Mountains to Move

I started out the morning by kind of pumping myself up. I knew it was going to be an emotional day, so I wanted to have my mind and heart mentally prepared. The day did not disappoint ...

I heard on the news about the trash heap that had been resurrected at Edwin Warner Park. I got to see it firsthand as I rolled down Old Hickory Blvd. into Bellevue. It was hard to tell exactly what the piles contained, but I saw several distinct mountains with various household goods, appliances and what seemed to be "compost". I am not exaggerating when I say mountains. The heavy machinery working to minimize the waste looked like micro machines compared to the enormous heaps.

My spirits lifted as I pulled into the church parking lot and was greeted by two of my favorite co-workers, Tori and Jill. Marcia and Marcus pulled in shortly after. It was all jokes and smiles as we filled out our paperwork and retrieved our T-shirts. We filed on the bus, and I began my photo blog.

We grabbed our burrows and shovels and made our way to the clean-up site. We all jumped right in and starting pulling, loading and wheeling the trash out to the street. The smell was ripe and the loads were heavy. After a good hour we all lightened our loads a bit by taking turns shoveling, loading, wheeling, and dumping. This continued throughout the morning. There were a couple "light" times ... Jill fighting with her mask and ultimately using it as a headband. Marcus toting a flag around in his back pocket for a couple loads. And of course, the delicious Chimichanga served to us at lunch. With the overwhelming heaviness of the situation, you had to look for humor in the little things.

After lunch the foreman led us around the corner where we broke off into groups of five. Our job was to get large piles of "household materials" out from between the houses and into the street. China cabinets, entire bathrooms including tile, toilets, tubs (three total), dressers full of clothes, and of course – drywall, drywall and more drywall. At that point I think we were all a little numb and were just working as robots to get the job done while snapping pictures along the way.

It took about 25 people and five hours to clear three piles of flood waste. A tiny dent on one street corner of this catastrophic flood. All in all I felt really good about my contribution. I was working with a great group of people and was really proud of all the work we had done. I think we all felt that way.