Clayton Cubitt says:
One House At A Time is a volunteer group that descended on my mom's little
adopted hometown of Pearlington MS in the days after Katrina hit. They've
rebuilt dozens of homes in the community, including hers, and they're still
going strong. It's one of the most uplifting stories to come out of Katrina.
Here's an update, filmed by Kevin Leeser (more links on page).
About the video embedded above, Leeser writes:
The recovery from Hurricane Katrina is far from the front pages these days.
There were still 30,000 families (over 110,000 American individuals) still
living in FEMA trailers earlier this month (feb 2008), when the "news" of
deadly levels of formaldehyde in the trailers was finally reported.I began filming this story one month after Katrina came ashore, and I
recently returned to the devastated and impoverished town of Pearlington
Mississippi. Even though its several miles from the actual coast, the storm
surge and the wind brought this place to the brink of its very existence.
The waves that came through this town and destroyed everything in their path
first had to pass through a few Chemical Plants and Oil refineries out in
the Gulf of Mexico. This was not merely sea water that carried these homes
away, it was a deadly stew of unknown and unreported toxins.This story follows the recovery efforts of one group that has been based in
Pearlington as soon as the roads were clear enough to get in. One House At A
TIme is building homes for people of Pearlington who want to stay in the
place where they call home. This video tells a little of their story, but
anyone who has been there will tell you, there is no video that can be shot
that can express the sort of devastation that has occurred on our own soil,
to our own people. So go see it for yourself, and bring a hammer.
