Editor's note: Antioch's Habitat for Humanity volunteers were in New Orleans to attend a national art therapy conference. They arrived at the devastation site in November 2006, more than a year after Hurricane Katrina hit the area on Aug. 29, 2005.

Four Nails Changed Her Point of View

By Katy Aversenti

I had been in New Orleans for only part of one evening. I had walked around the city a bit with my sister, Alex, who has lived there before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. This was a point of pride for Alex and she made sure I knew she was New Orleans faithful.

But I didn't really understand the devastation until Habitat.

Downtown New Orleans is shiny, clean, people are friendly and it isn't too crowded. That's part of the reconstruction effort and building back tourism. Even after seeing the news, the pictures and hearing Katrina survivor stories, downtown didn't look like it had been hit by disaster.

The same was not true at the Habitat for Humanity site I visited with five other Antiochians.

The six of us plus other American Art Therapy Association (AATA) conference-goers who signed up – around 50 of us altogether – took cabs pre-ordered from the Hilton Riverside out to the Habitat site.

We drove far out of the downtown area. Our cab driver ran red lights, sped, swerved and flirted with us. Miraculously, we arrived safely and were let out in front of the wooden frame of a house sandwiched between two other properties – one in progress, another almost complete.

It had begun to rain, so we scrambled inside. The house was framed, but sheetrock had yet to be installed. The 50 or so of us from the conference crowded into this little “training” house, respecting its invisible walls, and congregating in our little groups, signing waivers, taking photos and anxiously awaiting assignments.

Safety an Issue

I didn't know what to expect. The rain had stopped. The house felt like a sauna with all the people, so we went outside. A few Antiochians went for a walk around the neighborhood. I stayed by the house during the introductions and directions. I could only handle so much at once. I watched a power cable swing precariously in the wind as one Habitat crew member began to talk about safety.

"If it starts raining, ROLL UP, if it starts coming down relentlessly, unplug all power devices, bring all equipment to shelter and take cover," he repeated a few times.

"Where is the painting crew from yesterday?"  "Where is the roofing crew from yesterday?"  "We need more people for painting." "We need more people for framing."

Amanda Everly and I hopped on a framing crew. Jessica Hasse, Lindsay Goodman, Jacquie Hayes and Kathy Hein were still walking around the neighborhood. Jess and Lindsay joined our framing crew. Kathy and Jacquie ended up on a painting crew for the interior of another house.

Amanda, Jess, Lindsay and I walked from the "training" house to our assigned one several blocks away. Each block held the same dull realization. Every fifth house was occupied, with a couple FEMA trailers on each block. Most houses sagged. Watermarks left obvious lines on rusted metal gates – some 4 feet, some 6 feet high. A boat leaned against a tree – not a rowboat, but a motorboat. Rats scurried through trash-lined gutters. The only cars were either old and rusty or belonged to the crew or volunteers.

The few faces I saw were drawn, gaunt, worried but with jovial hellos and bright smiles. It was as though the smell of Katrina wasn't only in the air but in their breath and their sweat, permeating their veins and washing through their hair.

Dread of Discovery

Streets and sidewalks seemed to buckle from the memories. Strange things were growing and Amanda talked about the foreign matter that washed in with the hurricane. I wondered which plants I saw now did not belong here. I felt heavier the closer we got and was torn between the joy of assisting and the dread of discovering.

It was raining again. The sky vacillated between welcome and threat. We climbed on the foundation of the house that was ours to frame. A few of the people (a mixed crew of AATA folks, volunteers from other agencies and individuals who donated their time) had started erecting the day before and they got to work with plumb lines and ladders. There were 18 of us standing around waiting for instructions. By the time we received instructions (framing in the kitchen: put this piece of plywood here and nail it in with this hammer), it had begun to rain.

The rain went from pouring to worse in sheets, then torrents. Then there was some strange electrical current in the air and rumbling and flashing began.

"COVER! ROLL UP!" was the directive.

We clumsily handed down a boombox, a ladder, boxes of nails and soggy sawhorses in a line to the shipping container storage shed. Some made it to the shed; some made it to the space under the house. Before long, most of us were sitting inside the shipping container. I was a bit frazzled and feeling a bit useless. Four nails. And then it was over. It was now 10 in the morning.

What It Must Have Been Like

We listened to the pounding rain. What was it like to hear this sound for days on end while your windows crashed in, while your house filled with water, mattresses floated from room to room and the attic with the window was the only safe place? From there, you could see your neighbors struggle to gather their belongings, lasso possessions as if they were not bound for the sea.

It was a survivor's guilt: trying to do something good only to be stopped by a similar force of nature that created the climate for the do-gooding in the first place.

There was a brief clearing and we transferred the remaining equipment from the underbelly of the house to the container and were told that our work for the day was finished.

Four nails.

It wasn't until days later, standing in the offices on the 26th floor of the accounting firm where my little sister works, that I looked out over New Orleans and saw the path the water took.

Four nails may never be enough to keep up the walls, to hold the china or the plastic dishes or the journals of a poet, but those four nails held me together. I did something. I couldn't do more that day, but I will go back.

I will never look at any city the same way. Under the glossy beautifications that hotels, casinos and homeowner tax dollars pay for, there is an underside, a soft belly. In those hidden-from-tourist places, socio-economic borders are clear. The sides of the track are more obvious. There still live the forgotten ones.

Katrina’s Devastation ‘the Darkest Night’ a Year Later

By Kathy Hein

There was no way to be prepared for the immense devastation in the area the locals around New Orleans call Bywater.

The cab driver said, "So, you are going to the disaster area, huh?" There was silence in the cab.

When we first arrived at the site, we eagerly awaited our work assignments. There was much confusion and deliberation, so we began to wander the neighborhood. You could not deny the smell, not like any other. It permeated our clothes and into our skin.

Then it hit me: the magnitude of the devastation. There was garbage everywhere mangled with piles of wood and housing materials. At first glance, it looked like garbage strewn everywhere. When you looked closely, you realized it was not garbage at all but people’s belongings whipped together with mud and spit into the streets. Miles of houses were vacant, broken windows and doors, collapsed walls and roofs, just rows and rows of emptiness. There were no cars, no people, no kids, no dogs.

The Quiet of Bywater

It was eerily silent. Once in awhile, there was a FEMA  trailer hooked up to sewer and power, but it was quiet. Too quiet. There were two cheery and bright Habitat Homes under construction. They looked as though they had been placed in a war zone.

Surprisingly, Bywater was not the hardest hit area of New Orleans, although the flood was about 12 feet deep and the water stayed for three weeks.

We imagined what it might be like for a family to drive through miles of devastation, through unimaginable miles of loss, to their home that stood lonely among unending piles of trash. Jacquie Hayes and I went inside one of the houses and began to paint. We washed windowsills, caulked corners and painted walls and doors. It felt great to be doing something, anything to help.

We worked alongside an art therapist from New York and others who were staying in nearby Violet, La., at Camp Hope, which has housed volunteers in the Katrina recovery since June 2006.

Compelled to Return

One day did not seem like enough. I am strongly compelled to go back. There are years of work to be done! This is what I wrote the next day:

The magnitude of the devastation is beyond comprehension.
The emptiness, eeriness and isolation leaves you with great suspension.
The words shocking, dark, dank and filthy barely describe the sight.
It is beyond words, beyond description.
It is the darkest night.

I came home with a mission to report what I saw and experienced. One of the locals told us volunteer help is the only assistance the community is able to see. Habitat for Humanity is a beacon in what otherwise would be great despair. I was grateful for the opportunity.