Meeting with Mike

Feb 21, 07

Tonight we had our last meeting and Mike Tower joined us. Mike is a residential and commercial contractor in Windsor and in the past 15 years, he's volunteered for more than 70 Habitat projects. Most recently, he just spent 7 weeks in New Orleans. Although he showed his wife, daughter and son 2 thousand photos before they arrived later in the trip, they were devestated by what they saw. Mike shared some of those photos with us and answered a lot of our questions. What we saw was shocking but so important for us to prepare. Mike told us that there are no building codes or standards and the new homes are being built without any foundations. There are numbers spray painted on the front doors coded to indicate the number of people who died in each one. He said when he first arrived, he was scolded for using too much lumber to ensure the homes were built to the same standards as ours here. There are still so many homes that are in terrible, terrible condition, covered in mould that should be condemned and yet, people continue to live in them because they have no where else to go. Imagine the respiratory illnesses! There are houses toppled on top of other houses and this covers an area the size of about 5 citys of Windsor's size. The stories of the actual levvy and how flimsy it was built is very disturbing.

I rented the Spike Lee documentary called When the Levvy Broke and watched it last night. After watching the first CD you definitely get the sense about how these people have truly been left to their own devices. If you haven't see it, go rent it!

To cheer us up after Mike's talk, we discussed the positive side as to why we are doing this and how it will make a difference to the people who don't want to leave because they have such a rich hertiage and history invested in the area. So, if by reaching out to them, even just a little, I guess we an help with the changes.

We were all given work gloves tonight, donated by our Physical Plant department. Sandy brought in some fabric paints and we all decorated our gloves. We did the raffle for the prize draws and two lucky people in my office won some beautiful gift baskets.

It sounds like Camp Hope will be quite primitive, there are only 4 showers and we shouldn't expect any hot water. The sleeping quarters are quite primitive as well. I just hope there is enough electricity and perhaps a web connection so that we can blog our experiences. We will also be keeping hand written journals while we are away too.

Well, it's time to wrap things up and prepare to pack.
Beth