Month: August 2014

Escape from Northern Virginia – Day 3

N. Scott Emery, P.E.Leave a comment

Just a few quick photos for today. We worked long and hard on days two and three. We finished we what came to do and a bit more. The homeowner expressed thanks for all we did and showed real appreciation for us being here. We are all tired, but feel good that we made a difference for this one family here on Staten Island.

Mike cuts a piece of casing for one of the windows.

Mike nails in some casing on the bedroom window.
Jeff inspects the opening in the front bath room where the homeowner wants to install a casement window.

Don shows off the opening we created for the bathroom casement window.

Jeff checks out the garden window that was stored in the bedroom.
The bedroom floor installed/

Bruce plans out the kitchen.
The finished result of  Bruce’s long three days of work (with help from the team) – new garden window, cabinets installed, counter tops, sink in and all trimmed out.

Olivia marks a window in the bedroom in preparation for casing the window out.

Olivia shows off our finished casing work on the bedroom window.
Don and Olivia prepare the living room floor for flooring to be installed.
The living room floor going in.

On the Corner of Patterson Avenue – Escape from Northern Virginia, Day 2

N. Scott Emery, P.E.Leave a comment
Day two was a long one. We got started a bit after 9:00 AM but did not stop until sometime after 8:00 PM. Good progress was made. We finished casing out the windows, leveled out the living room sub-floor, installed most of the flooring in the living room, finished the doorway between the kitchen and bedroom, finished hanging the kitchen cabinets, finished the new wall area that we created when we installed the garden window in the kitchen and prepped the garden window to be cased. Plus, Bruce, our skilled carpenter, took a couple of hours to help do some tile work at another house on the island.

Everyone worked hard and remained in high spirits throughout the day. We did not take an excursion into Manhattan, but we did treat ourselves to afternoon pastries from an Italian Bakery and New York Pizza for dinner. The food is a fine reward for the hard work.

The house on the corner of Patterson Avenue was probably built as a summer vacation home. As such, it seems like it must have been built with whatever materials were available. The original structural elements, which were not replaced after the storm like floor joists and studs, are an odd mix of sizes and types. One floor joist appears to be an ancient piece of tongue and grove flooring. This odd mix of materials makes for some challenging work.  With a lot of guidance from Bruce, we manage to overcome most of the challenges. 

We are driven by a desire to get as much done as we can but also conscience of the fact that this is someone’s home; someone who has been through a lot and is still facing big challenges. So, we want to do quality work in addition to helping get her back in her home as soon as possible. 
Today, we also have reflected a bit on why we are here. A couple of us admit that we came along with some doubt. Now that we are here and we are talking to those who lived through Sandy or who have come to help with the recovery, we realize that our few days here fixing one person’s home are small in comparison to magnitude of the need. Our efforts are certainly not enough, but do they make a difference?
We have learned that people stayed on the island for Sandy instead of evacuating because when the evacuated for Irene their homes were looted. Irene did not do much in the way of storm damage, but she set the stage for what would happen when Sandy arrived. We are told that Sandy turned suddenly on many. Conditions went from heavy rain to waist deep water in a matter of minutes as the storm surge pushed on to the island. With little time to respond, people ran for their lives and some did not make it.
Of those who did survive, they were left to deal with the trauma of the storm and the overwhelming task of cleaning up and rebuilding. We have heard about people living in cars, living with friends and moving from relative to relative while they wait for their homes to be rebuilt. We talk to one person who spent a large part of his retirement savings repairing his home only to have the city condemn it and tear it down. And, we hear of a person who is living in house where he has no hot water. To keep from taking a cold shower, he uses the water from his hose that is heated by the sun over the course of the day.
The impacts and effects of the storm on human lives go deep. There are people with PTSD and other stress related conditions. We hear of some people’s hope fading as help has not come or not been enough to get them back on their feet. We cannot help but think that the difference we are making is small and feel sadness that we cannot do more. For the few people we meet and hear their stories, we hope that our being here and listening helps them move closer to healing. And, for the one or two homes we work on, we hope that getting these families back into their homes might somehow bring them a bit more peace.

