Day 6 - Chuck's Way

After breakfast, we got one final chance to say our goodbyes to the Michigan teens who had worked with us. We took pictures, and had pictures of us taken together. Some of the people exchanged cell phone numbers or email addresses, and then we saw them off on their journey. The group diminished in size, but three people were added: the two volunteers from California, and a third person, who I never asked where she was from. We also had four more people added to our crew: the ONN crew was going to work with us today.

We drove through damaged neighborhoods until we found a house with a bright orange sticker affixed to the center of the front window. It was a demolition notice.

During orientation, we had been told stories of Hilltop Rescue volunteers mucking a house even with the bulldozers across the street from it. Chuck told us that the demolition list for St. Bernard Parish has at least one thousand houses on it. He also told us that a home owner could choose to have a house removed from the list by filing the requisite paperwork. We were going to try to clear out the debris and find sentimental objects, and gut enough to give the home owners a choice. We prayed, and then we got started.

Inside, I discovered that the front window was set in a metal window frame that had no visible hardware, no locking mechanisms, nothing that suggested a way to open it. It was flush with the wall on all sides, so I told Chuck about the problem. He told me to continue opening windows and not to worry about the window in the front room. I managed to open most of the other windows before hitting a new snag: There were some windows in the back rooms of the house that could be cranked open, but the cranks were nowhere to be found. Chuck told me to get pliers and turn the stumps where the cranks attached. It was not easy, but we got three of the windows opened this way.

The last window was in a room piled high with debris. When I tried to turn the stump of the crank here, there was heavy rust all over it. The pliers slipped off over and over again, but the stump never turned. The window was stuck. Chuck tried prying the window panes apart, but there was a threaded bolt of some kind fastening them together. I tried turning the bolt, but it rotated freely, giving me no indication of whether it had anything else holding it together.

Chuck asked me to muck out the room and stop worrying about the windows. I got help from the two California volunteers, and at one point heard a group member remind another that speedy debris removal was less important than salvaging the valuables for the home owners.