On the ground in Slidell~ Day 2

~By Judy Walden Scarafile

We assembled at Morning Circle at 7am and were assigned to our houses on Lincoln Rd for the rest of the week. Our site supervisors, Brendan and B-Man were great to work with and we had already learned a lot about house building on Day 1.

We gathered at our “house” and formed our own circle as Brendan gave us instructions and Rev Steve led us in prayer. It was a perfect way to start the day, on this our second day on site.

Today we continued hammering and attaching the hurricane straps, this time to the base of the house. Between the straps by the ceiling and now these on the first floor, this house was certainly not going to blow down in an average storm. I asked if these straps were used “up north” and the answer was clearly, “you wouldn’t need them”.

Once the plywood walls had been nailed down, it was ready for a review of all area like filling in where nails had been missed or finding areas that needed to be done over. This involved taking out nails that were crooked, adding foam-in insulation in areas that had dead air, and patching up holes where you could see daylight through “solid” wall.

This bright orange foam insulation looked like cheese doodles and was fun to work with. But one had to remember how much it expanded…..even after several hours. In one area that required the foam insulation, I drilled holes through the two-by-four and squirted the silly foam inside. I let it expand and in an hour I added more. By afternoon I had a forgotten about it, thinking it looked pretty good and we could go to the next step. Then I heard someone roar with laughter outside the house. The foam, under pressure to find another outlet had expanded so much it squeezed through every crack and nail hole in the plywood. On the outside of the house were three huge globs of tangerine colored gook that looked like orange tennis balls stuck on the outside walls. In the meantime the trusses and plywood were going up on the back of the house to create the roof. Time to wear a hard hat with flying nails and occasional debris.

Seems like the word spread quickly to the local wasps, insects that love the rafters of a roof. Several large southern variety wasps started flying around. I knew a hard hat would not help here, so we got off the ladders in the back of the house and found another spot to do more hammering

The East St. Tammany school buses drive by at 2:55, signifying “cleanup and quitting time”. We scurried around and put things away. After a quick drive back to the hotel and a quick shower, we were in the van heading into New Orleans for a tour of Chalmette, St Bernard’s Parish and the devastated and depressed Ninth Ward.