Toxic Sludge

Today was the start of the cleanup at our apartment building. MESSY!

I had expected to go along, quickly spray out the garages and help some neighbours remove some flooded stuff, and then head over to help friends who's beautiful house that they built just a year ago was completely flooded.

Boy was I wrong!
The sludge is thick, slimy, slippery, oily, smelly and sticky. And TOXIC! I tried not to think what was in it while spending the day ankle-deep with my nice new Merrell sandals and getting sprayed and splashed with it from head to toe.

The sludge is too thick to sweep easily so we started off picking the thickest of it up with shovels and carting it out in wheelbarrows, but that was a slow process. We then tried spraying it out with the firehose and chasing it out with brooms but that was also a slow process - Although it was easier to sweep the additional water meant there was so much more to get out. There was just so much of it - Each level of the garage area is about 40m by 40m so that's a lot of sludge..

There were 20-30 of us there the whole day and we didn't even finish the upper garages. We still need to clean out the lower-level garages, the pool room/gym, the sauna, the bathrooms, the entrance areas and the outside areas.

I was very happy to be able to come home to a nice clean house, and to have a hot bath with disinfectant and a shower.

Once our place is clean I will go help other people. This is going to take a while.

But people have been fantastic. Young and old people from the building were working really hard today. Someone organised pizzas and drinks for all the workers. Friends of residents came along to help. Strangers are driving around looking for people who need help. Lots of good spirit around.

I've added photos from today to our online album here.

Goodnight