Bird,
After Hurricane Floyd wiped out Eastern NC, I took a group of
people down east to help clean up. Many stories from that
experience....
We cleaned out three houses for people. One of the houses
was an elderly couple who had managed to clean out all the
stuff out of the house execept the appliances. We where
"scheduled" to work on certain houses via the town government
which was really being done by the local Babtist church.
There is a story there as well. But I'll TRY to stay on topic. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
But I have already diverged a bit anyway....
We where working on one house. A young man who had really done
nothing to help himself out. Can't really blame him but he just
stood out after we helped the next two houses. Anyway, we where
just about finished with his house and a little old lady stopped by
and asked if we could help her friends. I told her we where scheduled
via the church but asked where the house was and what needed to be
done. Its just down the road a piece says she and they only need
a few appliances moved......
OK. This is what we where here for even though it was lunch time
and we was HUNGRY. So I ask the guys what do they want to do?
We followed the lady to the house. Course it was more like the house
was a FAIR piece down the road than just A piece. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
We get there and the house is cleaned out except for the appliances.
VERY impressed that these people did all this work themselves...
We start moving out the appliances. A bunch of guys start in the
kitchen. Me and I guy I call Muscles head for the utility room that
has a "small" freezer. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif Now you have to remember
EVERYTHING stinks. Even outside there is The Smell. BUT, we got
to the utility room. NOW there was a STENCH! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif The
thing about fridges/freezers and floods is that the appliances have
a big air space at the bottom. So when the get flooded they are
"light" on the bottom and they flip over. BTW, this house was a
good three feet off the grade and the water was a good three-four
feet up in the house...
SOOOO, flipped appliances. WONDERFUL. Now the appliance was small.
It was a small chest freezer. The problem was that the utility room
was small. Reall small. Just big enough to get the freezer to one
side, a passage out the back door and a small shelf. The freezer just
fit. And it was upside down. And of course the door opened IN and
not out. And the freezer was full of food. The other wonderfulness
of the whole thing was that they where burning trash off of their
garden. Very nice garden. In fact most of the used to be frozen food
was from the garden. The other item they had in the freezer was
butter. Lots of butter. The lady had scored a huge supply of butter.
Like FIFTY pounds of butter. Now the good thing was that the power
had been off for a couple of weeks so the butter was no longer frozen
and in the freezer. In fact the butter was a liquid. And since it was a
liquid and the freezer was upside down the butter was now in a deep
puddle in the room. This made it much easier to lift the freezer. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
Course the bad thing was that the butter was now a liquid that had
been sitting on the floor in a puddle an inch or so deep. For a couple
of weeks. In hot and humid weather. Yum YUM! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
I'm not really sure what life forms where being created in that goo.
I just know it smelled. BAD! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Can't describe the smell.
Don't really want to remember either! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Muscles, myself and a guy that had a disorder that prevented him
from being able to smell, can you believe I found people that just
where perfect for the job at hand, managed to get the freezer
upright. It took alot of time, effort, sweating, swearing and
breath breaks. We had to run out of the house to breath from time
to time. It would have been worse if it had not been for the fire.
The smoke from the fire would drift into the doorway from time
to time to cover the STENCH. Can't believe choking smoke would
be a blessing. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Eventually we get this thing out of the house and to the street.
The other part of the gang had cleaned out the entire kitchen
while we wrestled with the single freezer. We think we are about
to be able to go eat lunch when the lady asks if we could carry
out ONE more freezer!!!! What! One more freezer! Where?
They had an out building near the garden. They had just spent
10,000 dollars adding a green house to the out building. The
freezer, like the other one was filled with food from the garden. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
And it to had flipped upside down. For some reason the smell
from this freezer was worse than the first one. It was so bad
we literally had to run relays of people into the building to
shovel out the food so we could move the freezer. You would
take a couple of deep breaths, grab a shovel, run into the room
shovel like mad, and then stagger out gasping for air. Often
you just went to the fire to breath in the smoke! /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
We eventually got that think moved! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
And then we went to eat lunch! Somehow! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
Later,
Dan
