The Desperate Need for People to Return and Help

I learned a lot when I was in New Orleans this past week, but one of the things that struck me the most was how much help these people need and how much work still needs to be done almost 4 years after the storm. It was stated that Slidell, LA is about 85% recovered, but the acutal city of New Orleans is only 15% recovered. This information is very sad considering it has been so long since the storm. One of the worst places still is the lower 9th ward. We went on a tour to see what it looked like and it struck us all that some of the houses were still boarded up and had blue tarps on their roofs. We even saw houses that still had markings one them about whether or not anyone was found in the house when it was searched. Here are some pictures to give you some idea of how much help the people on the Gulf Coast still need.

A house that was in better condition than most of them. It was shown to us to give us an idea of what New Orleans used to look like.

A house in the lower 9th ward almost 4 years after the Hurricane

Another house in the lower 9th ward

A house in the lower 9th ward still boarded up

Site Seeing and Hanging Out

Even though we went down to do work, we did get a little time to site see and engage in the culture of New Orleans. One of the awesome things we got to do was take a Steamboat Cruise Tour on the Mississippi River. Then on Thursday night, we went and ate in the French Quarter.

The Steamboat we rode on

A Cathedral in down town New Orleans

A horse drawn carriage that gave people tours of New Orleans

Cafe Du Monde, which is a coffee shop famous for Beignets(French Doughnuts)

The Work We Did

While we were in Slidell, LA we worked on building a house for a woman who completely lost her home. My team was divided into two different groups. One group worked on putting up drywall, mudding, sanding, and fixing screws. My group spent the week putting up siding. We all learned a whole lot doing these jobs because not many of us knew anything about dry walling and putting up siding before the trip. We made a lot of progress and got a lot accomplished. Here are some pictures of the house and work! Enjoy!

The team with the owner of the house.

The house early on

Some of the team members putting up siding

Putting up siding
Hammaring in siding

Spring Break Missions Trip

For Spring Break this year, I went on a missions trip with one of the campus ministries on my campus. We went to New Orleans to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. Even though it has been almost 4 years since Katrina, there is still a whole lot of work to do. We didn't acutally stay and work in the city of New Orleans, but we were in Slidell, LA, which is a city about 45 min. from New Orleans. We stayed at a church there and worked at a house fairly near the church. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. Here are some general pictures! Enjoy!


The church we stayed at, Aldersgate United Methodist Church

The building we stayed in, which was specifically built for Hurricane Katrina relief.

The story about the building we stayed in

The actual flag that flew at the church during Hurricane Katrina on August 29th, 2005.