Dart's weekend warriors

Frank Ochberg, M.D., came to the Crescent City to check out the Society's project and check in with friends old and new. He joined Ochberg Fellows Penny Cockerell, of Dallas; Keti Bochorishvili, of Tblisi; and Kevin McKiernan, of Santa Barbara, in what is now the Dart House. Here's what Frank wrote ...

Five days in New Orleans and I have a new respect for this city. We members of the Dart Society (I’m an ersatz member) are here to hang out, pitch in and learn from local journalists who are not only doing their jobs, but are also volunteering on weekends to gut houses.

Gutting takes place in teams of 6 to 12 with crowbars, hammers, brooms, shovels, wheelbarrows, gloves, masks and adrenaline. At first the journalists gutted one another’s homes -- houses that sat in six feet of water for a week, then molded and mildewed and died. Now the reporters -- just a few -- are joining various volunteer groups organized by churches to do that work on behalf of folks who can’t afford to hire professionals at $3.00 a square foot.

Frank Ochberg takes a whack at some sheetrock during the gutting of a house. (Photo by Kevin McKiernan)

I worked a morning shift, ripping out trim, pounding out plasterboard, folding fluffy fiberglass insulation and contributing to a mountain of debris on the sidewalk. We were in East New Orleans, on a deserted street. The homes were modest and middle class, not ramshackle poor like the Ninth Ward.

Every once in a while I’d see signs of caring from the former life of this dead home -- a gilt-framed mirror, a paneled room. But others had taken out all the furnishings, all the personal effects, so we were there to eviscerate the rest, leaving floors, ceilings, outer walls and joists.

We were the jackals and buzzards who move in after the lions leave, clearing the carcass down to the bone.

There is something exhilarating and gratifying about house gutting. Maybe it is the teamwork. We automatically move in a collective rhythm. The fittest set the tempo and the past-prime folks like me strive to keep up when two of us are ripping out plasterboard together, trying to remove huge chunks without having them crack and crumble into shards and powder. Then we find a vacant wheelbarrow and move down the narrow hallway, through the litter-strewn garage, out to the warming blue-sky morning, the sidewalk, and the growing pile of innards there on the lonely street.

Frank Ochberg, left, and Kevin McKiernan, right, peer out of a home ravaged by Katrina. (Photo by Penny Cockerell)

Five of us are Dartians: Natalie Pompilio, who planned it all; Penny, who leads the Society; Keti, who came all the way from Tbilisi and is clearly enjoying the work. Kevin, the world’s expert on Iraqi Kurds, is here, too, going with the flow.

Shortly after noon the job is all but done. Light streams through the exposed joists. The house is ready for sale, as-is, and eventual reconstruction. This one is a keeper. But the elderly owner will not return. Her neighborhood and community is no more. Something will eventually rise from this ruin, as happened in Hiroshima and Pompeii, but that will be years from now, a lifetime too late for her.

What a different scene in the afternoon: St. Patrick’s Day parade on Louisiana and Magazine streets, throngs of people in gay green garb, huge floats, marching men in tuxedo tops, kilts and garlands of beads, people throwing beads and flowers and cabbage heads (a tradition to mark the poverty and panache of the Irish immigrant). No sense of suffering here. And striking up conversation with strangers, we heard about New Orleans rebounding –- about the spirit, the camaraderie, the communities full of people helping one another.

I toured the Times-Picayune newsroom, meeting some I’d met before and others for the first time. I’m still sorting out what really happened and what we, the Dart visitors, can and will do to help.

John Pope, a reporter who has become a friend, said, "Don’t forget us, Frank."

That much I can promise. The memory will not be lost. But I know we must do more than that. We need to make others aware that New Orleans -– a city with a special flavor, pulse and purpose -- is alive enough to recover, but hurting enough to need our help.

-- Frank Ochberg