It looks like Beirut.” That’s how Wilmington, Del., environmental scientist Kim Gould summed up her first impression of New Orleans after last fall’s hurricanes.

Gould, AG ’87, made two trips to the Gulf Coast to assist with environmental assessment and remediation efforts in the region after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

She willingly volunteered for the hazardous assignment.  Gould says her 13-year-old son, Evan, was greatly moved by the news coverage of the hurricanes, and she promised him that if she had the chance, she would travel to the region to help. “To see something terrible happen and be able to go there with my experience and assist was very rewarding,” Gould says. “I’ve been an environmental scientist for almost 20 years, and this was definitely the high point of my career.”

On the initial trip, the first thing Gould noticed when she got off the plane was blood stains in the airport carpeting from the facility’s earlier use as an evacuation center. The day she arrived at her hotel, which overlooked the Superdome, was the first day that water there had been tested and determined to be safe for use. The hotel staff and their families lived at the hotel, Gould says, because their homes had been destroyed. Most disturbing, though, she says, were the countless spray-painted signs on houses with messages such as: “Please save my children.”   

Gould, who is a contractor with an environmental consulting firm, put in 15-hour days working on remediation and clean-up efforts during her 12-day stay in an area just below Lafayette, La. She joined environmental scientists and technicians from all across the country who were sent to the Gulf to manage environmental issues, serving under subcontracts with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.   

She spent most of her time in small farming, fishing and shrimping towns along the Gulf Coast that had suffered more from Hurricane Rita than Katrina. There, Gould assessed and supervised the removal of materials that had washed ashore from ships and nearby refineries, including oil drums and shipping containers that were scattered about in streets, farm fields and back yards.

“The drums, tanks and pails that we were going to remove were monitored with a piece of equipment that detects organic vapors, explosive vapors and the like to determine if they could be safely transported,” she says. “Our team would collect samples of ‘unknowns,’ or unlabeled items, that were brought back to the storage area so they could be characterized and disposed of safely.

“It wasn’t unusual for me to go to a front door—presuming there was still a door to go to—and ask the homeowner if the 10,000-gallon storage tank in their yard belonged to them. And, if not, could I take it away for them,” Gould says.  

The EPA hired heavy equipment and operators to haul out the larger tanks and debris. In addition to removing the hazardous materials, they moved tons of other debris that homeowners found in their fields and homes—including wood, glass, animal carcasses, cars, marsh grass and mud—that made access nearly impossible.

It was hot, hard and, at times, dangerous work, Gould says. Snakes, including poisonous ones, hung from the trees, glided across the waterways and coiled in the dense tangles of reeds that had been washed inland. Gould and her colleagues wore snake chaps to protect against snakebites and steel shanks in their wading boots to protect against injury from hurricane debris. 

One afternoon, while she was busy cataloging hazardous debris in a farm field, Gould was charged by a bull. “Luckily, it was a young bull and we were able to scare it away,” Gould says. Later that same day, she got stuck in the mud in an all-terrain vehicle.

“There was mud all way up to the top of the tires,” Gould says. “To make matters worse, we were miles from our site trailer and our radio signals didn’t work. The mud was like glue; we had to literally crawl our way through this bayou muck.” 

Gould also had to contend with “horrific” mosquito conditions and stench from animal carcasses that littered almost every field. But, these inconveniences were trivial, she says. “How can I complain about anything after seeing the devastation that these people are dealing with?”

The residents of this region are “tough Cajuns but they’ve been beaten down a little,” Gould says.  She’s still haunted by the memory of an old woman who was wandering down a street, fruitlessly searching for her beloved sewing machine. And Gould recalls the surreal image of a treadmill standing in a field, far from any house or building, that still had an undisturbed drink in the cup holder. 

Upon returning to Wilmington, the first thing Gould says she did was “hug my husband and kid and then take a long, hot shower.” But, she’s eager to return to the Gulf region. “These people need so much help. I’m happy to be able to make things a little better for them.”

by Margo McDonough AS ’86, ’95M