We were really afraid of fires. These old houses are so close together that if one was set afire, the whole street would all go up. We lived in terror for a week.

We build all of our houses out of concrete blocks.

My husband believes there is. He's thinking five houses is enough. I'm thinking, no, it's not.

It's not about getting houses built. It's about people.

My suspicion is that people [at the open houses] may have been reluctant to put in a low bid directly to the owner, ... People are intimidated by that.

[Before the storm, business was so good that Harris had 24 houses in the works, 12 of them under contract to eager buyers. He employed 60 to 80 subcontracted workers on any given day, with a payroll running close to six figures each week because of the volume of work. On average, his team completed one house every other week.] Nobody had a bigger customer base than me, ... but because I was doing so well and had so much out and in progress, the properties are working against me right now.