Austin ASCE Members & UT Students Provide Ongoing
Katrina Relief - 2007
by Dale Murphy
During the 2007 Labor Day weekend, a group of 85
Austin ASCE members and University of Texas Civil
Engineering students traveled to New Orleans for a
sweat filled weekend assisting reconstruction
efforts 2-years after hurricane Katrina. The trip
was made possible by $12,000 in donations from the
UT Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
and the Austin Branch of ASCE. This is the 2nd
straight year the Austin Branch and UT civil
engineering students traveled to New Orleans to
assist in relief efforts.
With a Friday afternoon departure on 2 rented buses,
the group was on the road to New Orleans. During
the 11-hour plus trek, the volunteers were able to
get to know each other and watched the Spike Lee
documentary “When the Levees Broke” on the Katrina
disaster, helping set the stage for our experience.
Arriving near 2:00 AM at Camp Hope, the middle
school turned volunteer camp in the St. Bernard
Parrish, the road weary group got a few hours sleep
on makeshift beds within the former classrooms of
the school.
Boarding the busses in the morning and departing
Camp Hope, we had our first daylight view of the
devastated area. Looking out the windows of the
bus, you can’t miss all of the white mobile homes
parked in front yards of windowless houses or in
trailer parks in the parking lots of abandoned strip
malls. The main thought that went through my mind
was “it’s been 2 years, has anything been rebuilt?”
The paint marks on the houses indicating the search
results in the immediate aftermath of the disaster
were still visible.
Arriving at our work place for the day, Musician’s
Village in the Upper Ninth Ward, we found at least
one area with bustling construction activity. The
project coordinated by Habitat for Humanity is
constructing a neighborhood of new hurricane
resistant houses for displaced musicians. The
Austin volunteers spent the day working on
everything from roofing to painting on numerous
brightly colored houses.
Boarding the buses after a day of hard work in the
heat, the group set out on a tour of the levee
failures and subsequent repairs. The tour was lead
by Dr. Robert Gilbert, a civil engineering professor
at UT and an expert member of the 14 person ASCE
External Review Panel which provided an independent
review of the USACE Interagency Performance
Evaluation Taskforce. Arriving at one of the
repaired levee failures, the group became quiet as
the realization that the empty field we were driving
through was once a neighborhood that had been
completely washed away by a wall of water set free
when the levee gave way.
After a night sightseeing in the French Quarter, the
group awoke back at Camp Hope ready for a second day
of hard work. We had heard that our second day
would consist of gutting a hospital building, but
that didn’t prepare us at all for what we
experienced that day. Arriving at the St. Bernard
Parrish Health Unit, which was once filled with
about 10-feet of water, the 1-story building didn’t
give much of an outward clue to what we would find
inside. The volunteer leaders unloaded Tyvek suits,
rubber boots, goggles and respirators asking us to
put them on; which in the heat that was already
present that morning sounded anything but fun.
Dressed in our hazmat Halloween costumes, the group
entered the building that apparently had not been
touched in the 2-years since Katrina, and no one
said a word. Standing there in 6 to 8-inches of
flowing mud, we tried to make sense of the scene.
Mud and mold covered every surface of the floors,
walls, ceilings, desks, chairs, computers, phones,
files…everything. The indescribable smell found its
way through our respirators and entered our noses;
our French Quarter drinks from the night before
gurgled a bit in our stomachs. The silence lasted a
little bit longer as everyone looked at each other
with goggle covered eyes hoping someone would make a
run for the bus so we could follow.
Accepting our fate, the group set out to shovel the
tons of mud from the building, and to pile the
contents of the building into the parking lot for
future removal. Sweating like we never have before,
the group worked diligently all day occasionally
stopping to marvel at the refrigerator that had
floated into the rafters and remained stuck there,
or at the swamp plant that was growing inside
the building. A neighbor of the health unit was
very grateful and helpful in our efforts. He
allowed us the use of his tractor, provided us ice
chests, and even boiled enough of his own shrimp for
50 people.
Leaving Camp Hope late Sunday afternoon, the tired
group from Austin was feeling as though they had
accomplished much, but had learned that there was
still an incomprehensible amount of work to be
done. The Austin Branch would like to thank all 85
volunteers that participated in this enlightening
endeavor. A very special thanks to Branch member
Rose Marie Klee, whose tireless efforts coordinating
and organizing this trip were greatly appreciated.
And, thank you to Dr. Gilbert for sharing his
understanding of the disaster and the engineering
lessons that have been learned.
