Mucking out Houses Post-hurricane

After Hurricane Harvey hit, there were close to 150,000 houses that had flooded. Since it is so humid in Houston and the flood waters were very polluted, the houses had to be cleaned out as fast as possible. If the houses weren’t cleaned out fast enough, toxic mold will come in and cover the walls and make the building impassable and the house will have to be torn down. In order to muck out a house, first, the carpet and wood floors would need to be removed. Then, the Sheetrock needed to be removed to a height of a few inches about the water level. Any insulation then would need to be removed. This was so that the structure of the house- the studs could dry out, and prevent any mold from growing.

Adam, Michael and I were able to go help at Ellie’s gymnastics coach’s house a couple of days after the hurricane. It went quickly and worked pretty well. Then for the following weeks and weekends, the church organized crews to go out and help those that needed it. It took a while for the flood water to retreat after the hurricane, some houses were under water for 4 weeks.
Adam and I went out on a work crew on a Sunday. We met at the stake center at 7 am, had a very short sacrament meeting, then divided into crews to go out and work.
The first house we went to had been flooded by about 3 feet of water. They had blown in insulation which was quite a mess to clean up.
When that house was finished mucking out, we helped a crew in another house. It had about 5 feet of water in it. There was a crew that had been working for a couple of days on the house, but they didn’t have enough wheel barrows, so our crew was able to help them get a lot of work done quickly.
We went to another house, but by the time we got there, the mold was already all over the kitchen and the walls. We tried to remove some carpet and furniture, but the air was too toxic for our limited masks so we had to leave and put her on a list for another crew with better protective gear to go in.
The last house we visited was mostly done by the time we came in. We helped the crew that was there finish up pulling Sheetrock, cleaning up the floor and removing cupboards.

The neighborhood we were in had a lot of houses with this symbol on it. When the neighborhood was still flooded, first responders went in and checked every house before they let the owners back in. The date is the date the house was checked. One box lists how many dead bodies were found in the house, another box shows how many dead animals were found in the house. The last number is the number of the crew that looked at it.