Hurricane Katrina Pictures » Hurricane Gustav Aftermath: 2 Weeks to 2 Months

Hurricane Gustav Aftermath: 2 Weeks to 2 Months

This is part 5 of a series of articles about Hurricane Gustav and the aftermath. You can read the first 5 articles at the following links:

You can read part 1 here: How to Prepare for a Hurricane

You can read part 2 here: Riding Out Gustav in Baton Rouge

You can read part 3 here: Hurricane Gustav Aftermath Begins

You can read part 4 here: Hurricane Gustav Aftermath: Day 3 to 2 Weeks

Cleaning Up Debris

I started cleaning up the smaller debris of medium sized sticks, twigs and leaves after two weeks of working on the big stuff. I put the sticks in the wheelbarrow and rake and bag the leaves. I am working in sections starting at the back of the house and working backwards toward the back fence. I am doing it this way because the grass directly behind the house grows really fast and really thick. As soon as I had about 6 linear feet cleared I mowed that section. The next time I could work outside I cleared another 3-6 linear feet backwards and mowed that section.

I made it to the back fence and now I’m working on the area behind the garage. The grass is really thin back there, so getting it cleaned up just to mow isn’t necessary. Unfortunately, there are more very large limbs back there that I couldn’t get to before, so I’m back to cutting and dragging on top of raking and bagging.

I couldn’t work on the yard every day between the heat (even with A/C) and no cable or internet at home. By the time the power came back on I had only cleaned up the front yard and most of the big stuff in the back yard. I had to limit the amount of time in the yard so we had time to go to internet hot spots and check email and for me to do some online business tasks. A few students also became available for tutoring and I was able to get back to my evening job at least a couple of days a week.

My back yard still has a fair number of limbs to drag out front. Debris has already been picked up 6 times. The first pile was the length of the front of our yard between the street and the sidewalk about 6 feet high. Each new pile is half the length of our front yard, about 3 feet high and grows as fast as I can make it grow. It will likely take me another 2-3 weeks to finish cleaning up the yard and it is already mid-November. I work on the yard at least 2 days a week for at least an hour at a time, but my yard is big and there are a lot of smaller sticks that can’t be bagged. It doesn’t take long to fill the wheelbarrow.

It’s at times like these that I know I’m not as young and strong as I used to be. A couple of hours of working on the yard wears me out even though it is mid-November and we have some cool fall weather. I have been at this since the week the storm hit September 1, so it’s not a matter of being out of shape. I gained a lot of muscle and stamina over the past 8-10 weeks of working outside regularly. The bending gets to my back and it really starts to hurt when I haul the wheelbarrow out front filled with sticks too big to bag but too small to drag out one at a time. I put the leaf bags in the wheelbarrow and haul them down front, too. I carry and drag things as little as possible. I’m using good techniques to protect my back, but raking and picking up leaves are hard on my middle-aged muscles and bones.

If I had really prepared I would be in peak physical condition so I could more easily handle the physical demands the aftermath of a storm brings. Part of the emotional strain is the physical exhaustion you feel just getting through each day. No wonder our ancestors started inventing the things we depend on so much. It’s tough to handle getting each meal ready, washing the dishes by hand and then doing what you can to start cleaning up and keep the house in some semblance of order while you can’t vacuum.

I fit in as much tutoring as I could get during the first two weeks, but it was only a couple of hours, not enough to pay the bills. By the end of September I had only tutored a total of 6 hours. By the end of October I only had 14 tutoring hours. November is looking much better, but it is nowhere near the amount I was pulling in this time last year.

Offline and Out of Contact

At two weeks past Gustav a lot of coffee shops and restaurants reopened and we were able to take our laptops and get on the internet. We got power back after 9 days, but our cable and internet service were not restored until September 27. That was nearly a month and it took a big toll on my online income. My tutoring income was also significantly interrupted because schools were closed for the first 15 days of September. I still haven’t recovered financially.

I had to spend considerable time contacting family and friends by email to let them know we were okay because phone service wasn’t reliable. In Baton Rouge we all have text-messaging because it is often the only effective way to communicate when the cell towers are jammed. But none of my family has text-messaging. Some of the time I spent on email to them should have been spent working online, but my family is more important than money and I knew they were worried.

Still Feeling the Economic Impact

I applied for emergency food stamps and we qualified for them. It helped replenish the food we consumed and the small amount I had to throw out of the big freezer after it spoiled. There was a little more in there than I thought before I cleaned it out.

I’m still a month behind on one of my home equity line of credit payments, and my income is still not as high as it was, so catching up right now isn’t possible. I applied to FEMA for cash assistance but we don’t qualify. You only get it if you can’t live in your home or if you have to rent a storage unit to protect property from damage.

My budget used to be able to handle our regular bills, but catching up will require my income to grow somewhat and that isn’t happening between the hurricane and the very tough economic times we’re in now. I have re-applied for LaCHIP for my son (Louisiana’s S-CHIP plan) and we will be in a position to receive food stamps in December if my income doesn’t increase significantly. I’m struggling to keep the lights on, the first mortgage paid, food on the table, and gas in the car.

I went back through our budget and trimmed back some more. We are switching our phone service to our cable company. We already pay for most of it through our internet service bill and getting phone service through the cable company will only raise that bill $9/mo. It will save us over $80/mo by not having AT&T phone service. We’ll still have the cell phone bill, but some of that is deductible through my business because I use my cell number exclusively for tutoring and any online work I do.

I had a second line for my office, but we’re dropping it when we drop the phone company. It’s behind, too, so I pay a little on it each month. If we don’t like the cable phone service we can always go back to the phone company. But for now, we’re saving the money.

The world is going into a recession, not just Louisiana or the U.S. so things will be tough all the way around. I feel that if the federal government can give a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street, bail out AIG, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they can spare $500 to help me catch up on my bills while my income is still suffering after a natural disaster. Unfortunately, that isn’t the way the government works. You have to be a big behemoth of a company and really screw up your finances to qualify for a bail-out.

In part 6 of this article, I will discuss our local and state government responses to the Hurricane Gustav disaster. Here is the link: Kudos to Governor Bobby Jindal.

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