Behind the Door

Inside, Todd stands still, looking around and practically chanting to himself. "It's gone, it's gone, my house is gone."

His dressers are overturned and broken. A slimy boxspring has been knocked out of the frame of his four-poster-bed. Lamps, pictures and shoes litter the floor like pieces of a puzzle. Throughout the house, the floor is slick with mud and feces, and the stench triggers a gag reflex. An 8 1/2 -foot-high waterline rings the 10-foot walls. The patches of mold are so thick it looks like the walls have been papered with colonies of moths.

"My God, I didn't expect this," Todd says.

He starts working frantically, trying to open dresser drawers and digging through debris with his bare hands. He unearths a watch and a dirty gold cross. He finds the canister with his first dogs' cremated ashes. Stuffed butterflies and stars still hang from the ceiling in his daughter's room, and he steps on her upended bed to reach a waterlogged doll.

He clears a path to the front door and walks silently back to the truck to put on his protective gear. He goes back into the house and removes his three pistols. He carries out waterlogged family pictures and parts of his Coke bottle and beer memorabilia collection. His friends just look on quietly.

"After a day or two, when he realizes he's lost everything, the depression kicks in," says Mark. He went through the same thing when he first returned to his own house two weeks ago.

"It's going to hit him hard tomorrow and the next day," says Andre.

The afternoon sun beats down on his head and Todd continues his silent, sweating work. Every so often a slight putrid breeze stirs the air. It's the smell of all his hope for the trip.