Well. To say it’s been wild would be a significant understatement. We live near New Orleans and were impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The storm surge in Slidell was 12 1/2′ and the slab on our house is at 11′ -7″ ABL. Yes, that means we got something on the order of 10 1/2″ of water in the house as the western eye wall passed by Slidell. The floodwater softened up the ground so much that about 20 trees in my front yard were pushed over by the now southerly winds, so luckily none fell on the house. But they did leave a mess!
We got back to the house on September to find a most incredible mess. The house smelled like wet dog and spoiled milk as the power had been off for nearly 2 weeks. The ice cream that had been in the freezer melted and of course leaked out all over the floor and then turned rancid. Lovely! Combine this with all the rugs in the house that had been sopping wet for nearly two weeks and it was something. Luckily the mildew had not gone wild and the power was back on. So we got all the wet fabric out of the house and got the AC on to get the interior dried out. Then the chore of sorting through everything and throwing out all the non-saveables. Some of the furniture can be saved, but will have to be refinished. Things like dressers and such were hard hit because the bottom drawers had wet clothes and stuff in them which swelled the wood to the point of destruction. The one thing that really was amazing was a cedar chest that was made by Lane. When we bought this thing it was rather expensive and billed as being solid wood. Well it was particle board and it literally dissolved itself on the floor in our bedroom. Need to make a note about them when buying furniture in the future!
It took us a week, but we got everything sorted, dried, boxed and stored in the Garage safely that was saveable. The pile of stuff that was discarded was impressive and it was fairly depressing to see 25 years worth of acquired furniture thrown out on the curb like last months rubbish. We stumbled upon a contractor (who won’t be named as he has now proven to be very slow) performed the demolition on the house interior. We finally got in touch with our adjuster from State Farm and got our first reimbursements last week, so hopefully the reconstruction can start shortly!
The work I was doing in Houston for TDW has come to an end. TDW bought Plugging Specialists International who was the competitor for the Better Plug Company that TDW had purchased prior to my being contracted out to TDW. PSI management decided to discontinue development of the products we were working on, so, my presence was no longer required! So today I’m back in Metairie at PCS for the first time in 10 months. The office got some water damage after Rita because of roof damage from Katrina (got that?) so there is some construction currently ongoing. My office seems to be okay thought. Cool.
As soon as I have a chance, I’ll post some pictures of the post Katrina look to the neighborhood. It’s quite a shock as a lot of trees were blown over and we might have to change the name of the neighborhood from the Woods to the Plains!
Until next time, take care,
Cheers,
Chris