We are proud to share that our efforts to promote resilient rebuilding in Lake Charles through the Disaster Justice Network have been recognized on local news!
View the news segment here: https://www.kplctv.com/2021/06/12/how-experts-are-saying-prepare-your-home-next-storm/
Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) – Experts are saying now is the time to revamp your home and protect it from the next storm.
Some of those experts came to Lake Charles to work on an 18th Street home. Other disaster relief volunteers have been gutting the home out. Now that the foundation is exposed, it’s the perfect time to make cost-effective remedies that will protect it from future storms.
“While you’re recovering, it takes time and so forth. But doing a bit more can really get you ready for the next storm,” Tim Reinhold said.
Reinhold is a retired research engineer who is volunteering his time with the Disaster Justice Network, an organization that has partnered with Southwest Louisiana Responds to not only help rebuild homes but also share rebuilding techniques to better homes for future storms.
“It’s very important that we have organizations like this, professors like this and experts like this to come in, because here’s the reality – this was not the first hurricane and it probably won’t be the last one,” Braylon Harris with Southwest Louisiana Responds said. “We’re getting that expertise. We’re getting the information. We’re getting those best practices to make sure that we’re helping people build back, respond, recover, but do it in a more resilient way.”
Harris said that the volunteers are hoping to take what they’ve learned to better homes and share information to help others do the same
“I know I can go back and I can teach the students out there, my colleagues, and we can use this as a teaching tool,” volunteer Covington Thompson said, an architecture-construction science graduate student at Prairie View A&M University.
Thompson said that being able to teach others how to build stronger homes will set the standard for future homes – from the roof, all the way down to the floor.
“Do you just keep giving people fish, or do you teach them how to fish? So, we’re trying to give people the opportunity to learn how to do the things when it’s most cost-effective,” Reinhold said.
For more resources on Disaster Justice Network’s Resilient Disaster Rebuild Techniques, CLICK HERE.