Has anyone ever driven to a hurricane area and done cleanup. If this one hits the Carolina's I may be interested in going. I have a tractor and grapple. I am wondering if it would be worth my time as I need to purchase the grapple setup.
I have helped clean up after Floyd and tornado that hit down east a few years back. It is very rewarding if you can go and help out.
In both cases, I had contacts in the area that allowed me/us to get right to work. Local churches and government, especially in a small town, generally know who needs help. The Baptists and Mennonties were out helping and well organized.
If there is complete destruction like I saw in the tornado, a tractor can help BUT there is debris all over the place, especially screws and nails than could do a job on tires. For floods, everything in the house has to come out and the walls and floors taken down to the studs and joists to dry out. Most of that work is simply mind numbing and back breaking manual labor. However, the material from the house, drywall, carpet, furniture, clothes, appliances, etc all have to get to the curb. Sometimes a tractor would have helped, but in places, the ground was so wet I wonder if the tractor would have bogged down. We did all of the moving by hand or with a wheel barrow. Not fun at all.
Our tax dollars pay to haul away the debris. The problem for the survivors is getting the debris from the house to the curb. It is quite a bit of work to move the debris to the curb even if the house is on a small lot but the tornado house we cleaned up was a couple hundred feet from the road. There was a small JD tractor helping but it really needed a tracked vehicle to deal with that debris pile. The lady in that house died. An elderly man across the road bled to death being held by his adult son. If the tornado had been maybe 100 yards one way or the other I don't think anyone would have been hurt...
The Baptists had a semi trailer setup with a kitchen and bathroom which was very clever. People slept in churches. Churches are the big organizers from I have seen. The tornado cleanup was rather small, thank goodness, but people where traveling by bus from VA to help out these people in a very rural area of east NC. The churches knew who needed help and how to get it.
There was food available from the National Guard, Red Cross, the Baptists, and other volunteers but I would make sure you had your own food and clean water. Take clothes you don't care about and the same for boots. You needs boots that can handle stepping on nails and screws. Long sleeve shirts help as well. Glove of course. If helping clean out flooded structures, N95 masks at a minimum. Mold sets in quickly, and while you might not see it in the air, it is there and it will make you cough up some wonderful multi colored goo.
I was coughing up goo for a couple of days afterwards.
That sounds bad. It was. But you know what was worse?
The last house we helped clean up was for an elderly couple. They would have died in the flood but one of their "neighbors" had an air boat and went through the flooded area saving lives. The water just came up too fast for people to get out... Any who, the woman in the house had just finished chemo and she and her husband were going through the material remains of their life. Not much was left. They had hired a couple of guys to help when we showed up but the helpers left which saved the couple some money. EVERYTHING in that house had to come out. We just tore out some windows to remove bedroom furniture and contents. We just tossed stuff out the window to go into the dumpster the husband had dropped off. The only dumpster I ever saw cleaning up.
When we showed up her eyes let up and she gave us all hugs. We were complete strangers. We got everything out of that house but someone would have to come in and strip it to the joists and studs. It was a start. The sad thing was leaving two elderly people in that !@#$%^&*() mess, breathing that mold, and knowing that lady just finished chemo and had a suppressed immune system. They were downstream from a sewage plant that had over flowed so one can guess what was on the ground and in the house. The best I could do was leave them water and a box of N95 masks.
Honestly, just showing up with a pair of gloves is a HUGE help to the people in need. Just knowing someone is there to help does wonders for them mentally. They will still be in shock when you leave but you have helped them get started recovering.
Later,
Dan
