Over the last few days I helped family friends Aloma and Kenneth Savastano, who had 12 feet of water in their home after Hurricane Isaac, begin to catalogue their damaged belongings for insurance purposes. They did not have any water in their home after Hurricane Katrina. I took these photos September 7th and 8th. You will see that the cataloging of items has begun. It was a “muck” filled day where much was accomplished and much is left to be accomplished. Thankfully Aloma and Kenneth Savastano (of whom I did another IReport on) did have some assistance by 4 wonderful gentlemen who did much of the heavy lifting and sifting thru the muddy mess. Their granddaughter, daughter, son inlaw and myself were also on hand to catalog, remove items, take photos, etc. They continued this on Sunday as there were several rooms left to clear out including pumping approximately a foot of water out of the living room.

Imagine having to provide these if you are 70 years old, just celebrated your 50th wedding anniversary, have lived in your home for many, many years and have a lifetime of your items in your home. Many of these items have great emotional importance to you. Your wedding dress, your grandfather’s hunting knives, your prized coin collection, your sewing box, your children’s precious baby clothes, your wedding china…….NOW, imagine doing this after having 12 feet of muddy, marsh water in your home. That muddy, marsh water brought with it high grass, frogs, poisonous snakes like water moccasins, toads, fish…..many of these are still alive as well as the “critters” that are dead. Imagine the smell. Imagine the slimy, black, brown “muck” covering YOUR possessions that you must haul into your yard or driveway, take photos of, wipe off the item to look for model/serial numbers, write down the information being requested and then haul away all of your belongings on a bull dozer to dump on the levee for retrieval by the garbage collector. This is emotionally and physically taxing. That is only part of the work. You now need to enter the specific data about your belongings into a spreadsheet and investigate the information being requested by the National Flood Insurance Program adjustors.