Katrina

I went to Mississippi to help my brother and sister deal with the flooding from the hurricane. I really don’t know how to describe it. In some ways, it was like going to a funeral. I did enjoy my time with my brother and sister, but it was not the best of circumstances. It was really hard to be down there. So many people lost so much. In my sister’s neighborhood, everyone around had piled all of their ruined possessions up on the curbside. All the piles looked pretty much the same. We were able to finish cleaning out my sister’s 1-story house that had about 7.5 feet of water in it. We got all the carpet, drywall, and insulation out. Now it can dry out for a while. I should be salvagable from this point. We created a pile of all of her possesions. It was about 8 feet tall, 20 feet wide, and 60 feet long.

We took a slight detour and went down to the ocean front. The most shocking thing was all of the clothes and other garbage that was hanging from the trees. Most of the houses on the beach front were completely destroyed. Everything except the foundation from these houses was piled up a few hundred yards from the shore where the water had dropped it. All in all, Ocean Springs was not hit as hard as anything west of there. I can’t even imagine what places like Bay St. Louis and Waveland must look like.

My parents, 200 miles from the coast, saw hurricane force winds. The entire drive down from Starkville to the coast was littered with damage from the hurricane, ots of trees down, lots of roofs damaged. In places around 100 miles from the coast, the wind was strong enough to completely destroy traffic lights. Parts of the coast weren’t hit quite as hard, but I don’t think I saw a single traffic sign that wasn’t bent in one way or another.

The military presence was intimidating. However, there were also many signs around about shooting looters. I don’t know what the looting was like immediately after the storm, but people down there seemed to be prepared to stop it.

I really thank Jonathan and Daniel for going down with me. Without them, there would have been no way that we could have gotten so much done at my sister’s. Unfortunately, I was not able to help my brother as much as I would have liked.

My sister is now living in a travel trailer in her back yard. She will probably be out of her house for well over a year. My brother is able to live in his house. He has had to replace all of his appliances and will end up removing all of the drywall and insulation below about 2 feet in his house.

I asked both of them what people should do if they wanted to help. The best answer is probably simply give to the American Red Cross. You can make an online donation here.