Necessary love.

Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. It was the third-strongest hurricane on record that made landfall in the United States. Katrina formed on August 23, 2005 and caused devastation along much of the north-central Gulf Coast. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed.

At least 1,836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. The storm is estimated to have been responsible for $81.2 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Thousands of Americans fled to the assistance of many families who lost their homes to aid in the recovery process. At the rate that help is coming, it will be more than ten years before New Orleans will be back to the way it was.

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In the Spring of 2006, a group of Catholic college students set out to New Orleans to give what they could to the revival of the city. In one week's time, they gutted 3 separate houses which prepared them for the next steps of bringing them back to livable condition.

The families were forced to leave the city as they quickly scrambled to gather what they carry and leave their possessions, their homes, their friends and everything else behind. We entered the homes to find clothes, furniture, food and anything else you can imagine still in the home.

With shovels, crowbars and trashcans we removed all the drywall and left behind possessions from the house. All that we were instructed to leave was the beams. We later sprayed these with a bleach and water formula to kill any mold . Private contractors would eventually put up more dry wall and carpet.

We made huge piles of everything from inside the home, just outside on the curb. We never found out who would pick up the trash and when they would come.

Sometimes the families would send someone to gather any heirlooms that may have been salvageable. Sometimes they would even come themselves to see what they might be able to gather from the pile of ruble.





We were fortunate to meet the couple who owned the home and had lived there for more than 20 years. We shared lunch together as they told us stories of what they had encountered during this tragedy. "Corporal works of mercy" is what the Church calls it. After a week like this, I think I also want to call it "Necessary love".