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Four of Eight New Homes are Framed During Week One of
‘Mission to Mississippi’ Hurricane Katrina Relief; Work
Started on Next Four in Waveland, MS!
Watch Live On Web at
www.missiontomississippi.org
OCT. 22, 2007 – WAYLAND, MA – Four of eight new homes in
Waveland, MS are framed with windows installed as week two
begins for “Mission to Mississippi,” the unprecedented
Katrina rebuilding project produced by Wayland to Waveland.
The Massachusetts group kicked off its 16-week construction phase making incredible progress despite losing part of a day to violent weather. More than two dozen framers and another dozen support people worked 11-hour days at the Combel Street site where there are four homes being built.
Work started Tuesday at about noon after the crews flew from Boston to Gulfport and were driven to the site along the coastal roads which show how little has been rebuilt. By mid-day Saturday some of the crew were dispatched to Maple and Taranto Streets to get started on the base framing of the four houses there, two on each street that are nearly back to back to each. These sites are only about a mile from the Combel Street site.
All the action has unfolded before three security cameras that are available live on the group’s Web sites www.waylandtowaveland.org as well as www.missiontomississippi.org. Some back in Wayland have called watching the progress “addicting,” unable to turn from it as these houses went up in days where previously there had been brush, then stubby foundation piers.
Wayland to Waveland Steering Committee members Cindy Lombardo and Kathie Steinberg are on site for the project’s start. Cindy is directing logistics (food, hotel, transportation) and Kathie is working with Waveland officials to finalize the choice of families to get these eight new homes while also pitching in on the work sites. Cindy has been filing daily progress reports with some photos for the Web site.
Week Two Begins
As week two starts, a large number of volunteers will be coming to Waveland from a partner group called “Rebuilding Together New England” that draws from Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Rebuilding Together is working at several locations along the Gulf Coast. They are dedicating this week to focusing on helping Waveland, sending workers to help with the eight house sites that are part of Mission to Mississippi as well as to work on a previous Wayland to Waveland projects rebuilding Ms. Hazel Tracey’s house. Ms. Hazel moved back into her house this summer, but still has not had floor coverings which arrived Friday and will be installed this week by these volunteers.
Background
Mission to Mississippi’s goal is to build eight new homes for families that were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in this small city where the storm first hit the US. More than 400 skilled workers will travel from Massachusetts to Mississippi during the 16-week project that runs through February.
Wayland to Waveland is actively trying to raise another $800,000 toward the $1.6 million needed to complete the project. Donations are being accepted at the web site and the group also is selling Mission to Mississippi “gear” pullovers ($45), T-shirts ($15), and wristbands ($5).
Led by builder Ken Vona, eight large building companies
in the Greater Boston area along with dozens of their
subcontractors are donating time, tools, materials and, of
course, know-how to make this project possible.
Contributions (which are tax-deductible) can be made both
online through the group’s Web site (www.waylandtowaveland.org)
or mailed to the Wayland to Waveland Hurricane Relief Fund,
c/o Town of Wayland, Town Building, 41 Cochituate Road,
Wayland, MA 01778.
Volunteers are still needed right through January. Information about volunteering is now available at the site (see the link at top, “Volunteering”). The process to sign up starts by filling out a survey at the group’s Web site also. Just click on the link “Click Here to Volunteer.”
Waveland Background
Waveland, MS is about 30 miles east of New Orleans. It’s the first city on the Gulf Coast as you cross from Louisiana into Mississippi. Waveland and Bay St. Louis are joined on a peninsula jutting into St. Louis Bay across from Pass Christian and just west of Gulfport. It is the exact point at which H. Katrina came ashore on the US mainland in August of 2005, pushing a 50-foot wall of water more than 4 miles inland. It crushed everything on the shore for more than two miles and flooded the zone up to six miles inland to about 12 feet.
It’s taken more than two years for Waveland to begin the rebuilding stage. When Mayor Tommy Longo visited Wayland, MA on Sept. 10 for a kick off press conference, he reported that the city was just finishing the basic infrastructure construction ($6.5 million project) of sewer collection and water distribution. He said, they are the first in the area to reach this stage. He also said while the schools are back to about 60 percent of pre-storm numbers, there are still more than 150 residents – including himself – still living in FEMA trailers (these are small, tow-behind-a-car campers).