Hello everyone and thanks for your thoughts and prayers!
What a sobering reality. I don't have any pictures to share at the moment because my wife went to Tn. while I went to Cedar Rapids Iowa and she took the camera. However, I should have some pictures Wednesday night from our group and I'd like to share them.
We worked on several houses, but the main house we went into had water damage that went seven feet up the wall. I remember when we first got to Cedar Rapids and we stepped out of the air conditioned car late Sunday night and the air was thick and musky like an old basement, only concentrated.
When we first arrived at the the area where the houses had been damaged by the flood, not only was the smell horrible, but the area was a ghost town (this is the first time I was thankful for my sinus's lol). The home owner Allen had flood insurance, but it wasn't going to be enough to rebuild his house and he hadn't received his insurance check either. BTW, he was to receive $52,000 in insurance. Basically, water sat seven feet up his walls for over a week and by the time we had gotten there, mold was everywhere. Each house affected by the flood had to be stripped down to a single layer of wood, which meant gutting the house down to the studs. Myself and another gentleman were the only two willing to clean out the basement which entailed removing the furnace. Thankfully, we were able to break out the windows to let some air move down there, as well as being able to throw the smaller stuff out the window. Three of the teens that were helping actually threw up while carrying the junk we tossed out the window to the curb because the smell was so bad. As a side note, the entire week we were there we didn't see one bird in the area...
The efforts were coordinated by the Churches of Christ Disaster Response Team (
http://www.churchesofchristdrt.org ) with a local congregation from Cedar Rapids (
http://www.central-church-of-christ.com ). The Disaster response team has a trailer that has been fitted with showers and the local congregation was used for sleeping arrangements and meals as they opened up their classrooms for the air mattresses their kitchen for our meals. Everything was provided for us except a toothbrush, clothing (they provided our work shirts), blankets and a pillow.
Ohh, and we watched the Olympics every night in the sanctuary on the overhead screen! Awesome! In all though, it was a great time to fellowship and to do some good work. I'll write more as time affords, but for now, I've got a lot of catching up to do! Ohh, we got home Saturday night.
thanks so much for all of your prayers!
Jeff
