And the Walls Came Tumbling Down....

By Laurie Spaschak - Pearlington Recovery Center

As the machines woke with the sunrise, the majority of the school buildings are down, but by the time the sun was high, the majority of the walls on the storage barn were up - thanks to the perseverance and ingenuity of Bill Kitteredge's UMC group.

We were expecting a trailer of materials to arrive for the sides, so we waited and waited - and then tore down the old pump shed in back of the school that was to be bulldozed so we could save the tin off it. We waited some more, then they went to work with what we had; the tin from the shed and the rest of the church roofing that Doug Pennington salvaged for us. Lo and behold it was enough to do almost 3 walls, in a hot long Mississippi day. Just in time for a truckload of drywall from the Chickering group to arrive and take the place of the last pile that went out to be hung by Glenn Locklin's team.

When you left this morning the political tension was permeating the entire compound and chaos was winning the race for noon. As we wondered what happened to the trailer of tin for the sides of the storage barn that was due at 10 a.m., Conrad Velasco was dealing with the local police. It seems that a couple of ill-minded dudes in a red F350 had come in at dusk and hooked up the trailer and left with it. Under the pile of tin that was to come here, was 2,500$ worth of new lumber to begin building a house for another family. Their loss far exceeds ours in every way and we are all on the look out for the missing trailer.

Steve Burnsed's house will actually be seeing paint this week, thanks to the combined effort of several groups including Larry Charbonneau's, Dave Meanor's and John Chickering's hard working teams. Dave Meanor's group finished the work begun by Larry Charbonneau on my office and it is actually comfortable in there for a change! (And I almost got rid of all the sawdust!!! Just kidding guys...)

Charles Acker is well on the way to getting insulation and drywall in the next two weeks and Orealia Marshall's roof got fixed. Pam White's place is almost ready to move in to and Michael Wheat is just waiting for windows and his siding is going to be up this week.

It's amazing the progress that has begun to roll through here.

Walls come down and we keep the faith and put ip new ones. Bulldozers and politics or not, it was still a very good week.