Holy frijoles! It was LOUD inside the house all day yesterday. We had a crew of six workers stomping around ripping out the old roof and hammering in new shingles. It sounded like the whole house was coming down. It's SO much louder on the inside than it is on the outside, so I spent as much time as possible hanging out with the neighbors watching our roof installation. Those guys really work hard. Here's something I noted as I went into Home Depot yesterday. They had a sign out front that said, "Yes, we're open" and below that it had the Spanish translation,
"Estamos abiertos." I realize that seeing signs in Spanish is common in many parts of the country, but it is not common here in Louisiana. In fact, it is so uncommon, that I was very surprised by it, so I took a picture. St. Tammany Parish supposedly has an extra 100,000 people in it right now -- most of them are relief workers and construction workers. Apparently many of them are Hispanic, including our roofers. Getting around town is very difficult since the traffic is horrendous with all the extra people. Also interesting is that it seems like EVERY single retail store of any kind has a "help wanted" sign out, including Wal-Mart. There are not enough workers for all the jobs since so many people were displaced, or else they all went to work making big bucks doing construction since that is where the money is right now.
Well, it appears that our crew has arrived this morning to continue working on our roof. They are all standing around on our lawn having a breakfast of Cheetos and cigarettes before they get started. The job should be finished by today. I'm glad they're here. Thanks guys! Gracias!
1 comment:
Thanks Josh. We have been warned a lot about that. We were even told on the radio by our parish government to take photos of our contractors (which I did!). There are a lot of out-of-town companies here right now. They are swarming! We have decided only to use local companies even if we have to wait a little longer to get the job done. The parish is giving out all the permits for no-charge right now, so there is no excuse for not having them.
The roofing company we used has been here for many years although they brought in some extra crews from outside to help with their load. We dealt with the company owner and did not pay him until the job was completed.
I hope people will be careful with the contractors. We've heard a lot about what has happened to folks in Florida regarding contractors, and hopefully we will learn from those experiences.
One can only hope.
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