Posted on 03/21/2006 4:18:06 PM PST by SandRat
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (Army News Service, March 20, 2006) –- With some help from the Army, hundreds of thousands of residents along a stretch of the Mississippi Gulf Coast have begun a painful climb toward getting life back to the way it was before the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.
The Army Corps of Engineers has been removing debris from the Gulf Coast since the hurricane in August ripped tens of thousands of trees from their roots and everything from cars to shrimp boats rested where homes once stood.
Across a four-state region, hurricanes Katrina and Rita left more than 87,000 square miles of debris, displacing more than three-quarters of a million homes and accumulating close to 120 million cubic yards of debris.
Removing ‘leaners and hangers’
Dick Aldrich is the resident engineer responsible for debris removal out of the Corps’ emergency field office covering Jackson and George counties, two of the counties just to the right of Katrina’s eye and some of the hardest hit areas in Mississippi.
“Our first step after we put our team together was to determine what type of debris removal work we had ahead of us, the scope of that work and the level of effort from a construction standpoint we faced,” explained Aldrich.
“We call them ‘leaners and hangers’ – really they are trees and branches that we can remove. ‘Leaners’ are those trees that normally lean 30 percent or more. We’ll cut down those trees, pull out the stumps and fill the holes with dirt.
“The hangers are branches more than two inches in diameter that can be cut down and removed to a right of way where they are hauled off to a temporary debris reduction site. They are then put through a huge grinding machine and ground into mulch. Blueberry farmers love to get the mulch for their farms and some businesses in Alabama want to burn it for fuel.”
Thousands of properties qualify
Aldrich and his staff of about 240 engineers and volunteers must obtain and process ‘right-of-entry’ forms from affected residents in the area, allowing contractors to remove debris from residents homes and creating rights of way to allow access to schools, hospitals and gas stations – giving people a sense of normalcy in their lives. To date, just within Aldrich’s two-county area, more than 7,000 right-of-entry forms have been processed.
“We base our removal contracts on cubic yardage, as well as rights of entry, but we also have to base our efforts on property as well. Some of these homes were hit so hard that there really is no home – just debris on the ground. Or we go to a person’s property and it may have six houses on it, all in a pile.
Nothing left above 4 inches
“When we clean an area of debris, we leave nothing larger than four inches and nothing more than a half cubic yard on any property. We cannot allow our contractors to get off of their machinery, so everything has to be cleared by mechanical means – no hand labor involved. In Jackson County alone we had 860 properties that qualified as total debris removal efforts.”
Aldrich says that vehicle removal is a secondary mission, where contractors are tasked with removing vehicle and vessels that were displaced by flooding or sent flying by winds in excess of 120 miles per hour.
“I was amazed at how many vehicles can accumulate in a situation like this. Many of the residents here left the area, and I guess most had more than one vehicle. They ended up in some of the strangest places. While we don’t work in the water, we have a shrimp boat that’s about 85 feet long in the town of Gautier that’s wedged between two houses.”
People’s spirit not destroyed
Aldrich says that his most lasting image of this area won’t be the destruction, or even the rebuilding efforts, but the spirit of the people he’s met along the way.
“The good people of Mississippi are strong. I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to lose everything I own – my car, my job, my home and all my belongings and I can’t do it. Once these folks get their place cleaned up, they get a sense of direction. They can see the new house or the ‘for sale’ sign in their yard.
“I spent 18 months in Iraq, and there are certain conditions that come with that tour. But to demolish what’s left of a person’s home and watch them stand in the yard and break down crying – I’d rather get shot at in Iraq. This has been one of the most emotional tours I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve been involved with earthquakes before, but hurricanes, by far, are much worse and leave a bigger mess to clean up.”
(Dona Fair is an Army print features writer with the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service.)
Sgt. 1st Class Carl Childs goes over debris removal instructions with a co-worker with the Army Corps of Engineers at a debris removal site in Mississippi. Childs is the municipal coordinator with the Task Force Hope Emergency Field Office – West based in Diamondhead, Miss.
An Army Corps of Engineer volunteer weighs in a debris removal truck during operations along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
OFFICIAL PHOTO: by Daren Reehl
Katrina Recovery PING
Meanwhile in NOLA... What a contrast!!
Oh, and... Thank you for NOT excerpting this article.
So now Nagin's administration wants to PAY an estimated $23 million to have cars removed, when they were previously offered a PAYMENT of $100 per car to sell them for scrap.
If only stupidity were a crime, Nagin would never again see the light of day.
BTTT
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