Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Hurricane Katrina before making landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Do you know where you were four years ago today?  I do.

Bryan and I were not in agreement about what we should do as Hurricane Katrina churned its way through the Gulf. I wanted to evacuate.  He wanted to ride it out.  After all, Katrina was only Cat 3, he explained.  We weren’t looking at a Hurricane Camille.

He had a point.  When Camille struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1969, its winds were estimated at up to 200 miles per hour. Katrina’s winds were only 125 mph.  If the Saffir-Simpson scale continued to rate hurricanes in increments of 20 mph beyond Cat 5 (135-155 mph), then Camille would have been a Category 7 or 8!  I could hear my long-gone Grandaddy describing this Hurricane Katrina with a scowl and a harrumph:  “Justa puffa wind,” he would say.  That’s what he called every storm after Camille.

So Bryan won that argument. There was, however, a mandatory evacuation in effect for anyone living south of I-10, so we packed our overnight bags to run a few miles up the road to stay with my mom in the Quail Ridge subdivision.  Our SUV was almost at capacity–Bryan, me, Natalie, Steven, Michelle, and little Nathan.  Our oldest, Adam, was away at UAB, but was calling and emailing us as it became clear our town was about to take a direct hit.  So the six of us were evacuating, if you could call it that…ten lousy miles up the road.  I grumbled a bit.

Before heading north, though, we drove south to take a look at the uncharacteristically vigorous gulf. We also looked at the beautiful beachfront homes as we rolled along the nearly empty highway, and we speculated on the extent of damage and cleanup that might be necessary in the days ahead.  Most of these houses had survived Camille, so while we knew there would be quite a mess and some serious wind damage, we never imagined that we were looking at these houses for the very last time.

We were still looking for a suitable surgeon for Nathan in the summer of Hurricane Katrina.

For a few different reasons, I was on edge. For one thing, my dad had passed away the month before.  His death was still fresh, and we were evacuating to the house where he had breathed his last.  Also, Bryan and I had just received a letter from the surgeon we thought would perform Nathan’s heart surgery to correct Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return, a component of his Scimitar Syndrome.  After reviewing Nathan’s case, the surgeon felt the procedure was too difficult given the severe rotation of his heart.  And then, of course, my old childhood experience with Hurricane Camille was still igniting my adrenaline.  But it was more than being personally fearful; I worried about protecting my kids, especially my fragile little boy.

So what was it like to ride out Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi? SCARY!  But if you ask Bryan, he will tell you that the only time he thought he was going to die was when he looked at me!  Yes, I was fuming.  I’ll describe our night at Quail Ridge tomorrow in “Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary – Part II.”

Karen Blakeney

Tags: Gulfport Mississippi, heart surgery, Hurricane Camille, Hurricane Katrina, Karen Blakeney, Nathan, Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return, Scimitar Syndrome