We're still at my mother's house in Moss Point. We have electricity and it's dry here. We all took a bath the first night we got here -- but there was no hot water. We all forgot that Mom's water heater is gas and we don't know how to relight it. Even a cold shower was better than nothing - but none of us have bothered to do it again. We must smell fantastic.
We have called our insurance company and made a claim and we have called FEMA and applied over the telephone for assistance. We still can't call 800 numbers and obviously that is what most people are giving out for information or assistance so it's very frustrating. My mother has telephone service here now and it makes things a little bit easier -- but most of the time all the circuits are busy. It's actually more frustrating here because we're so far from our neighborhood. Dave rides his bike to the house pretty often to check on things and try to get things done.
He had noticed that mold was starting to grow up the walls a couple days after we left and started trying to pull out the sheetrock himself -- but he only has so much time there before he has to ride his bike back to Moss Point and he's not sure what else he should do to clean the house. He found a mini-van and paid too much for it - but it gives us a car to use that can fit just about everyone in it if need be. Gasoline is still scarce though so we use it as little as possible.
On one of our trips to the house we were approached by a man from Michigan who said he was some sort of 'flood recovery specialist.' He offered to tear out our sheetrock and disinfect the house and run tests and dehumidify and all sorts of things that we knew nothing about and promised he would charge us no more than $8000 for the whole thing. I know it's a lot of money but Dave can't do it by himself and I can't help him with the babies to take care of. I wouldn't know what to do anyway. The guy said now is the time to get it done though or else the house won't be safe for the babies to live in again without extensive demolition. I didn't have the $8000 of course.. but we had $3000 in savings and we gave that to him as a down payment so he could start the work right away. The check I wrote him that day was not only wet - but it was no good... So we immediately drove everyone to the bank and tried to get in to transfer money. The line was very long and Dave went to wait. In the meantime, I miraculously got through to their phone system and made a transfer. Dave got cash because the guy had asked for cash if we could give it to him. He said he would give that to him as a second payment the next day.
I feel better knowing someone is working on the house - but it's still frustrating not knowing what's going on and not being able to do anything myself. There's no activity in this neighborhood but we are able to get supplies and information when we go back to Gallery Street to check on the house.
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