“I hope we get some rain,” I thought as looked at the National Hurricane Center’s evening forecast. Katrina had grown into a monster storm, nearly the size of Texas, but it was heading to the east of us. Orange Beach, Alabama was in the Cone of Uncertainity’s crosshairs. “We’ll be on the dry side.” I thought.
I was so damned naive about tropical systems back then.
Then I saw Jim Cantore pointing at the Treasure Bay pirate ship casino and the coast and saying, “Look around, this will never look the same again.”
Jim was right.
As you know, Katrina went further west. It clipped Louisiana before slamming into Mississippi. The entire length of the Coast was obliterated by the storm’s 30ft. surge. New Orleans sank beneath the water pouring through compromised levees. Here in Jackson, well, we had high winds and rain for nearly 12 hours.
I was in the newsroom when I heard that there was water on the second floor of the Beau Rivage casino. That was around 10 a.m. — and that was the moment I knew the Mississippi Gulf Coast would never be the same again. The storm’s eye and huge wind field battered Hattiesburg and Laurel as it headed toward Jackson. It turned right and passed just to our east. I drove home around noon and a trip that should have taken 25 minutes took and hour and a half. I had an interstate sign fly off its posts and toward my car. Two trees nearly crushed my car. Thankfully I had a full tank of gasoline — that would come in handy down the road.
My house was spared except for a little minor damage. Many of my friends weren’t so lucky. And God knows the people on the Coast suffered. First from the storm and its immediate after effects. Then it was from being pretty much ignored by the national media as the man-made tragedy in New Orleans horrifically unfolded on live TV. Katrina was an equalizer — poor, rich and middle class all wandered around like zombies as casino barges and rotting chicken sat where their homes once were. At one point when I was down at Camp Coast Care working, 50% of the people who came in were in shock — and this was in DECEMBER!
Today, there are people on the Coast who are still struggling with long-term trauma caused by Katrina. While I contend the folks on the Coast are among the most resilient around, it is also important to realize how much long-term damage Katrina actually did. PTSD comes in many shapes and sizes — and I am sure there are people self-medicating their way through each day because of what they lost.
I used to go to Sunday school a lot as a kid but I’ve never seen the Good Book come to life any better than I did after that storm. People of all faiths came to Mississippi to help the recovery process. I always said that organizations who had a plan didn’t after that day. No one could prepare for the scale of the destruction. But volunteers came in and filled in the gaps.
After one trip to the Coast, my priest and I stopped at a convenience store north of Wiggins. I looked at the knick knacks for sale at the counter and spied a snow globe that was the same as one I had seen half buried in the muck. While I like my stuff, it was at that moment I was reminded that it is just that — stuff. Standing where six people had drowned also reminded me of what truly is important in life.
The response to Katrina was when I understood what is special about the people of Mississippi. The giving spirit of so many served as a balm for all Katrina took away.
I’ll leave with this one story. I asked one home owner about an old truck that laid battered and rusted in a yard. “Was that one of your old antique trucks,” I asked him. He shook his head and said, “No, the best we can tell, Hurricane Camille sucked it out to sea in 1969 and Katrina brought it back.”
P.S. We got rain although I don’t know if my grass ever got wet. The rain that did fall blew sideways. My trees did the hula and I pray to God I never see another storm like Katrina again.
My husband and a I lived on a small street in Long Beach, near the Pass Christian line. Katrina wiped us all out, except for the two or three houses at the far north end of our subdivision. We were beyond blessed that no one perished that day, since we were ordered to evacuate. So many of our neighbors moved away and never came back. Even sadder, to my knowledge, 10 of our sweet neighbors have passed away since that awful day, one as young as 52 years old, and one being my precious husband.
To this day, I cannot bear to drive down my old street. It still looks like Katrina hit yesterday. Only 1 lot has been built on, and the last I saw, the new owner had it up for sale. I pay my taxes on the lot, and have it mowed regularly, even attempted to sell it once. No bites. So, although it’s been 14 years, and a lot of healing and progress has taken place, there are some wounds that Katrina left that remain unhealed. I’m not sure if they will ever be, at least in my lifetime.
My heart is with you as you continue to heal and this is one of the best examples of what people on the Coast are still going through. Thank you for sharing.