Drywalling After the Flood

The signs of lagging reconstruction in Holly Grove are more subtle by now. Many houses are in good shape, freshly painted, lawns mowed, streets clean. Other houses are neatly boarded up or leaning to one side at a comfortable angle as if they had outlived their usefulness. Sometimes only the faint outline of a marked X adorned with letters and numbers is visible on the side of a house facing the street. It takes an effort of perspective to see not shabby decline but rather the slow climb out of catastrophe. A group of us travelled to a well-kept house on Pear Street wondering what if any work was required at all. Bit by bit, matter of factly, the family's story came out as we looked over the piles of ruined possessions and debris still arranged in the backyard. Eight feet of water submerging the first floor, boat rescuing family and neighbors. Coming home again to find possessions gone from the house and a favorite houseplant suspiciously in residence at a nearby house, but deciding to keep eyes on the bigger picture.
Half of the first floor had already been renovated, but the other half had only been gutted of moldy walls and rotted wood, leaving a neat forest of often wobbly studs. We cleared out various possessions and supplies which were stored there and uncovered the three-foot stack of sheetrock panels waiting to become the home's new skin. A small space, really, 5-6 rooms. A good drywaller in new house could have knocked off this much before lunch. For us, though, progress was almost incidental to learning, solving problems, and wrestling with aging tools. We filled out the strapping - wood to which the drywall is fastened - and reconnected beams made rootless by rot and termite, then fitted in bats of fiberglass insulation. Cut panels to size, and cut again and again to fit the never quite square, never entirely even walls. Finally zipped home dozens and dozens of screws to turn the flimsy panels into solid walls and give us at least a sense of the space being restored to life.

The family members worked along with us, spent time with us telling their stories, seeing if we needed anything. A collaboration which gave all of them and us something of real value - well as new walls. Later in the week when someone admonished us not to think of our actions as charity, I realized that the thought had never even crossed my mind.