DIY Network

Operation Home Delivery, Part I From "Assembly Required" episode DASR-212

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, it destroyed over 500,000 homes and was recorded as one of the worst storms in history. The Carrington family in Louisiana was one of many families forced to live in a badly damaged and unsafe house.

advertisement

	Figure A
	Figure B
	Figure C
	Figure D

House Frame Construction

The Carringtons and thousands of other families need help recovering from the damage. Volunteers from across the country are gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in a massive hurricane relief effort. It's Habitat for Humanity's Operation Home Delivery, and the goal is to build 51 house frames in just six days (figure A). Habitat construction specialist Jillian Gross came all the way from Detroit to lead teams of inexperienced volunteers. Jillian, along with Habitat leaders Craig Erzen and Mike Schwartz, quickly give the volunteers a tutorial in "Hammering 101," and the rookies are ready to build walls...and rebuild lives.

In order to accomplish their goal, they've turned the National Mall into a prefab factory (figure B)! It starts with the cut station where volunteer Dan Garan prepares all the header material. The boards are then stacked in piles for volunteers to move to the build decks and lay out ready for assembly. Volunteers nail them together to create the prefabricated walls...walls that will soon be shipped down to the Gulf Coast to help the rebuilding process.

Volunteers have found their rhythm as they raise the entire side wall. The novice carpenters finally have the swing of things, as they build letter-by-letter. Loads of progress has been made after only a few hours and the puzzle pieces start to look like a house.

Jillian rounds everyone up for the big finale...raising the last wall (figure C). The volunteers then go through the standing house and write words of encouragement to the future homeowners on the prefab walls.

It's time to take the walls down, load them up on trucks (figure D) and ship them down to the Gulf Coast. The volunteer-friendly prefabricated walls will be a big help for the volunteers in Louisiana. Each wall is marked with a different number so once the walls are shipped down, the volunteers know exactly where each wall goes. That will be a big help when they have to build the Carrington's house.

RESOURCES :

Habitat for Humanity International
Website: www.Habitat.org

Bayou Area Habitat for Humanity
Website: www.bayouhabitat.org

The American Red Cross
Website: www.redcross.org

FEMA
Website: www.fema.gov

Streamline Films
Website: www.streamlinefilms.com