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Retired KGS geologist helped with hurricane clean up

Even six weeks after Hurricane Katrina had slammed into the Gulf Coast , Don Chesnut says, the amount of work which still needed to be done in the small coastal city of Bayou La Batre , Alabama caught him off guard.

“I was surprised at how extensive the damage was over such a large area. I was surprised at the water damage,” Chesnut says. “Bayou La Batre had a large storm surge, and I saw all these big boats still piled up onto land.”

Though now retired from the Kentucky Geological Survey, Chesnut still does research work for the Survey and serves as an adjunct professor in the Geological Sciences Department.

But when his church, Hunter Presbyterian in Lexington , contacted him in September about the need for people with chainsaws to help cut and remove fallen trees from coastal areas, Chesnut was ready to go. In fact, he says he plans to return and hopes to organize other campus volunteers to go, too.

Chesnut says he spent most of the nearly two weeks he was in Bayou La Batre cutting and removing trees from around the homes of mostly elderly low-income people.

“Some of them were still in shock; some of them were crying; they were so happy to see someone was there to help them. I think just talking to them helped them quite a bit,” Chesnut adds.

Though a church in the area provided him food and shelter, Chesnut says the conditions in areas where he worked were challenging: The odor from mold and rotting food inside homes which had been under water was “like a slap in the face” he recalls.

“And not only did you have to cut down the trees, you had to wade through all this trash that the storm surge had carried in.” That “trash” included furniture and cars.

Chesnut urges people interested in helping coastal cities with recovery to contact reputable organizations, such as churches or civic groups which are already organizing volunteer labor. Such organizations, he says, know where the help is needed and can provide the necessities of life while volunteers are there.

Don Chesnut prepares micro-fossil slides in his office at KGS after returning from the hurricane-damaged Alabama Gulf Coast.

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Don Chesnut is working with the Presbyterian Church in the Gulf Coast area to organize another trip to help in cleanup and recovery from this summer's hurricanes. He is looking for any interested KGS or UK faculty and staff who might want to travel to the area during the week of December 26, when the university is closed for the holidays. They may contact Mike Lynch at the Geological Survey.