Students help re-build homes destroyed by Katrina

Purdue Calumet students Daniel Gil, Jason Vargo and William Torres.

After recently helping rebuild homes in Hurricane Katrina-devastated Mississippi, three Purdue University Calumet construction technology students, by their own admission, returned home with a rebuilt perspective on life.

Jason Vargo of Munster, William Torres of Schererville and Daniel Gil of East Chicago were among a group of five students who went with Purdue Calumet Professor of Civil Engineering Technology Anthony Gregory to Ocean Springs, Miss. for one week to help clean and re-build homes damaged or destroyed by the hurricane.

"After being down there you realize that these people lost everything, and I do mean everything, and it sort of puts life into perspective," Vargo said. "Up here, we complain about the smallest things going wrong in our lives and, trust me, I now know it can be a whole lot worse.

According to Gil, their work involved throwing away anything that got wet; tearing out any dry wall that had mold on it; and spraying studs with a mixture of bleach, soap and water to kill any remaining mold.

"Everyday we worked hard and kept each other motivated," Gil said. "I believe the key element to our success was that we all had experience in construction, so we knew what needed to be done."

Prof. Gregory said the students did an outstanding job.

"All five students worked extremely hard all the while we were in Ocean Springs," he said. "Our crew became known as 'THE' crew. I received numerous compliments from other volunteers regarding the effort put forth by our group. I was really proud of all five of the guys. They represented themselves, Purdue Calumet's Department of Construction Management and Engineering Technologies and the University exceptionally well."

Torres said that helping out was a rewarding experience, but discarding people's flood-damaged possessions was not.

"One of the houses we worked on was completely demolished with clothes and rubble scattered everywhere," he said. "We were literally shoveling out clothes, electronics and very personal items belonging to the home owner in front of the home owner, which gave me a weird sort of feeling in my gut. I felt like we were helping, but at the same time it was sad to be just dumping their belongings out into a wheel barrow."

The two other students who participated are David Carlotta of Crown Point and Matthew Gorman of St. John.