Demo Work Begins

2/28/2007 11:52 AM

Demo Work Begins

February 10

One of the great jobs that I have down here is to act as the Volunteer Coordinator and Project Manager for the PCA Volunteer Relief Effort. We have groups come down from all over the US on a weekly basis to help out in the city. One of our groups, a team from Baton Rouge, has devoted a few Saturdays to the clean up job at Miss Gloria’s Kitchen. Their first weekend of work was on Feb 10, just a week after the University of Arkansas Design Team had left.

Because of the amount of time that the water remained, three weeks in some areas, many buildings have extensive mold damage where the water didn’t even reach. This is the case with Miss Gloria’s Restaurant. We found that even though the water only rose to a max of four feet, the 12 foot high ceilings received mold damage. What came to us as a surprise, is that it seems that approximately 75 percent of the structure, wood, is in decent shape.

So on our first day of demo work with a group of six, including myself, we simply focused on the restaurant side of the building. Our primary goals were to get all of the surface materials torn out so that we could see the condition of the structure behind, remove the kitchen appliances and furniture, and take out a wall that divided the kitchen from the dining room.

Well, we got most of this done. The walls and ceilings were not a problem until we got back in a restroom that proved to be much more difficult than expected---I will just leave it at that. We actually were able to make it into the resident side kitchen in tearing out surface materials before the end of the day. The big challenge that remains unfinished is the removal of all the appliances. We got everything out except for the stove and the Pepsi machine. The stove is solid iron and industrial in size, and the Pepsi machine seemed heavier than it should be, so who knows what is inside it. We are going to get some better dollies for next time.

By the end of the day we ended up with a good size pile of everything on the street side for the city to come and pick up. For some reason I worried that Miss Gloria might be depressed by seeing her restaurant sitting on the side of the street, but she reacted quite the opposite way. I was later told that as soon as she got home from work that day that she called Rev. Dejean exclaiming that something was happening. She told me it made her week to see progress.

Our next workday on the restaurant will be on Saturday March 10th. I hope to finish completely with the restaurant side and make a good dent in the resident side of the double shotgun. I am already lining up crews to work the resurfacing of the interior, so that as soon as the designers are that far along we can begin bringing the place back.

jared