Volunteers, sweat equity, $4.5 million rebuild Lafitte a year after Hurricane Ida

Corinne Percle stood in the middle of a framed-up room, at the rear of a half-finished house, on Oak Drive in Jean Lafitte on Saturday. She pointed to where the closets and bathroom will be when the build is finished.

"This will be my room," the 58-year-old resident said, laughingly admitting that she'll let her husband, Darrell, share it with her.

Their master bedroom was the first stop on a tour of the 1,000-square-foot house, one of 60 that the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity hopes to build in a region that Hurricane Ida scourged a year ago. The nonprofit has pledged $4.5 million to the project.

As the diminutive Percle weaved her way through workers, she showed a visitor where the laundry closet, pantry and a second bedroom, for her seven-year-old granddaughter, will be. In the living area, she cast her eyes upward at the house's nine-foot ceilings.

"I guess I won't be changing the light bulbs," she joked.

Ida was the one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike Louisiana, and the fifth most expensive in United States history. Before the storm pushed a wall of water and mud over the Lafitte area's short levees on Aug. 29, damaging an estimated 90% of the homes, the Percles lived in a trailer. When they returned to see what was left, Corinne Percle said, they found the trailer intact but mold growing all the way up to the ceiling.

The couple had evacuated before the storm, first to their daughter's house in Marrero. More recently, they have been living in a lodge owned by Corinne Percle's employer, a fishing business. Her husband's employer has not returned.

Their new house provides a ray of excitement at the end of difficult stretch.

"I'm so excited," Corinne Percle said. "I come by almost every day."

The Percles' story is one that is set to be repeated over the next three years, as Habitat for Humanity builds houses across an area where about one third of the residents have still not overcome Ida damage.

"It doesn't get better than this," Jean Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner Jr. said as he walked through the Percles' house.

Construction on the house began around the first of August, said Brad Holland, Habitat's construction manager, and should be completed by early November. Weather and supply chain issues conspired to push the finish date beyond Ida's first anniversary. Two more houses on the same street could break ground soon.

In a departure from its normal practice, Habitat is not buying the land where it is building houses. Instead, the residents own the land and the nonprofit plans to sell the houses to them via a no-interest loan. It aims to keep most mortgage notes at about $500 per month, to Executive Director Marguerite Oestreicher said. The homeowners may also agree to provide a down payment in the form of a "sweat equity," which often means working on other Habitat projects.

More than 100 residents have inquired about the program. They must first complete an application. Then, it's normally a couple of months of paperwork and other tasks, such as saving for insurance and taxes, before construction begins.

Once the homeowner is approved, Habitat will build a house that, like the Percles', is designed to be more resistant to hurricanes. Each will be at least 12 feet off the ground, with framing and roofs reinforced to hold in high winds.

On Saturday morning, Holland pointed to the 2x14 boards that support the floor of the house; normally, those would be 2x10 or 2x12, he said. Too, the house is banded together, to make it stronger, he said, and the windows are designed to withstand impacts.

"All elements of the house are interconnected, strapped and reinforced," Holland said.

Hurricane resistance is important to Percle. But she's also looking forward to how the house will look when finished. She picked out the colors: a light gray roof and darker gray exterior. Inside: gray floors and white cabinets.

"I love gray," she said. "It's my favorite color."