Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The week Casey McDonald and Joel Mather spent in New Orleans gave them a glimpse of how Larry Johnson has been living and working for the past six months.
McDonald and Mather, both 21 and both of Sweet Home, joined Johnson, a retired Sweet Home schools administrator and coach, in New Orleans for about a week. They left Sweet Home March 12 and returned March 18.
“We knew he was down there helping, and Casey got hold of him,” Mather said.
The two said they had been thinking of going down to the area ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and helping out.
“I called him and asked what we needed,” McDonald said. “We bought tickets and packed our stuff.”
The two joined Johnson at a fire training center in East Orleans, McDonald said. Three fire stations are operating out of the facility. Previously, with fire stations out of commission, about 30 different stations were operating there.
Johnson is a volunteer with Oasis, a Sweet Home company providing showers to emergency workers.
“Our goal was basically to get trained and help people any way we could,” Mather said. “Larry was a huge help.”
Johnson arranged for them to stay at the fire center and showed them around the area. He also pointed them to people who needed help.
Johnson regularly goes out during the week, finds residents and asks them what help they need, and then helps them out, whether gutting a house or providing groceries.
“Larry Johnson knew what people needed,” Mather said. Mather and McDonald helped gut three houses while there.
Before houses in New Orleans can be repaired, they need to be stripped of personal items and furniture, and then sheet rock must be torn from the frame. What remains is then treated with bleach to kill mold and to disinfect the home.
What they found were home after home that looked similar to those firefighters find after putting out a house fire, Mather said. These homes didn’t have smoke damage, but they were moldy.
“Everything in the homes looked like someone put it into a mixer and set it to spin, added water and let it sit for six months,” Mather said.
“You can look at any pictures you want,” McDonald said, “but until you go in” it is difficult to comprehend the devastation.
The debris is taken from the homes and dumped by the side of the road to be removed later, McDonald said.
The two said they found a few personal items, such as photos, that could be saved while working in the homes, but almost everything had to be thrown out.
Most of the houses where McDonald and Mather went were just standing empty, the occupants having moved in with relatives elsewhere. Some residents, who had no money or nowhere to go, are living in Federal Emergency Management Agency campers. Others are living in one room of their home while working on the rest.
Dwayne Clark and John Dundon, of Sweet Home, have been hauling some of those FEMA trailers from LaGrande to the disaster zone since late last year.
Displaced residents are waiting to find out from the government whether they can rebuild, Mather said.
“They’re waiting on plans. Government, insurance companies — everything’s still up in the air.. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”
One teacher they met has no idea if he has a job, where his children will attend school or even if he has a home, Mather said. “Nobody’s giving him answers.”
Some people won’t be allowed to rebuild, such as residents in the lower Ninth Ward, McDonald said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” McDonald said. “I wanted to just go down there and help.”
Among those they helped was an 83-year-old woman, McDonald said. She had nowhere to go because her family was dealing with exactly the same problem she had.
McDonald, Mather and Johnson helped gut her home, and when they had finished, she had tears in her eyes because someone had come in and helped for nothing.
Everywhere they went, people tried to hire them, Mather said. They couldn’t believe it was free.
“They’d just be in tears by the time we were done,” Mather said.
“You appreciate more of what you have,” McDonald said. “It’s a real eye-opener.”
“We got to hear a lot of stories,” Mather said. One man and his family rode out the hurricane on the second floor of their home. When his wife fell through the soaked floor into the water below, he had to go down into the water to fish her out.
Last week, McDonald and Mather were happy to be home.
“This morning, Casey and I were driving over to Albany,” Mather said. Along the way, they saw home after home with people living in them, safe and sound. “It was almost a shock coming back. I really have a great appreciation for Larry.”
During the time Johnson has been down there, he has handed out more than $4,000 in gift certificates donated by Sweet Home residents. He has helped out continually.
He even had Mather and McDonald helping bag groceries.
McDonald went down there with the support of his parents, Jan and Mark McDonald.
“Without Larry, none of this would have happened,” Mark McDonald said. “Larry is a gem not only in our community, but to other people as well. He’s a bigger-than-life character in our community. He just wants to help.”
“If Larry sees a guy working on his house, he’ll bring him a lunch,” Mather said.
Mather is a volunteer firefighter. He works for Warth Logging. McDonald works at his family’s business, Thriftway.
“It was well worth it,” Mather said. Just before he left, his church, Crawfordsville Community Church, gave him $300 to help with expenses. “It was really neat to see the support of my community.”
The area is still in terrible shape, Mather said
“You don’t see anything about it on TV any more, and it’s still not fixed,” McDonald said.
“We have gotten to impact people’s lives,” Mather said. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”