by Pam Worner, ABC Green Council Chair
I’m writing this from New Orleans, site of the National Association of Home Builders’ Green Building Conference. I hadn’t been to New Orleans since well before Katrina, and after a day of volunteering with the local Rebuilding Together chapter and a day touring green homes all over the area, I find myself experiencing a mix of “shock and awe.”
“Shock” at the appalling state of so many of the city’s residential neighborhoods, nearly three years after the levees broke:
- Barefoot children play on porches next to abandoned wrecks still bearing the spray-painted symbols of the number of bodies recovered inside.
- The skyline is peppered with thick clumps of overgrown vegetation that you suddenly realize are roofs.
- Gutted houses with nothing inside but rotted framing and mushy floors and no doors or barriers to keep people out sit down the street from bright, shiny new McDonald’s.
“Awe” at the resilience of the groups who are making progress accomplishing goals many of us would find insurmountable:
- At Rebuilding Together’s makeshift salvage warehouse, volunteer crews (including us) sweat through long days in 90-degree heat and humidity to de-nail lumber, measure windows and doors, and sort nails and screws for use in their 37 current projects and for affordable purchase by residents in need. Unlike other Rebuilding Together chapters, this one now operates year-round and plans to rebuild 150 homes this year alone in five of the hardest-hit areas of the city.
- Louisiana State University’s architecture students are building a village of demonstration homes to educate builders and residents about nontraditional building systems like structural insulated panels, insulated concrete forms, and steel framing, that are designed to withstand storms and flooding. As one local builder says, “The greenest home is the one you don’t have to rebuild.”
- Everyone knows Brad Pitt is here, but locals told us about several other wealthy individuals who are quietly funding massive rebuilding efforts out of their own pockets without seeking any publicity for it, including actor Sean Penn and one of the founders of the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain.
In today’s New Orleans, “green building” isn’t about appearance – it’s about performance. It means finding a way to incorporate a drainage plane into an old “shotgun” house’s wall system to keep out the city’s rainfall of 60 inches per year when you only have access from inside the wall (you can’t remove the original exterior siding because a historical preservation grant is paying for the work). It means reducing the energy costs of the home so the occupant can afford to live there, now that her monthly insurance bill is larger than her mortgage.
As one local builder told us, “New Orleans has become one big laboratory for how to build better.” We all have a lot to learn.
To find out more about helping to rebuild the great city of New Orleans, here are some resources: Rebuilding Together - New Orleans: www.rtno.org; Global Green USA has a few New Orleans projects they focus on: http://www.globalgreen.org/programs/neworleans/index.html; Brad Pitt’s rebuilding the 9th Ward in New Orleans project: www.MakeItRightNOLA.org In addition to chairing ABC’s Green Council, Pam is “Top Dog” of Green Dog Enterprises, Inc., a consulting firm providing third-party project verification and green marketing services.