July, July
What have I done in July? If you recall, about a month ago a large chunk of the east coast was under water. Ever since the roads opened, my crew and I have been doing flood clean-up in nearby towns Sidney and Walton. Mostly shoveling mud out of basements and carrying warped and waterlogged things out to the curb into somewhat menacing piles. This work includes crouching in basements, scooping up sloppy mud that smells distantly but evocatively of sewage into buckets, lifting those buckets up to shoulder-level windows, breathing in leaked fuel oil, meeting weird people, carrying water heaters, washers, dryers, refrigerators, table saws, freezers, exercise equipment, couches, beds, organs, and other assorted heavy things up tight stairs, demolishing wooden shelves and walls, and on one occasion removing asbestos. After a few days, fierce mold and mildew built up and we had to start wearing masks.
You can't be too sure what's in flood mud so it's best to not get it on your skin. My co-worker John: "At first I got some in my eye and freaked out and flushed it for a while. Now it's like 'uh oh, there's some in my mouth. Oh well, it's easier to swallow than to spit it out.'" We've encountered whole basements of rusted and ruined tools, dead animals, broken glass, a basement with mud three feet thick, a crazy old lady with pterodactyl arms who wanted us to clean up every walnut out of her basement that she had bagged up and put there, a freezer that spewed stagnant water on me, working lightbulbs half-filled with water, refrigerators with rancid meat (hams, chicken, turkey), unsound structures, rusty nails, a lifetime's worth of paints and art supplies (we carried out her kiln, too), weird people, scooping mud off dirt floors, and a guy warning: "watch out, there may be some syringes in there, some dog tranquilizers and other mildly illegal drugs."
Walton was worse off, but they were far less organized, so we often ended up in Sidney where we'd stop off at the civic center for our assignments. We'd work at a house for an hour or two (occasionally half the day or more) then find the next one. The water level got up over 10 feet near the rivers, and in one spot in Walton the current carried a bunch of dumpsters that ripped through a few yards and garages. Foundations and roads were washed away. Most everything had a huge stripe of mud a couple of feet high on it. An early count had 114 houses in Sidney condemned and that seemed low (this is a small town).
The NYC Department of Sanitation was in the area for a while, removing stuff from curbs, and the National Guard was here, too (I think they were engineers) before FEMA showed up. But by the end of the first week, we were the only volunteer group left working. And nobody was doing what we were; we were the bottom rung of work. We came home everyday caked in mud from boots to mid-chest.
You can't be too sure what's in flood mud so it's best to not get it on your skin. My co-worker John: "At first I got some in my eye and freaked out and flushed it for a while. Now it's like 'uh oh, there's some in my mouth. Oh well, it's easier to swallow than to spit it out.'" We've encountered whole basements of rusted and ruined tools, dead animals, broken glass, a basement with mud three feet thick, a crazy old lady with pterodactyl arms who wanted us to clean up every walnut out of her basement that she had bagged up and put there, a freezer that spewed stagnant water on me, working lightbulbs half-filled with water, refrigerators with rancid meat (hams, chicken, turkey), unsound structures, rusty nails, a lifetime's worth of paints and art supplies (we carried out her kiln, too), weird people, scooping mud off dirt floors, and a guy warning: "watch out, there may be some syringes in there, some dog tranquilizers and other mildly illegal drugs."
Walton was worse off, but they were far less organized, so we often ended up in Sidney where we'd stop off at the civic center for our assignments. We'd work at a house for an hour or two (occasionally half the day or more) then find the next one. The water level got up over 10 feet near the rivers, and in one spot in Walton the current carried a bunch of dumpsters that ripped through a few yards and garages. Foundations and roads were washed away. Most everything had a huge stripe of mud a couple of feet high on it. An early count had 114 houses in Sidney condemned and that seemed low (this is a small town).
The NYC Department of Sanitation was in the area for a while, removing stuff from curbs, and the National Guard was here, too (I think they were engineers) before FEMA showed up. But by the end of the first week, we were the only volunteer group left working. And nobody was doing what we were; we were the bottom rung of work. We came home everyday caked in mud from boots to mid-chest.