Sept. / Oct. 2006

House busters

face down ghosts of Katrina

They pushed past the debris and into homes that had stood for weeks in as much as 13 feet of water. They hauled out furniture, kept alert for snakes and shoveled out up to six inches of mud.

UAW members who stepped up time and again to help Katrina victims included Local 1921’s Ed Peneguy, left; Glen Gilmore, fifth from left (holding water bottle), and Hank Knighton, sixth from right. Grateful homeowners Rodney and Paula Johnson take a seat in the wheelbarrow for what became the traditional job-ending photo shoot. Photos on the opposite page show some of the damage homeowners and house busters faced around the region.

After finishing each job, the best moment came when the work crew put the homeowners in a wheelbarrow, gathered around and posed for a quick photo.

“It was something happy that we could all record together … something that made you feel like maybe you made a difference,” said Hank Knighton.

The labor became a twice-a-week duty for Ed Peneguy, Glen Gilmore and Knighton, all members of UAW Local 1921 who had no substantial damage to their own homes but wanted to help co-workers who suffered major losses when hurricanes Katrina and Rita pushed through Louisiana last fall.

“There are things in life that you just ought to do, and that’s one of them,” said Gilmore, a technician and 21-year UAW member. “If the same thing happened to me, I know that someone would be there to help me.”

At the Lockheed-Martin Michoud (La.) Assembly plant where they work, about 750 were left homeless and another 1,500 received major damage after the hurricane slammed the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. At Local 1921, which represents the workers, President Dennis Fauver said more than half of their 620 members lost everything.

Everyone wanted to help. The company donated money.

Workers added to the pot. Others, such as Knighton, Gilmore and Peneguy, rolled up their sleeves and went to work as “house busters” – volunteers that included workers, college students and astronauts. They used vacation time and weekends, spending an average of 12 hours per house on 51 of them in and around New Orleans from November to July.

“Everybody here is like one big family,” Peneguy said. “I don’t mind donating time to help people get back on their feet. That’s what it’s all about.”

Local 1921 member Rodney Johnson and his wife, Paula, know what it’s like to get a helping hand from house busters. The Johnsons and their daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, lived in a New Orleans suburb in a 2,200-square-foot home. Behind them, a levee kept water from flooding parts of the city. In front of them sat the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge and nowhere for the water to go.

The Johnson home yielded to 71/2 feet of water for six weeks. “We lived in that house for 22 years. We lost everything,” Rodney Johnson said.

Then came house busters.

“I’m really thrilled that they were there for us,” Johnson said. “My wife had tried to go to the house several times, and it got to the point that she just couldn’t do it any more. That’s when I put my name on the house busters list.”

Said Johnson, abandoning the house was not an option. “We lived through Hurricane Betsy in ’65, Camille in ’69 and Katrina in ’05. We weren’t going to let a hurricane run us out.”

During the house busters visit, “My wife was very moved and very thankful for what they did,” Johnson said. “It was beautiful the way everyone pulled together.”

Knighton, a small components machinist and 28-year UAW member, donated 13 vacation days and volunteered a little more than 230 house-busting hours to work on 20 houses, including the Johnson home.

“You just have to reach out. At the end of the day, you went home very tired but very satisfied,” he said. “Think about it: You work 20-plus years and then you can’t go back to your house because you have absolutely nothing left. That’s when you really need to know that someone is willing to give you a helping hand.”

Gilmore lost a 1932 Ford Coupe and a motorcycle from storm damage. But “at the end of the day, I still had a house to return to,” he said. “I was lucky.”

He and the others said that whether traveling to the next house on the list or stepping inside it, there was no escaping the destruction.

“There were cars on roofs and houses blown off their foundations and into the middle of the road. Everything looked gray from sitting under water. There was no color,” Knighton said.

“The smell was horrendous,” said Peneguy, a crib attendant. “You would try to work on each house as fast as you could, hoping that it would make a difference. Then in the debris you would find one little thing, and the homeowner would be so happy that something could be saved. It would bring tears to your eyes.”

Sandra Davis