Promotion

Servants Unite has announced a major change in the relief work planned for the near future: there will be a shift from mucking houses (general cleanup of debris inside a house) to reconstruction (repair, remodeling, rebuilding, and other activities). The shift to reconstruction will require more experienced construction workers to travel with any volunteer group - read more here.

There are two more trips planned before the end of the year. The final trip scheduled for the final days of this year. Both trips will focus on debris removal and reconstruction.

Hilltop Rescue and Relief has plans to shut down their volunteer operations in Louisiana very shortly after the beginning of next year. Following that, who knows when and where they'll reappear? I will keep a link to their web site posted on Inverted Life unless they give up their Domain Name Registration.

The changes are not entirely bad. Future volunteers working to rebuild a house will not have to move refrigerators and freezers out of houses. They won't have to worry about finding hazardous materials in the houses they work on. Some of the people from Hilltop Rescue and Relief might show up in other places, staying on to ease the transition, or to join the new reconstruction efforts.

On the other hand, the changes may not be entirely good. When 2007 begins, FEMA will stop paying a 100-percent reimbursement for demolition done on any house. FEMA's share will go down to a 90-percent reimbursement. In St. Bernard Parish, there are still hundreds of houses condemned and slated for demolition. According to the The Times-Picayune the State of Louisiana will cover the remaining 10-percent reimbursement. But the total cost is still millions of dollars.

St. Bernard Parish has responded by issuing more demolition notices and by going to work as fast as possible to get the condemned properties demolished.

As for the final trip of the year, it's scheduled to leave on "Boxing Day," the day after Christmas. The volunteers plan to go all the way to Louisiana on December 26th, work a few days, and stop in Birmingham, Alabama on the way home. The group would return to Ohio on New Year's Day.

As for me, I wouldn't be blogging about that trip if I weren't interested. I hope I can be involved.