Our story begins on August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. I, Margarito Paz, owner of Paz Demo, Inc. was working as a Supervisor for a local, Bay Area demolition company that was going to send 5 trucks to Louisiana and help out with the clean-up.  The owner of the company asked if I would go to New Orleans on my almost minimum wage salary and live in a trailer with 5 other guys with no running water. My answer was only as your 50/50 partner. He then proceeded to fire me by telling me that he didn't need me locally since most of his trucks were going to be in New Orleans. He asked what I was going to do. I replied that I was going to buy, build 5 trucks, and find someone else to go to New Orleans with. A week later we were partners and two  weeks later we were in the middle of all that destruction Mother Nature left in the Gulf Coast. My old boss called it quits after two weeks and left us to fend for ourselves. We stuck it out until April, 2006 when we returned home.

With all the red tape and bureaucracy, we lost the shirts off our backs on this endeavor but it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. It forced me to get my contractor's license, start Paz Demo, Inc., and grow it into a Demolition and Dumpster Rental Company. In our time in New Orleans, we worked the Lower 9th Ward and in Biloxi, Mississippi as you can see in the pictures of the Casino Barges that were destroyed.