Scene from Picayune

The scene in Picayune (our home base) was a lot less total destruction and flooding, and a lot more massive trees to remove from the tops of houses and cars. here is a tree that we got off of the roof (where the blue tarp is) and had to have one worker climb and cut out so that it wouldn't swing back and hit the house. Note the people on the bottom left... the chainsaw operator is being held by rope by this group of people.





This massive tree rested on top of a retired New Orleans firefighter's home. It took our team an entire day to clear this tree and several others that had fallen on his cars in the back yard. Fortunately for us, a Bobcat operator happened by and helped us finish, or we would have been there for another 1/2 day. Surprisingly, the house only suffered very minor roof damage, even with this enormous tree resting on it.





Here's one of our chainsaw operators working high above to clear some large limbs that were threatening to come down on the home. We had several skilled operators, some skilled Bobcat operators (but no Bobcats for much of the weekend... they're hard to come by down there), and many manual laborers (like me!) clearing the limbs and debris, tarping, talking with the homeowners, etc.





Here's another look at the massive tree from this jobsite. Note the large root structure just totally ripped out of the earth. This was a common site over the weekend.




For our living accomodations, we set up at the First Presbyterian Church in Picayune. The men slept in the pews in the sanctuary, while the women slept in the Sunday school classrooms (with no A/C for much of the weekend). Many people set up tents outside. We had a makeshift shower running from the garden hose set up on a tarped-over swingset in back (90+ people, 3 showers each for men and women...). But even still, we had a great time...

More later...

(thanks to Aaron and Mary Beth for a few of the photos)