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January 29, 2006
Chocolate City Checkin
Greetings from New Orleans! Yup, still here. I've been deployed with FEMA for four months now and recently re-upped for another six months. Sunny and the kids moved out here last Monday. For now we're holed up in a Homewood Suites, but we move into a 2BR corporate apartment in the Warehouse District on Wednesday. I'm so happy to have them out here and I'm so proud of my wife for taking this huge step with me.
We found a "normal church" this morning. I'd been to four or five different churches since I arrived and came to the conclusion that southern churches were too weird for me. This morning's service at Calvary Baptist Church in Algiers was refreshing. It seemed natural to give it a shot since Collin will be starting school there on Wednesday. (Oh - side story... Collin took his entrance exam. The test was 35 pages long and was supposed to take 2.5 hours. He finished in 1.5 hours and the proctor told Sunny not to buy the uniforms until the test was graded as if she thought he couldn't sit still long enough to take the full test. He did extremely well and of course we got a call from the principal very excited to have him enroll.)
Calvary Baptist hosts the Red Cross and prepares most of the meals delivered to victims and relief workers still hard at work in east New Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines. It's hard to tell what the rest of the world thinks about the Gulf Coast recovery efforts, but I suspect many think things have pretty much returned to normal. Far from it. In fact, I drive through the devastated areas and progress is noted by the opening of a single gas station or small restaurant. I heard on the radio the other day that less than 25% of all City of New Orleans restaurants have been certified by the health department to reopen. It's been five full months since the storm!
I'm currently the deputy director of infrastructure recovery for St. Bernard Parish. St. Bernard was destroyed by stormsurge. Every single building flooded, leaving 70,000 homeless. I manage a staff of ~40 working on 500 projects worth nearly $750mil. It's been challenging, but also a phenomenal opportunity. I'm working 70-80 hrs/wk and frankly haven't had the urge to blog. I rarely read blogs anymore either. I have many pictures and videos of St. Bernard, Plaquemines and the 9th ward, but haven't found the time to post. I'll try my best to get something up. I'm sure the passion for blogging will return, but probably not until my work here is done.
I haven't been a complete lump on a log though. I managed to co-author two pieces on exit polling since September: one for the American Statistical Association Joint Statistical Meeting proceedings and the other for Public Opinion Pros.
Take care everyone.
Posted by Rick at January 29, 2006 06:09 PM
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Comments
Good to hear from you Rick. Keep up the good work. Glad you are there, making sure the $$ and resources get where they are supposed to go, not some crook. How is the area doing spiritually? Is there an openess to the gospel message? God bless you, brother.
Posted by: bruce at January 30, 2006 08:47 AM
greetings,
im a new member in your " stones cry out" i am "keeper of the stone medicine" from the algonquin tribe. an elder who has been reading stones for many years! i love to speak to the stones, listen to the stones , and live like "the stone".
grampa
Posted by: grampa at January 30, 2006 11:45 AM
Nice post. For what it's worth, I've added you guys to my blogroll. Good luck with your new church possibility.
Posted by: PDS at January 30, 2006 12:17 PM
That is awesome Rick. You are amazing. I remember a night not too long ago at Gary's when I got on your case about not going to LA. Looking back, it is no wonder that He had other plans for you. You believed. I didn't.
La Mission
Joey
Posted by: Joey H at February 1, 2006 03:25 AM
The place needs to be bulldozed and made into a landfill or the levees torn down permanently. This is just ridiculous that we would spend billions to build something that will be torn down again soon. There is plenty of land in LA to rebuild something that will not be threatened with total annhilation by the next Cat4-6 hurricane. Even a devastating earthquake on the west coast doesn't do as much damage. Building in a toilet bowl just doesn't make any sane sense at all. Imagine what better uses there would be for that money.
Posted by: Jason at March 8, 2006 06:15 PM