the spotlight but that now seems like old news. “Our Mayor” is
the big perplexity about the Big Easy.

After we explain it for the two hundredth time, walking through Mitch
and Uptown Republicans’ involvement, they seem to think we’re not as
dense as they previously suspected. I’m thinking New Orleans should buy
media space nationwide to offer the Nation an apology and explanation
for “Our Mayor.” This would be way more efficient than having to do it
one American at a time.

The rain has let up. It’s sunny and 90° meaning we’re working in a
steambath. The locals say the Yats should feel right at home.

Food arrived but we’re breaking anyhow. The skies are near black; big
rains heading our way. This is not a welcome event. Volunteers and
National Guard are all heading into the Western Elementary School
building. I’m in our truck which smells awful so going to make a run
for it back to be with the others. The pace will no doubt pick up when
we can get back at it. Rain means breaching.

We’re working at a less frantic pace this morning. Things appear to be
holding along the 50 mile stretch of levee near Hull. Rain is expected
this afternoon and tonight so they’ll be watching to see what starts
leaking. Kind of like a chess game going on here with an unpredictable, but
worthy opponent.

There’s one boil of concern still in Dead Dog. We’re going to try and
check it out. Clear water boils are not a problem. That’s pure levee
water leaking out which is ok because it’s relieving pressure. Dirty
water boils are, however, a major concern. These indicate the levee
itself is becoming compromised. Knowing this difference now apparently
makes the Yats more knowlegeable than some of the Corps workers here.
According to the locals there are Corps staff assigned here who’ve
never seen a boil. And on it goes.

The Yats have threatened a work stoppage unless fried chicken and
music appear shortly. The locals appear to like our style. Your
Working Boy, Darryl

We’re back at it sandbagging in Hull this morning. Last night, one of the nearby levees in Missouri broke. So this has a trickle down effect (no pun intended) on where people and resources are allocated. The whole ballgame here is coming down to what the rain is going to do in the next few days.

The Hull site at Western University is lightly supervised and there’s a whole new cast of volunteers. So we’re the old veterans showing the newbies how to set up five-person bagging teams, etc…Go Yats.

The level of organization and coordination here between state and local government is amazing. It’s also infuriating to see their level of competence and excellent planning/communication compared to our experiences back home. More specifics later. I have to go now that I’ve been promoted to Sandbag Technician II.

Late Thursday night, June 26

We’re finally done for the day after a great meal with the local families hosting us here. I ache all over.

Our group concluded the workday by following the trucks laden with our handiwork of finely-stuffed sandbags to their final resting spot: the levee at Park-N-Fish, Illinois. Despite two vodkas at dinner, I’m serious about the name.

We encountered several locals at the drop-off point who described the back-to-back disasters of 1993: The Great Flood and then having to deal with FEMA. The only governmental entity for which they have greater disdain is the Corps of Engineers (I told you last night these folks are our perfect sister-city-on-the-river). Both are considered utterly useless. I’ve never met a populace, which can so readily grasp our furor over the Corps’ incompetence.

Folks her are already chafing at the fact that once this is all over, the Corps is going to make them take down all of the levee enhancements and reinforcements — just so they get repeat all of this sandbagging again next year. Apparently the additional sand is an irritant to a class of endangered and protected snails. You can imagine how this goes over with Southern Illinois farmers.

I’m tired, hurting and going to bed. But with a huge smile on my face over the great people we’ve met and worked with today and the opportunity to give back. Tomorrow, the Yats sandbag some more then join about 2,000 volunteers and locals for a blues concert in the town park.

You know you’ve been filling sandbags all day when you start getting picky over the kind of bio-degradeable bag’s you’re given. There are flavours from China, Indonesia and India (at least). I’m biased towards the Chinese version which require a separate twist tie.

The only skills required for sandbagging are digging and counting to two. Even YATS can handle that. Once filled the bags are taken to suspect levee locations which have been given names, eg Dead Dog, Pole, Horseshoe, Miller’s Corner. I’m trying to find someone who can tell me if we’re presently winning or losing the war. More rains north of us expected - not good news.

It’s pushing 90′ here in Hull along heavy humidity. Just like home!

The folks here went thru this drill during the great floods of 1993.
Which brings us to yet another similarity. That year Corps of
Engineers waited too long to blow the levees down river, allowing much
greater damage than could have been avoided.

Sandbagging is a bit of an art. A team of five is ideal: one shoveler,
two baggers and two to tie the bags. Two shovels full makes for a
perfect bag. Once our pile has hit critical mass, a flock of National
Guardsmen descends to fill up the front loader. Then it’s off to the
levee for reinforcing.

The presence of New Orleanians here is quite the spectacle. Most
everyone has recognised us from last night’s newscast. The folks here
are delighted - really taken aback - that we’ve pulled away from our
own issues to come up river and lend a hand during their time of need.

The Annunciation-Broadmoor team managed some sleep, then up at 6a to
start our day. We were led to the Quincy Civic Center which is the
epicenter of sandbagging. Last week this mostly volunteer operation
loaded and shiped 1,000,000+ sandbags.

I was struck immediately by the mayor being on hand to greet the
volunteers and help lead them to their assignments. Part of my
assignment here is to observe differences between Quincy and New
Orleans. Major difference number one: their mayor is present, engaged
and appears to know what’s going on. And … he skipped a meeting
Florida to be here for this crisis.

Some things, however, are the same. When one of our team asked, “How
is FEMA doing here?” the response was “We haven’t seen them yet.”

The sandbagging operation is a fascinating sight. There are convicts,
Mennonites, the elderly, police and firemen, kids of all ages and on
it goes all pitching in. A group of Mennonites from Iowa who lost
everything in the floods are down here helping try to save others.
Yesterday the convicts had a race with the National Guard to see who
could fill the most bags. Convicts won going away.

They still have their infrastructure in tact so it’s all amazingly
smooth and efficient. The New Orleanians forgot to sign in so we
screwed up their entire intake process. Big surprise.

We’ve just learned that a critical levee in the
town of Hull is in jeopardy so we’re racing there to lend a hand with
the reinforcement efforts which are going on 24/7. More later.