Escape from Northern Virgina – Day 1

N. Scott Emery, P.E.Leave a comment

Wednesday night a small team of folks from Galilee United Methodist church in Sterling Virginia piled into an SUV towing a small trailer and drove north for an early start to the final weekend of the summer. Our Labor Day destination was the New York City burough of Staten Island. Shortly before midnight, we arrived on the Southern tip of Staten Island and settled in at Bethel United Methodist Church for the night.

We are not in NYC for a last summer vacation. We are here to help in the work of recovering from Hurricane Sandy. On Thursday, we headed to our work site near the eastern most edge of the island. The area was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. On the surface, things look pretty normal, but we learned that for many recovery is still somewhere off in the distance. Sandy may be fading in terms of attention, especially when compared to Katrina, but the human costs of Sandy are just as real today as they were two years ago.

The home we are working on is small. The home owner moved to Staten Island from Brooklyn a few years before Sandy hit. She lost a gazebo and a car in the flooding that covered most of her home. Although, the gazebo may have saved her house from being totally destroyed. She is raising five grandchildren and dealing with the ill health of the grandchildren’s mother.

She commutes three hours from Long Island to meet us at her home. She has endured having rebuilding materials stolen including some that were donated and some she bought. She now has to buy much of what is needed to finish rebuilding her home.

Major structural work is mostly done. Finish work like kitchen cabinets, bathrooms, floors, trim, and final painting remains. Once all this work is done, she will have to have licensed plumbers and electricians take care of their respective pieces.We had to clear out the many building materials stored in the home to even figure out what was jobs we could tackle.

On day one, we got a garden window installed in the kitchen, trimmed out some of the windows and pulled together a good plan for day 2. We wrapped up the day with an evening excursion to Manhatten via the Staten Island Ferry…. more on all this latter.

Counting Change

N. Scott Emery, P.E.Leave a comment
“A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.” – from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

A couple of weeks ago, this 1949 quarter emerged when we converted my loose change into an Amazon gift card at our local Coinstar machine. Besides being old, this quarter is of value because it is 90% silver. Until 1974, many US coins contained some silver. Quarters stopped being made from silver in 1965. The internet tells me this quarter is worth between three and four dollars. For me, for a brief moment, it was worth a lot more.

In the late 1970’s, my dad started bringing home bags of quarters, Kennedy half-dollars and Eisenhower dollars. He would buy bags of coins from the bank at face value and return them a few days later for redeposit at the same face value. In between, we would do a little treasure hunting in those 25 pound bags of metal.

Usually on a Friday, after dinner, we would unroll the coins, spread them out on the dining table and search for the older, silver-containing coins that were still in circulation. We would replace the silver coins we found with newer ones and re-roll the coins for return to the bank. Dad would take the silver coins to a local coin store and sell them for much more than face value. The coin store bought them mainly for scrap because starting in 1978, silver and gold prices began to rise. By the second half of 1979, thanks to the Hunt Brothers, silver prices sky rocketed until they reached their historic high in January of 1980. At the peak, the scrap value of the quarter I found was about $10 (in 1980 dollars) – not a bad return for a couple of hours searching through a bag of quarters.

Silver and gold prices from September 1966 through September 1982 (in 2012 dollars).

I doubt that my dad made a lot of money scavenging silver coins from the bank’s bags of change, but he gave me a memory that makes me smile and reminds me of his good intentions. Dad was complicated and connections did not come easy between us. For Dad, this foray into treasure hunting via the local bank led to even more treasure hunting. His visits to the coin shop led to discovery of a local antique auction which led to his second career buying and selling estates. Along the way as he pursued his new found avocation, I joined him from time to time for trips to auctions and antique shops. We spent hours in the car driving the roads of Western North Carolina, eating at Shoney’s and, occasionally, finding something in common to talk about.

Like any teen would, I resisted my dad’s efforts to get me to tag along. I had better things to do. Now, at 47 with 17 year old daughters, I finally understand where he was coming from and I realize it was not about having someone to carry the boxes of antiques. My daughters are a bit more receptive to my attempts to spend time together, but I realize the chances to connect are fleeting. So, just like searching for those valuable silver coins with my dad so long ago, I am determined not to overlook a single chance to make those priceless connections with my daughters. 
Much remains a mystery, but I do comprehend that what dad did in dragging me to all those auctions and antique shops was show me how to be better dad. If he were here today, I would tell him thank you.