Troop 10 makes trip to help Mississippi families rebuild.
By: Joseph Harvie
The sun was out for most of last week and the township streets were overflowing with children who had a week off from school, but not all of the area’s students stuck around town for spring break.
On April 9, a group of nine township Boy Scouts, one girl from the Venture Crew and four adults filled two SUVs and made the two-day, 20-hour trek to D’Iberville, Miss., where they helped the effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast town that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29.
The Scouts’ trip was sponsored by South Brunswick Rallies for Relief, a committee set up to raise money and items for D’Iberville, which the township adopted last fall.
During the three days the group spent in D’Iberville they helped put up gypsum wallboard in three homes.
In a series of telephone interviews with the South Brunswick Post on Tuesday, the Scouts, who returned home Saturday, said their initial reaction to region was surprise; they entered the town through a commercial district, in which several stores were opened, including a Wal-Mart and a Lowe’s store.
"When we first got to town everything looked perfectly normal," said Andrew Herbach, a 17-year-old an Eagle Scout and junior assistant scoutmaster for Troop 10. "There was traffic and everything was flowing good in the commercial area. The roads were fine and there were open restaurants, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants."
But the sense of normality disappeared April 11, Andrew said, when the group got to work.
"Everything seemed good until the next day, when we started working," Andrew said. "We saw some of the houses ripped off their sites."
"Everything looked fine until we got to our assignment," said Andrew’s father, Arnold Herbach, the assistant scoutmaster for Troop 10. "That’s when we saw the blue tarps on roofs because people didn’t have the money to replace the roofs.
"Every house had an RV in front or back; people were living in the RVs that FEMA gave them," Mr. Herbach added.
Mr. Herbach’s 15-year-old daughter, Jennifer, went along with the Scouts as part of its co-educational arm, the Venture Crew. She said seeing the aftermath of the storm firsthand and hanging the wallboard drove the reality of the tragedy home for her.
"It was interesting to really get a look at what a disaster looks like and to see everything in person and not just on TV. You realize it’s real and Mother Nature does do these things," Jennifer said.
Michael Williams, 13, a Life Scout and senior patrol leader for Troop 10, said that seeing the devastation was an eye-opening experience for him.
"It was weird," Michael said. "We don’t get storms like that up here, so it’s not something we see everyday. I felt bad for the families that don’t have enough money to fix their roofs or houses."
Michael said the damage wasn’t limited to homes. He recalled seeing boats once docked or floating in the Gulf of Mexico washed ashore onto lawns.
South Brunswick Police Sgt. Scott Williams, scoutmaster for Troop 10, said that on the group’s final day in the area, they drove down the Gulf Coast to check out how the rebuilding effort was going in other communities. He said that from what he saw other communities were not as quick to rebuild as D’Iberville.
"In my opinion not that it’s self-sustaining but D’Iberville is light years ahead of the neighboring communities in terms of rebuilding," Sgt. Williams said. "They are the ones utilizing volunteers to help rebuild."
Sgt. Williams said part of the difference seemed due to the fact that there are permanent volunteers stationed in D’Iberville who give out orders and keep track of the amount of time the volunteers work to rebuild. He said the volunteers keep track of the hours because every hour of volunteer work goes against what the community will owe the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"We learned some things, like within a year FEMA will be coming back asking for 5 percent back for money they put out to remove debris after the hurricane," Sgt. Williams said. "These folks are pretty much wiped out and FEMA is asking for 5 percent. If they get volunteers to come in and do work they can get money back for the work that they do."
Sgt. Williams said that so far the volunteer effort has earned about $2.7 million against what D’Iberville will owe FEMA.
"Since the storm, this weekend that just passed was the first weekend since the storm that they didn’t have volunteers coming down," Sgt. Williams said.
The Scouts aren’t done yet though. Sgt. Williams said that when the group was about halfway back from D’Iberville they were already talking about the possibility of going back down there. The teens are also looking to do a spare change collection at the South Brunswick high School to raise money to help with the rebuilding effort.
"These people need more help and more money," Jennifer said. "We are thinking of ideas for ways to collect money and convert it into Lowe’s gift cards and send it down there so they can give it to the citizens to help rebuild their houses."

