The days are starting to merge but each night everyone seems to have a smile on their face. We begin each morning with a buffet of  hearty delights: eggs, bacon, grits, biscuits, and gravy, all with a side of oatmeal. The cooks here are determined to help us restore the calories we have lost in the field.

Our teams have been flying through the projects assigned to them by Ops. Gulf FOB is finishing up to 2-3 houses and hauling over 15 cubic yards of debris a day. We have commissioned a full time assessment crew just to keep up with the pace of our field crews.  We have also started to branch out to other counties around Gulf, including Franklin and Liberty counties. We have begun reaching out to the Emergency Operation Centers in those counties to let our presence be known and that we are here to help.

There have been some setbacks: lightning storms waking up our members up in the middle of the night, forcing us to evacuate to the restrooms for proper shelter; and several members contracting poison sumac.

Although this week hasn’t been the most pleasant for us, it hasn’t stopped our crews from finishing 30 project sites this week. We still end our day with an amazing dinner and a poem from one of the members. With the sky grey and our bellies full we laugh at our daily struggles and bond over matching rashes. At the end of  the day we remind ourselves why we are here and seeing the people we help makes it all worth it.