Dispatch From New Orleans

Let's get those houses jacked up, people!

Just in case the levees fail again, like they did following the relatively mild-mannered Hurricane Katrina, the best defense against losing one's house and possessions to flooding is to elevate the house in advance. It's required by many codes and rebuilding programs. And yet, some homeowners are skirting those rules. I heard that some 2,000 homeowners have done just that and I imagine the number is higher than that.

Why would someone choose not to elevate their home in such an environment? It's the cost, of course. And, as one woman was quoted on the TV newscast, she doesn't like the way elevated homes look. And I'll admit, some of them look goofy and awkward. But some of them, like the one above, look downright elegant, like a rich person's Florida house.

So I've become interested in photographing as many good-looking elevated homes as I can find, and this is the first one. The benefits are many. You get lots of covered parking underneath. And think of your views! Normally the neighbors get cranky when the top of your house towers above all others in the neighborhood. But if you're raising your house because it's required by code, who's to complain? Of course, when every house is elevated, the views won't be as striking. And that's a good a reason as any to become the first on one's block.

The foundation saga, continued

By Ariane Wiltse

My mom arrived last week with the best of intentions. Like other relatives who have come before her, she came to help with my house in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. She also came knowing that we’d be working in temperatures hovering around 95 degrees with 95% humidity. And, the air conditioner in the trailer is busted.

Mentally, she had prepared for the heat. But she hadn’t prepared for the mosquitoes and fire ants. They made a buffet of her, leaving her arms and legs a red, swollen mess. After her first night here, she had 50 bites. (Yes, she counted.) I’m sure she’s up to hundreds by now. I, on the other hand, have about five. I don’t know if being better acclimated to summer in New Orleans makes my blood sour to the little suckers. But they sure find hers sweet.

Heat and bug bites aside, we weren’t able to get much done on the house this week. I had hoped that between my mom (“Mama Lin"), my friend Beau, myself and another worker recommended by a friend, we’d be able to knock out the rest of the foundation. But the worker decided that he didn’t want to work this week, leaving me scrambling for another set of hands, and I found those with Andy.

I’m also partly at fault for the delay. When Beau and I and Mama Lin poured the concrete footings and set the piers in the front of the house last week, I hyper-focused on making sure the damn things were level. And in my obsessing, I missed the small detail that the piers weren’t in line with the house. In fact, they set a good six inches too far back, clearly missing the sills.

I didn’t notice this little problem until we were about to install the sills, after the concrete had had a long weekend to cure. Seeing the distance between sill and piers, Beau grabbed the sledgehammer. He said he was preparing for the inevitable. (He’s become an expert, of sorts, at breaking rocks in the hot sun.) I figured there must be some kind of way to fix the piers without going to such extremes. But Beau said to do so would only be doing a “Peanut job.” (See what we mean by a "Peanut job" below.) The piers had to go.

Andy stepped in and found a middle ground. A post-Katrina volunteer and graduate student from the University of Wisconsin, Andy moved here after finishing up at school. I called him the day before, pleading for help after my scheduled worker decided to take the week off. Andy has worked on lots of crews, so he brought a degree of expertise and rationality that was missing from the trifecta of ignorance among me, Mama Lin and Beau.

Speaking with the authority of the anointed, Andy suggested that we wedge a pick (his favorite tool) and a crow bar under the concrete slabs to finagle them forward. This sounded like a fine idea to me, so I grabbed my camera to document the Moving of the Slabs. Beau kept the sledgehammer close. He knew he’d be vindicated.

The first one moved quickly and easily, so quickly that I almost missed the shot. The second one didn’t work out so well. I tried to encourage Beau and Andy from behind the camera: “Heave! Ho!” But it was no use. The damn thing wouldn’t budge. And even if it had, it probably wasn’t the best-made concrete pier. It was our first attempt at pier-building without experienced supervision. And it looked like it too. It might as well have been duct-taped and bubble-gummed together. A real Peanut job. So after much deliberation, I sacrificed the pier to Beau and his sledgehammer.

