Thankfully our last job was not as large as I had expected because the house had not been touched since the storm. There was 2 inches of thick bayou mud to shovel out of the semi-finished bottom floor and the furnishings on the second floor were strewn about as the water made it to the second story rafters. This was the worst house I've had to gut in all my time down here. In 6 hours we managed to get all the belongings "cleaned out" so we're ready to do some gutting for a few hours Sat morning before the team leaves for Virginia and I get ready for the parade.


I stopped by Walmart this evening, but they are nowhere near fully-stocked yet. The setup is still more like a warehouse (sort of like Sam's Club but much smaller), but they have many areas boarded off. I couldn't find batteries; surely, I just missed them. They did have Christmas decorations available though. Tonight we ate out at the Italian buffet establishment that just reopened (with a discount for relief workers) sans carpet and regular dishes and silverware.

I understand Habitat for Humanity has adopted Waveland according to their mayor on Tuesday and will even build homes to what the original blueprint was.

There were a couple funny yet sad comments in the paper Thursday....
"I just wanted to say thank you, Hurricane Katrina, for making Christmas shopping easy this year, because it's hard to buy something for someone who has everything, but now that they have nothing it's going to be quite simple."

"You might be a hurricane refugee if one of the pastimes you really miss is flushing the toilet... if the thought of a hot shower sounds better than a hot date... if you're having trouble deciding where to go for Thanksgiving dinner - the Red Cross or the Salvation Army."

Sat morning: We have some light showers this morning with 50% chance of isolated showers and thunderstorms for the rest of the day. Not the best parade weather, but the show will go on I'm sure. I need to get going to the jobsite. Peace.