I commend these men for doing this smelly job, thanks to them and hats off to them.

Dumping?

I'm a bit surprised by the number of refrigerators that are being dumped. Before leaving on a month long vacation from our home in Florida, my husband helpfully unplugged the microwave. Except it wasn't the microwave, it was the fridge. We came home a month later, in August, to a home that reeked! It never occurred to me to just dump the fridge. Gagging, we cleaned the sludge from the inside, sprayed the whole thing repeatedly with bleach water, and placed boxes of baking soda on the back of each shelf. I must admit that for the first month, I put everything that was in the fridge inside a plastic container, and wiped down the inside with bleach almost daily. But it was a perfectly functional fridge before it lost power, and it is still working today.

Dumping??? What happened to recycling?

My prayers are with these men as they work through a problem that most Americans have not given much attention to.

Finally!! A disciplined, orderly news article written excellently. Nice job, Ms. Huus...the humor is deliciously suggestive, and "cool". Perfect combination of Title, Content and Delivery, to put it rather simply.

Anyway, ane excellent article that leaves me wondering where all that Freon and other stuff goes............DMD N.Arizona

This thread brings back horrific visceral images for me. I went down to East Biloxi on a work trip with the University of Dayton in October, and I was on 'fridge/appliance detail. My team duct-taped the seals around the doors, which helped a little bit, but water and dissolved food still leaked out everywhere. We hauled the appliances out on the street for pick up. I thought that I would get accustomed to the smell, but I never did. The only way to get some kind of relief is to double-up your respirator, and coat the inside of it with Vick's Vapo-Rub.

At the first home we worked on, the appliance team and the rest of the group gutted the inside of the house and placed its contents out on the sides of the street. Towards the end of the project, a gentelman from the fire department told us that we did the wrong thing - we didn't separate applicances, hazmat materials, furniture, and "trash." Moreover, we exceeded the three-foot encroachment limit set by the city for street access. It was quite disheartening to move everything back; we were never told prior to keep things separated and within certain boundaries.

If we did not meet this criteria, ALL OF THE ITEMS removed from the house would be bulldozed back into the front yard. We complied, but it would have been nice to have known the rules beforehand...

It is definitely a dirty job, but I'd give anything to go back and help dig more refrigerators out. Those folks down there need manpower more than money.

Ms. Huus - I have approx 120 pictures from my trip if you want to use them in an article for your Mississippi coverage.

After the flood of '93, my parent's refrigerator floated around in the basement for almost 2 weeks. When we got the water out, we washed it, disinfected it, dried it, plugged it in and it worked great. Why throw all those refrigerators away? Surley some resourceful contractor could do what we did. And how many of these refrigerators were actually submerged in flood water for 2 weeks?

The compressor is in the bottom of most refridgerators. If it goes under water it may or may not work after drying out; and it may not work for long. It is pretty easy to say that a refridgerator can be cleaned up and reused but you should try it sometime. The stench is quite a deterrent to cleaning something which might not even work. As far as the question of "dumping" the compacted hulks, I hope they meant that these would be recycled but scrap steel prices are very low. It is important to not pollute with the oil and freon from these appliances but recycling steel is a pretty low priority considering how much it costs compared to the return.

Some people can never be happy. At least the clean up is on the way and good things are starting to happen for thes people. Some of you people have nothing better to do then find fault with everything.

I have been working in the Hancock county area for the last 3 months since the storm. You do get used to the smell, I remember seeing voulenteer groups bringing out refer units that had been sealed for two months and then opened up. I laughed as everyone ran and almost puked....This is the smell I have gotten used to, and I don't wear a respirator. I am part of the debris clean up. I would like to thank the people that come here from the different church groups to help. Some of these people still need help, and its four months since the storm. If you haven't been here you would not believe how bad things still are here