Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Cleanup

Hello All!!! Sorry, I have been tired at night and not as inquisitive as to the rest of the island right now. Working on the house has been consuming my time and energy lately. I promised a friend that I would put up a video of the trash collection process on the island and here it is. They come in different sizes, typically a very large dumpster truck with another dumster trailer. On the back of the truck is an arm similar to the machine on the video with two hydraulic legs to stabilize. The video has a tractor trailer being loaded by a separate second machine.


So then, other than just watching another construction-type video, why show it and talk about it? Well, the contract that was put out for this service (fulfilled by many different companies, all with similar equipment) is somewhere between 18 to 24 months. That tells me that perhaps someone with some experience on disaster recovery has said that this is needed for that long of a period. Tell me that is not significant. No, really please tell me that this is not what is happening. Oy.

This is a short video of the piles of trash around. It gets cleaned up. The piles are then refilled as if the homes and apartments are magicians hats that can produce prodigious portions of detritus in perpituity. I recently saw The Weather Channel special on the Galveston Storm of 1900 (other site here)and the pictures there more so reflect how it feels now. Currently the buildings are standing but the spirit is temporarily gone. Make no mistake - the majority of buidings were affected and need some combination of gutting, re-roofing, or major fixing.

Remember that you are not alone.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you think the Weather Channel Special was good, when you get through this and have a moment to take it all in, you need to read the book titled "Isaac's Storm." I just finished it and couldn't help but see parallels in the description of the 1900 storm and what I witnessed on TV, and in person, with Ike.