For my best news stories, I often have “leftovers” that don’t easily fit into the story that actually gets published. Sometimes the problem is space, or sometimes it’s just a tangent that doesn’t fit into the “thesis.”
My trip to Mississippi was exactly one of those stories.
I jumped at the chance to tour Hurricane Katrina’s ground zero, where her eye passed over. Working moms like me usually don’t get the out-of-state assignments, especially ones that’ll mean a few days on the road. But this trip on Sept. 8, courtesy of the Florida National Guard, only took a day and at least gave me my own glimpse of what this mighty storm had done.
In that 13 hour whirlwind trip, I saw a lot in Hancock County (and its towns of Bay St. Louis, Waveland and Pearlington) and was happy that I included most of the key stuff in my story. But there are so many other things that you won’t read in the paper.
** I met two Pearlington men, native sons and retired iron workers, returning for the first time to their destroyed homes. Wayne Bounds greeted me, calling me “Little lady.”
Then he saw his old union buddy, Nolan Pansano.
“How’r you? I ain’t got shit.”
“I ain’t got shit either.”
And that’s how they dealt with the tragedy of losing nearly everything they owned, everything they worked their entire lives for. It was just a new fact of life.
** The most astounding evidence of Katrina’s wake – the bayfront homes completely ripped from their foundations.
Their framing and concrete and furniture and appliances were pushed into big piles by the railroad tracks as if a bulldozer had pushed it there.
And their belongings were flung in every direction. (Got one odd anecdote from the
local congressman, now homeless, whose son apparently likes to collect foreign machetes and found his mounted collection in a tree about a mile from where their house once was.)
This is what water and wind can do.
** There was mud everywhere indoors and it had a saltiness to its stank smell.
** The bayou country of Hancock County has some prime fishing, which would explain the dozens of boats I found scattered all over the place, even the one that somehow landed in a Burger King parking lot. (Sorry I don't have pictures of this. My frigging camera failed a few times that day.)
** The congressman also had a boat, which came in handy during the evacuation. As he headed inland to his brother’s farm, the Jourdan River was already rising well over its bank (18 feet). When the road became impassable, he unhooked the boat from the trailer and traveled that way. He knew where the roads were because the peak of the rooftops were still visible above the water line.
** One man who was at the airport (about 10 miles inland) when the storm struck and the place got flooded. He was walking on the runway when the eye passed, then he saw
white caps coming up the tarmac. Within minutes the airport office had 2 feet of water.
** There were acres and acres of pine trees, brown and dying from the salt water exposure. Along the Gulf, there were beautiful, majestic oaks – the ones that you envision from “Gone with the Wind” with the Spanish moss hanging from its branches. Most of them withstood the winds and stayed firmly planted, but they were just as good as dead, too.
** Odd sights like the U-Haul truck, which had a corner perfectly balanced on a 4X4 fence post. Or the cars piled on top of one another at a dealership. Or the dozens and dozens of cars, trucks, boats and trailers carried in the wave and moved a mile away.
** Nearly all the local residents I met had banked on their experience (or their parents' experience) with Hurricane Camille and learned the hard way that there could be a worse storm. As they evacuated, they made decisions based on what happened in 1969 (as in 'We only had 2 feet of water from Camille, so if you put it on that top shelf, it’ll be OK'), then realized how badly they underestimated Katrina.
I was told that one man fared better than others – the man with a 2-story home in the once ritzy Diamondhead subdivision (million dollar homes with a private airport). He was an engineer who built his house to exceed the wind speeds and storm surge of Camille. His house was the only one left standing in his subdivision, but he still got 13 feet more flooding than his house design had anticipated.
** Dozens of cars were parked at the foot of the decimated Bay St. Louis bridge (The storm peeled its concrete and asphalt roadway off the concrete pilings.) Soon after the storm, people realized that it was one of the few places where you could get a cell phone signal. So now everyone goes there to make their phone calls.
** The incredible operation of the Florida National Guard. They come into the disaster zone, totally self-contained, able to manage their needs and their mission. And when you have a disaster wrecking all the infrastructure, you have to bring your own.
And they are STYLING with their setup.
At their “Camp Haywood,” in Bay St. Louis, I got to see their air conditioned tents, their shower tent, their internet tent (access via satellite), their mondo generator (capable of powering an entire city block), and their water purification system (reverse osmosis purifier, no less).
Here the “Red Horse” unit – a battalion of engineer wizards – is setting up washing machines for the camp.
I also got to eat the
updated MRE - which proved to be a fascinating little science experiment. The heating pad for the meal is activated by saltwater. You put the sealed meal in a bag, pour in the salt water, close the bag, shake it and after some patient waiting, VOILA! – a heated bowl of chicken with noodles in gravy.
I also got to see a real latrine too, though the batallion had already upgraded to port-a-potties.
It was a massive, complex operation (the logistics of it are simply mind-boggling), but it is one of the few government operations where I walked out and thought – “This is an excellent way to spend my taxpayer dollars.”
The whole experience is indescribable really. There aren’t enough words to explain what this disaster. And the news photos and news video have been excellent, but it just doesn’t do it justice.
It was frightening, awe-inspiring, and very humbling. You can be sure I’m not going to be riding out too many hurricanes from now on.
