Katrina: The Storm Still Rages
The aftermath
Most people can't imagine the aftermath.
Imagine This
Stories like this got a lot of attention down here:
By UPI
Sep 19, 2005, 19:00 GMT
GULFPORT, MS, United States (UPI)—The mayor of Gulfport, Miss., has acknowledged he ordered the hot-wiring and theft of a gas tanker truck in the desperate hours after Hurricane Katrina struck.
Mayor Brent Warr told The Washington Post he put out the order three days after the Aug. 29 storm battered his Gulf Coast city, which is doubly ironic in that he ordered the city's police chief to do the deed.
Warr said he was aware of the truck's location, and decided to act when a hospital radioed that it was running low on fuel for its generator. He summoned Police Chief Stephen Barnes, who said he didn't know how to hot-wire a truck. Warr suggested someone in the city jail might, and 30 minutes later, the truck was delivering fuel, the newspaper said.
Soon after, when Warr was told there was a crisis in feeding some 500 first responders, he stole a stove. A nearby restaurant and catering company had a portable kitchen parked in a storage lot. Warr ordered the locks cut and installed the kitchen next to City Hall, where it has been in service since, with the owner's permission.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
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Tuesday morning brought an incredible double rainbow. We packed up and left for home. Not one single business in the city of Jackson was open.
We headed south on Highway 49 and passed smashed cars, trucks and houses. We managed to pass around the blown over trees in the road.
After what seemed like hours, the highway patrol forced us to turn around and head back north. The road was no longer passable.
Blown Trees in the Road
I took this out our car window.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation workers had to clear the highways as people waited to be able to drive on them.
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We tried another route and for most of the day followed some emergency workers all the way to Hattiesburg. They had a truck load of workers and chainsaws and cleared a path on the interstate just wide enough for our vehicles.
We got about a mile away from my aunt's house. Then we had to leave the car and walk through debris to find my family. It was the worst feeling in the world. Huge trees had crushed nearly everything—cars, houses.
We Walked the Rest of the Way
I'm standing in front of an uprooted tree in Hattiesburg.
This is where we had to leave our car (the blue one in the background) and walk the rest of the way to my aunt's house.
Before Katrina hit, my dad, my brother and my grandmother had packed up what they could and driven 90 miles north to my aunt's house in Hattiesburg to wait out the storm.
My dad and my brother had already left to go home when we finally got to Hattiesburg, so we missed them. My aunt assured us that they were fine, and we got to be with my grandmother again.
It was worth the walk!
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What a relief! Trees had fallen all around my aunt's house, but everyone was alive and well!
Trees Fell
Trees fell around my cousin's house in Hattiesburg, where my brother, dad and grandmother stayed during Katrina. By the time my mom and I got there, my brother and dad had left to try to get home.
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By late afternoon, text messages were starting to trickle through on the cell phones, but we were not receiving any good news from my dad and brother, who had finally made it home.
Not Good News from Home
My dad and my brother finally got to Moss Point, but they said that getting to our house proved to be a little more challenging. Fallen trees, debris and mud covered everything. They finally did get a path cleared to our house, but what they found was indescribable!
They tried to send several text messages, but just did not know what to say. When they finally pushed the back door open, they found the refrigerator on its side in the doorway. The house was a total disaster.
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My cousin Benjamin and I are looking out from the Hwy. 90 bridge between Ocean Springs and Biloxi.
A Bridge Was Here
It's amazing that wind and water can move concrete this thick!
The remains of the Ocean Springs Yacht club are just beyond the bridge.
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Destruction
We were anxious to get home. We loaded up some extra water and supplies and started driving south. Although there was some destruction, the road was quiet and pretty cleared of trees and debris.
To our surprise, we found the highway leading south out of Hattiesburg was in much better condition than those north of Hattiesburg. We were able to drive home without incident or difficulties and the main road into Moss Point had even been cleared by the time we arrived.
We were starting to have hope, but then we got to our house and found it nearly destroyed. Hurricane winds had uprooted trees, blown shingles off of the roof, and taken down power lines and street signs.
Almost Five Feet of Flood Water
Our house is an old house that is about two feet off of the ground. Once we got past the debris to our back door, we found that four and a half feet of flood water inside our home had swirled everything we owned into a mud-covered mess.
You couldn't see any floors—there was almost a foot of mud. The storm surge had knocked doors off their hinges, turned over furniture and moved it to other rooms.
The stench that filled the air made us sick. The severely damaged city water and sewer system had backed up into homes, including ours. It was difficult to breathe and difficult to comprehend what had happened to us.
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Thus began our days of shoveling and throwing out belongings...turning into days of knocking out walls and tearing up flooring. Like most of our neighbors, we stacked up everything at the curb.
Everyone Stacked Their Stuff on the Curb
Waiting for FEMA.
We stacked everything up at the curb (clockwise from top left):
- Our belongings;
- Our living room furniture;
- Debris we pulled off in order to rebuild;
- My bedroom furniture.
My bedroom furniture belonged to my great-great-great grandmother when she was a child.
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What a horrible sight! Everything we owned was a pile of garbage, waiting to be hauled away to a dump somewhere. We had no water or power.
No Water, No Power
With no water or power, the only way to remove the sludge from our bodies was to go to the river and wash off with water contaminated with debris and waste.
Our food and water supplies were running out and the heat was becoming too much for my grandmothers. One's car was destroyed and both of them suffered damage to their homes.
In spite of their losses, we were fortunate that we were all able to stay in one of their homes while we worked on ours. 
True or False: Franklin started his experiments with electricity early in his life when he about 25 years old.
Click Ben's head for the answer.
FALSE: He started his electricity experiments after her was 45 years old.
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age 18
Moss Point, MS
WRITTEN BY:
Liz
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