The New Battle Of New Orleans - Residents Vs. Mold - LA Times

NEW ORLEANS -- The Longue Vue estate, with its English furnishings, Turkish rugs, blown-glass chandeliers and oil paintings, is on life support. Hundreds of yards of air-duct hoses run through doors and into cellars, trying to save the mansion from Hurricane Katrina's long-lasting remnant: mold.

The storm flooded the flower-studded grounds, swamped the wine cellar and buried the gardener's quarters in muck. Two months after Kartina, workers are at war with creeping moisture, trying to repel stench and rot from the Greek Revival mansion and museum in Old Metairie, a National Historic Landmark.

New Orleans -- the perennially flooded city platted amid sea, lake, swamp and river -- has always battled mold. But since Katrina inundated 80 percent of the city, moisture's assault has hit an all-time high, and a busy army of "mold remediation" crews have come from around the country to dry homes, businesses, schools and churches.

"We've had floods before," says preservationist Daniel Brown Jr., "but nothing like this where houses sat in water for two, three weeks." A wet building is a moving target: The longer it sits, the worse the mold gets. "Get some air circulation going, get dehumidifiers going, the air conditioner, throw that carpet away," says Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. "If water is coming through the roof, you've got to fix the roof. If you've got a burst pipe, call the plumber. You've got to stop the source of moisture."

The drying-out cavalry rolled in an armada of trucks carrying miles of hoses, thermal imaging cameras and moisture meters. The crews talk enthusiastically about the properties of dew point, relative humidity and air circulation.


EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-katrina-drying-out,1,6581633.story

We had to tear out the carpet in the entire house. And they had blowers all over the house for a week. That was 8 hours. And it was clean, chlorinated city water, from a burst hose. And only a couple inches deep.

New Orleans was soaking in 20 feet of swamp water. For weeks. Mixed with raw sewage and toxic waste. Is it even possible to clean that up?

6 months until next Hurricane Season.

Though N.O. is even worse

Once there's a lot of water damage, its virtually impossible to get rid of the mold; and mold has very serious health effects.

tearing down or burning the house to the ground. It is an unfortunate thing to say. When you consider that NO was submerged in water for days at a time and compounded by a humid climate, molds will get everywhere, in between walls, in between floors, between siding and plywood, the list goes on. Taking out carpeting and the like is barely a band-aid solution.
I can't even imagine how bad the mold is or even what the health effects are. When mold gets THAT bad you are simply better off building new.
This is a pretty tall order considering the situation in New Orleans. I have never been there but I would have loved to go there at least once.