Students clean up hurricane aftermath
Last month, two GC&SU students put off their school lives for a week and traveled to Mississippi, where they helped Hurricane Katrina victims.
Sophomore biology major Will McGarity and senior psychology major Ryan Baird traveled with 20 other members of Parkview Church in Lilburn, Ga. to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to help Gulf Port Presbyterian Church and its surrounding area for the week of Sept. 14.
“It was my chance to assess the damage first hand, rather than just flipping on the TV,” Baird said, “I felt it was my opportunity to help.”
Due to scheduling conflicts, Baird and his family didn’t get to Mississippi until late the first night.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Baird said. “It wasn’t like someone threw a grenade and blew the houses apart. Most houses still had foundation.”
McGarity and other members of the group arrived earlier that night.
“We got down there at night and basically just saw destruction. We realized how thankful we were,” McGarity said.
The team worked on many relief projects, including repairing water damage in houses, putting tarps on roofs and cleaning up numerous trees.
McGarity said the people in the area seemed overwhelmed.
“Either their houses were gone, flooded, overgrown by mold, or they had lost family members. The church we were staying at didn’t know where half of its members were,” McGarity said. “We couldn’t get to anything (the first night), so helplessness was one of my first reactions.”
According to an online journal of the group’s efforts by a team member, the first day was spent removing very large trees and cleaning up debris from blown out windows.
“One of the trees was so large they did not have a chainsaw big enough to cut through it,” said to the online account.
Instead, they had to use a truck to drag the fallen tree to the street. The removal of these trees helped to make room for trailer homes to be brought in. A second team removed sheetrock walls from a church member’s home in order to hang new sheetrock.
“I felt grief for the people, watching them lose everything they had. Seeing the looks on their faces as they watched us throw away the ruined stuff,” McGarity said.
McGarity spoke of a house the group went to that made his trip worthwhile. He said the house was owned by a couple in their 90s who stayed in their basement during the storm. During the storm, water rose six feet and flooded the entire downstairs. The couple made their way upstairs when it rose to the point of breaking a window.
Three cars in the garage and the man’s office, which contained 90 years of collectibles including letters he had written to his wife while serving in WWII, were all ruined.
McGarity said that the man didn’t want the team to touch anything because he didn’t want to lose all that he had.
They asked him if the rusted paneling on the walls could be removed, and he allowed them to do so, but only a little bit.
They moved out ruined furniture and had to put some back at the man’s request. They discarded an enormous couch that had been soaked by the treacherous waters.
Under the floors that had been raised by the flood were snakes, bugs, and other creatures.
The team spent approximately half a day cleaning the area.
At the end of their intense labor, they asked the couple if they could pray for them.
When they returned to the church, the couple’s son-in-law told them that he was amazed to see the joy in the faces of his wife’s parents, a joy that had not been there for a long time. He said that after they had left, his mother-in-law tried to write a thank you letter, but she was so appreciative that she couldn’t. Instead, she asked for the team’s autographs.
McGarity said that it was a very rewarding experience, and he didn’t want to come back home.
“I still want to go and help,” he said. “Imagine a massive woodpile. All we did was move a matchstick.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 7 2005. Filed under News.
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