Grand Isle Disaster Rebuild 2024 Week 2

Saturday, February 10, 2024

This weekend we said goodbye to Jeff and Joyce, Larry and Jean as they took some much-deserved rest time before moving to their next project. Max and Anne took over as leaders. We especially thank Larry and Jean for leading week 5. Saturday, although the weather was not very welcoming, we welcomed Dan and Vergie and Sam to join the work on the island. Saturday and Sunday we had storms and lots of rain. Monday afternoon Jack and Barb joined us and Tuesday afternoon Sherry joined us giving us a full team of six RVs and 10 talented NOMADS.

When we began the work week it was still too wet to go back to Bozo’s for painting, so the entire team began our work on Peanut’s house – a new jobsite for the NOMADS. We made good progress, completing the removal of the bedroom flooring and began the installation of the new flooring, removed the window trim, removed quarter round, patched the kitchen floor, and began the arduous task of scraping and sanding the outside spindles and railings. By the end of the week, the railing and spindles were repaired and painted, the bedroom flooring was completed, paneling was installed and the ceiling and walls painted. The kitchen flooring is almost complete.

Michele, Anne and Virgie removing the water damaged laminate.

Ken, Anne and Sam worked on the bedroom flooring on Monday.

Jack and Virgie finished the bedroom floor on Tuesday.

Ken paneling the bedroom wall that was water damaged.

Before we could replace the kitchen flooring Ken had to repair a section of the subfloor.

Jack had to make a lot of extra notches and special cuts for the kitchen flooring.

Jack preparing the floor for the kitchen flooring to extend out into a landing inside the front door.

Michele and Anne scraping the stairs and railing. Our assignment was to just paint the parts that were painted before. Dan and Virgie also spent a lot of time scraping.

Dan and Barb installing the new balusters that Dan made and Barb painted.

The repaired and painted railings at the end of the week

By Tuesday it was dry enough to return to Bozo’s to resume the exterior work there. There was lots of painting and sanding, installation of new outside lighting, painting of baseboards. Next week we hope to have a lift available to complete a little more painting at the highest points and repair and paint the fascia and soffit.

Sam and Anne continued the painting to the upper parts of the house.

The front of Bozo’s at end of the week. Notice the new front door trim.

Our great construction manager, Dean, worked very hard and was finally able to locate and secure the necessary siding for Olga’s house. It’s very hard to find a matching siding for siding installed in the 70’s. Ken, Michelle and Sherry were able to complete that task on Wednesday. We hope to have the soffit material next week so we can complete that home.

Michele, Ken and Sherry installing siding on Olga’s house.

The team made great use of their varied talents and they made great progress on the three homes we are currently assigned. We praise God for another successful and accident-free week!

Of course, since we are in Louisiana during carnival season, the team has been enjoying King Cakes and Saturday enjoyed the family friendly Mardis Gras parade here on Grand Isle. There were side-by-sides, trucks, boats and floats in the parade with lots and lots of beads. Everyone seemed to have a good time.