Michele Landis Dauber, a law professor at Stanford University who studies disaster-relief programs, said such a large undertaking could leave the group open to criticism depending on how it performs.
The one-room building contained a table with a porcelain top and a hide-bottomed chair, both sitting under an unfrosted light bulb hanging from the ceiling on a long cord, and Obie went in and scraped dust and fallen dirt-dauber nests off the table with the side of his hand.