Katrina: The Aftermath T+3 weeks (Hattiesburg, MS)

The next morning after helping in Slidell I went to Hattiesburg, MS to meet up with others from church to fulfill our assignments. Basically we cut up trees and hauled tree chunks, branchs, pine cones, pine straw and other yard debris to the street to be picked up at a later date.

The first 2 houses we went to were horrendous. They practically lived in a forest. In some cases, we cleared and cleared only to feel like we made no headway. From this picture you can see how the trees fell over with their comeplete root system intact. I find that amazing! Those were some powerful winds.
This house couldn't be saved. There are going to bulldoze it but the owner still needed to get as many of their belongings out as they could. We were just asked to clear a path to the house so they could get inside, which they hadn't been able to do yet.
This is about half of our group from the Northpoint Ward in Atlanta, GA. The other half got a different set of work orders. One lady commented how we could be doing the work we were doing and still have such smiles. Another man, who worked at Lowe's so has been there since the hurricane, thanked us profusely and started to cry as we were doing a service for him that he could not do himself.
I learned how to fall a tree. That was cool.