One disaster, thousands of homes damaged, hundreds of thousands of repairs needed, thousands of volunteers, hundreds of agencies, state, local, federal governments, and here we are on a given week in New Jersey trusting that there will be meaningful work to do, with tools, supplies and the like, keys to open doors, instructions if the work required is above our skill level. Whew…
Just to give you an idea, we have now worked in 4 different houses in 2 days, doing priming and painting of walls, ceilings, doors and trim, scraping, sanding, spackling, and mudding drywall, cleaning, reworking stud walls, and fixing things in general, and organizing. All of this organized by our new friend Chris, from Habitat of Bergen County’s Superstorm Sandy Resotration team, who is juggling 16 open projects in various stages, homeowners that have been waiting for almost a year and have their own unique set of requirements and needs, a van jam packed with supplies for every type of job, only to find out that what is really needed is at some other site, and a varying number of volunteers with GREATLY varied skill sets every week.
In spite of all that, we make progress. It is a Herculean effort, and Chris maintains his humor and is happy to kibbitz about his thoughts on nearly any subject, and mostly to share his passion for the work. He is always willing and friendly, and caring, and we get the work done. Somehow, someway, it happens.
Logistics, of which our friend Chris is a master!
