Gustav and Ike Update

Hi folks-
With the arrival of Ike late last week, all of our disaster response projects from Gustav received further damage, mostly due to the huge storm surge Ike brought all along the Gulf Coast. Biloxi itself did receive some flooding, but Bay St. Louis, Pearlington, and our project in Chauvin, LA were all inundated with flood waters, forcing us to evacuate those projects for the weekend. Our team in Chauvin restocked supplies and returned to Louisiana on Sunday when the water receded, to find most of the roof work they completed still intact, but a new challenge in mucking out homes flooded this time around. The plan for now there is to keep our team on the ground through this week and re-evaluate the scope of work, and to determine the long-term plan based on the needs, and capacity of local groups to continue to respond.
HOGC has also reached out to the Hands On affiliate in Houston to offer any assistance they may need, but until assessments are complete and we are asked to respond we will be standing by in Biloxi, continuing to help our community recover from this year's storms and our regular work load. We do need volunteers to help with our project in Pearlington, helping the Pearlington Recovery Center muck out and gut the 100+ homes that were flooded, so if you want to help in Mississippi we can certainly put you to work!
Take care and stay well,
Caitlin