Just got back from 10 days in Louisiana doing FEMA home inspections as a contract inspector.  In those 10 days I did 58 home inspections in the New Orleans area and then up I-55 to the Hammond area.

Last year I worked in both New York state and New Jersey for about 3 weeks after hurricane Irene.

After Katrina, many men (and women) from Ventura made one week volunteer work trips down to the Gulf area, and our teams focused primarily on Pascagoula, MS. Last Saturday I had a few hours off in the afternoon, so I drove over to Pascagoula and literally made cold calls on some of widows, single moms and families (with disabled children) on whose homes we’d worked.

What a great time – after 6 years – to see and visit with them! Literally thousands of workers from all over the country came down to the Gulf to help in the restoration work. On Linda’s home, I helped one week to install a new roof under the leadership of a roofing contractor from Ohio who drove down with all his tools.

Leslie joined me on our last trip and connected with the women who were still traumatized by the flooding (flood surge), listening to their stories and experiences.

Isaac this year wasn’t like Katrina at all – primarily heavy rains and trees blown down, but still some homes were badly damaged by localized flooding (outside the levee system). We literally worked from sun-up to sun-down to rapidly cover our assignments, then would spend the evening making calls for appointments the next day. In a perverse way, these deployments are a “vacation” for me because they so focus me on the immediate needs that I forget all about life back in Ventura. I just wouldn’t want to do it every day!