Monday, July 1, 2013

Day 3


Day 3



I think it is fair to say that other than Connie and Arthur, we all woke up a little later than usual. 
  
We all gathered into the van and set off nice and early, and by 9am we were back at Lloyds house ready to finish the job we had to abandon yesterday.  
Arthur and Connie, the stars of the morning both volunteered to venture into the crawl space and begin the process of removing and cleaning.
Connie and Arthur suiting up

Im not going to lie…It was HOT, and the space was both cramped and very very dirty.  The items removed included a raised pool, lawn mowers, beer bottles in abundance and rugs older than me for sure.  Everything disintegrates when you touch it, and yet between the two of them they managed to not only move out all of the big items, but swept, shoveled and bagged everything. 
Post removal, dirty but still in great spirits

Now that’s not to say the rest of the crew were resting, by no means was that the case.  This house has completely lost the downstairs.  There was so much debris that required to be removed, swept and scrubbed. 
Arthur at the entrance to the Crawl Space

However between all of us we finished the job in less than two hours.  Searing heat and extremely muggy, we all went to town and Lloyd was so grateful  that he arranged for us to have Lunch in the nicest Pizzeria I have ever been too.
Lloyd on the right hosting this wonderful dinner for us.


As lunch was ending, we got our call to the next job.  We all finished up and jumped into the van, and headed towards Long Beach.  When we arrived at 73 Jefferson Avenue we were greeted by Nancy.  She was very pleased and relieved to see us, and yet her requirements were very small.  Her plight was that there were 20 plastic packing crates in her garden, that required moving to her garage.  The distance was about 12 foot in total, and within ten minutes we had helped a damsel in distress.  (Im sorry there are no pictures, Nancy was not dressed for pictures, and we were in and out so quickly, it never occured to me to take them)

3rd and final job was not to far from Nancy, down on one of the worst affected areas of Sandy’s wrath.  Long Beach…..Firstly I must admit that of all the places we have been, this is one where the affects are still very visibly present.  Large and small buildings all in recovery, and many plots that have been designated for demolition.  Peoples homes, their lives all in a small 1500 sq.ft. plot that has been rendered useless.  It is heart breaking.
We arrived at our destination, and our job was to assist in the recovery of the garage.  Now I know you may think why the garage, but when you saw the contents of said garage, we realized that this was where Cathy stored everything from tools to Christmas decorations and everything you can think of in between.  This was not a small job, it involved many crow bars, sledge hammers scrapers and bleach, but in three hours between all six of us we had remodeled sanitized and placed back all of her worldly contents.  
This is the garden containing all of the contents of the Garage

Another view of the garden


This is the Garage post demolition

All of the contents placed back into the Garage

All of the debris from our demolition bagged and ready for collection


It was 3:30pm.  We were all tired, hot, sticky and Tired.  Did I say that all ready.  Well that’s how tired we are.
Connie came up with a great idea.  Lets go down to the beach and see how it was affected.  We have heard so much about the destruction caused, so we took the time to go down and see it for ourselves.  The entrances to the beaches are manned by people charging 12 dollars per person.  Janice explained our reasons for being here and why we had come to the see the beach, and instantly they warmed to us and allowed all six of us to enter.  The beach was amazingly lovely.  Huge, Long and golden sands for as far as the eye can see.  
Long Beach

Long Beach

Long Beach





However the Board Walk that use to go from end to end all along the beach was no longer there.  Instead all that remained was a long line of 7ft high concrete posts that use to hold up the millions of residents and tourist that use to walk along side the beach every year.  
Long Beach Boardwalk

Long Beach Boardwalk


Construction to rebuild Long beach BoardWalk

The power to have completely destroyed such a large structure is something one can only really think happens in science fiction movies, but over the last 3 days 6 of us have been here and witnessed the awesome power of Mother Nature.
Finally we headed home and decided that the day had been to long so we cancelled our evening reservations at the local restaurant in favor of another home grilled dinner.  As I type this in the back of the van (which is the only place we have signal to get the details of our adventures out) Cliff is standing in the rain grilling like a champ.
It is the end of Day 3, but im proud to say I have made 5 very great friends.   God Bless you all, and hope you enjoy reading this Blog.

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