Because the concrete footings and piers need at least three days to cure before we can put weight on them, losing one pier to the sledgehammer put us back several days. We’ll get the foundation in the front of the house finished this week, but the remaining 24 feet of sill and half a dozen piers on the side of the house will have to wait until I return from vacation. Bummer.

From the ground up

By Ariane Wiltse

As the big day approached, the day when we'd jack up the house, cut out the old sills and rebuild the piers, I began to take great joy in watching my good friend Beau squirm (he's standing while watching my dad Joe).

"What's the matter Beau?" I asked as he paced incessantly, stealing peeks at my crumbling brick piers. "Afraid we'll drop the house and squash you?"

Now, I don't want to come across as too bold, and Lord knows I don't want to jinx the job -- we still have a good little bit to do. But so far, we've replaced all the sills and piers along one long side of the house without so much as a stubbed toe, let alone a squashed Beau.

And for that, I have my dad and cousin to thank. My 60-year-old "Papa Joe" and 50-year-old cousin Markey spent five hot, humid and hard days here recently working from dawn to Miller time (4:30ish) rebuilding my disintegrating foundation.

In that short period, they replaced 46 feet of 6-inch-by-6-inch sills, poured 24-inch-by-24-inch footings with 4,000 pounds of concrete and rebuilt 22 concrete block piers, setting footlong steel rebar and pouring more concrete inside each cavity. Then we added termite shields, shims where necessary, and leveled the old gal.

Had I been forced to hire a contractor to do the same work, it would have cost, according to estimates, from $10,875 to $13,400.

While my family and I worked on the foundation, Beau busted up the front concrete porch. (Visions of his feet jutting out from underneath a flattened house, Wicked Witch of the East-style, had become problematic.)

Sledgehammer in hand, Beau chipped away at the solid, steel-reinforced structure for a solid two days. (You heard me -- Beau the computer geek was breaking rocks in the hot sun.) I asked him to sing us a little ditty while he swung the sledgehammer, perhaps a Woody Guthrie chain-gang tune, or at least "I've been working on the railroad, all the live-long day," but he refused. Instead he stuck iPod plugs in his ears and turned up the volume to some political podcast. He didn't seem amused, but he never complained.

On their last night in town, and as a small gesture of my gratitude for all their help and hard work, I treated Papa Joe and Markey (Beau didn't return my call in time) to dinner at Commander's Palace, one of the best and most highfalutin' restaurants in New Orleans.

After dropping my family off at the airport, I got to thinking: I don't know many people with as large and close-knit a family as mine. Although we have our disagreements (we are a passionate and proud people prone to stubborn arguments), I know I can count on a crew of kinfolk, as they can count on me. Few people in our fast-paced, cross-country modern world can pick up a phone and ask parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles (living thousands of miles away) to put their lives on hold and come help with a big, nasty and hard job, especially in the New Orleans summer heat.

For that, and so much more, I am truly blessed.

See the whole story in pictures below:

Papa Joe inspects a termite-infested sill. Markey and Pereaux (my dog) supervise while Papa Joe makes The First Cut. Markey rips out the old sill while jacks hold her steady. After cutting the lap joints, Markey, Beau and Papa Joe, from right, carry a new 6-inch-by-6-inch treated sill. The gang carries the sill to the house. With Russel the contractor watching from inside my house, the gang fits the new sill under my house. I take a much-earned break from the back-breaking work of documenting the job to mix a little concrete. Markey takes the tirst whack at my former, and very ugly, 1940s concrete porch. Beau busting rocks in the hot sun, and refusing to sing about it. A posed photo of me pretending to be braking rocks in the hot sun. Miller time with contractor Michael Gomez and his crew. Middle-aged Mighty Men flex in front of my house. Papa Joe and Markey pose in front of some of their handy work, as well as their Lazy Y brand made in the freshly poured concrete. (Markey uses the historic and prestigious Lazy Y brand to mark his horses in Montana.) Markey, me and my dad in front of my house, sans porch, on their last day in town.