BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer
SOUTH BRUNSWICK – At a time when most students were kicking back and relaxing on spring break, 10 Boy Scouts from the township were in Mississippi putting up Sheetrock and installing new insulation in the houses of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The group left New Jersey early on April 9 and, after a 24-hour drive, arrived in the hurricane-ravaged town of D’Iberville, Miss. Upon their arrival, they were introduced to where they were going to be staying for the next few days: a large tent city set up on a baseball field.
“The tents had air conditioning. It was very nice, a lot nicer than some of the camp-outs I’ve been on,” said Nick Low-Beer, 17.
The Scouts would wake up around 7:30 a.m., eat breakfast, and then arrive at the work site around 8 a.m. Many mentioned that one of the biggest difficulties there, as far as work went, was undoing the mistakes of others who were there before.
“We put up Sheetrock, we mudded it, we put the joint compound up, and we sanded down the joint compound, because one of the houses we were working at, the contractors … improperly did their services and they overcharged them for stuff, and they did kind of a shoddy job mudding it,” said Andrew Rullo, who, with his father, has past experience with home renovations. “It’s sick what some people will do. … We had to redo everything they did.”
Work would continue until about 5 p.m., with a lunch break in between, and then they would return to the tent city and take time to relax. Much of this time was spent playing sports, listening to music and just hanging out.
“One night we played kickball against the adults. They beat us – very badly,” said Chris Longley, 16.
According to those there, the town itself is seeing some improvement, but there still is a lot of work to be done and there are still some big problems. While some parts of the town look somewhat back to normal, others remain completely devastated.
“There was this school that was totally destroyed. There were things everywhere; there was stuff in the ceiling. It was a glimpse of what people went through the day this storm came in,” said Mike Williams, 16.
Some people felt hesitant to get a job after the storm hit, because it would mean losing their FEMA aid.
Another problem was that FEMA had given the town a multimillion dollar bill for part of the agency’s cleanup efforts there, and while the costs were offset by a plan that reduces the fees by getting volunteers to come help, it was still a sore point for many in the town.
“It’s ridiculous because they just lost everything they had, and you expect them to pay a couple million dollar bill? These people can’t even get their houses back together, let alone pay taxes to pay some government agency that didn’t do anything,” said Rullo.
For the Scouts on this trip, it was a strong desire to help others that led them to use their free time to help rebuild a town.
“I just felt it would be a good way to help the country as a whole. Instead of wasting my spring break, I could go out and help people and make them feel good,” said Williams.