First Impressions

I've teamed up with my Team Leaders Tony and Art. I'm their Deputy. How can I describe what this town has been through? Is going through? But although it is maddeningly normal in some ways, it's not. I expected something else; something worse. But then there are the roofless buildings and piles of mangled metal laying in fields like some plaything abandoned by a family of giants. Fallen trees are being moved to the roadside so the debris trucks can pick it up. Four lane roads become two lanes, two lanes one, the piles are so large. Neighborhoods are hidden behind a seemingly unending levee of branches and tangle of stumps.

Fields of tents and RV trailers. Are they relief workers or those who've been driven from their homes? The smell of burning wood permeates everything. I see an earie glow at night from the motel and learn that its the debris piles aflame. Fleets of debris trucks ply the roads. Haulers are paid by the load. Much needed supplies are arriving. Heavy equipment is arriving. Traffic is frantic and dangerous. Debris is dropped off at four collection sites around the city. Already piled over forty feet high, it is comforting to learn that this unimaginable quantity of wood will be turned into hardwood mulch and other by-products.

We're off to Cameron, Louisiana. Where Rita came ashore.