Grand Casino barge rests on Highway 90 in Gulfport, after Hurricane Katrina.
[Click here for Part I, Part II, and Part III.]
We began to hear rumors that everything near the beach was completely destroyed – restaurants, casinos, historic buildings, even the beautiful beachfront mansions. With no television and limited radio, it was hard to know whether or not there was any truth to these claims. Soon, we would find out for ourselves.
Lacking running water and electricity, we decided to get out of town. The heat and humidity in South Mississippi is punishing enough, but without the benefit of air-conditioning, we were miserable to the point of sleeping on the bathroom tile floors. We were especially concerned that Nathan, given his heart condition, did not need the added stress.
BEFORE - My mother's Eighth Street house in Gulfport, Mississippi, before Hurricane Katrina.
Before we left, though, we needed to check on my brother, Tom, and his family. Despite living in a mandatory evacuation zone, they stayed, a mere six to eight blocks from the beach. We drove in as far as we could, parking when the debris became too thick to traverse. When we reached them, they were hot and miserable, like us, but otherwise fine. Their house was damaged, but everyone in town had damage. It had become a question of livability. Tom’s house was still inhabitable.
From there, we crossed the railroad tracks heading south to the beach. Sure, we were curious, but there was a practical reason for our journey, too. My mother owned a house on Eighth Street, a block from the beach, right behind the International House of Pancakes. We needed to see how much damage it had incurred, get an idea of what sort of Home Depot purchases would be necessary to put it back in order.
AFTER - Bryan and Adam stand on the former porch of my mother's house after Hurricane Katrina.
Before we reached the beach, we were confronted with a substantial mountain of debris that ran parallel with the coastline. A large oak had conveniently uprooted across the obstacle, creating a bridge to the other side. We climbed it, stood at the top, and gazed at what had become of our home town.
It was hard to speak. We stared for while. We were truly shocked.
Bryan broke the silence by informing me that my mother’s house was gone. I was so stunned by the vastness of the destruction that I had forgotten one of the main reasons we were here. In that moment, our city seemed hopelessly ruined. The places we had loved all our lives were gone. It felt like we had just learned of the death of a dear friend.
And speaking of death, 238 Mississippians lost their lives in Katrina. For those of us who lost homes or incurred property damage, there was a real sense of gratitude that we were alive. A quiet compassion permeated those early days and weeks and months as we moved about our community trying to restore our lives. We made eye contact with total strangers feeling a somber, inexplicable tenderness. And we were moved to tears by the volunteers and gifts that poured in from all over the country.
Our cities lost so much to Katrina. But we gained, too. We experienced God’s grace and goodness through the warmth and kindness of compassionate people.
[For the next few days, I will be posting a few photos I took of destruction in my home town, Gulfport.]
Karen Blakeney
Tags: Gulfport Mississippi, Hurricane Camille, Hurricane Katrina, Karen Blakeney
3 Comments on Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary – Part IV
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Hi Karen: I am just catching up on reading all the stories of your Hurricane Katrina experience. Your story has been highly interesting to me. Also,experiencing Hurricane Camille, and four other major hurricanes on the Ms. Gulf Coast, I have always been fascinated by hurricanes. I also went through 3 hurricane, a tornado, many Noreasters and snowstorms here in Virginia, as well. What your family went through, during Katrina, sounds similar to so many stories I have read over the last few years since Katrina hit. On CBN, Pat Robertson’s website, there are stories of MS. Gulf Coast survivors from Hurricane Katrina who actually struggled to survive storm surge. I enjoyed reading all of those stories. You may enjoy reading them, too. It appeared that EVERYONE living on the coast had sustained some type of damage to their home from moderate damage to severe damage.
When I saw that Katrina was heading to the LA/MS coast, I knew it was going to be as bad as Camille. I had gut feelings that something really bad was going to happen many weeks before Katrina formed. I did not know what bad thing was about to happen, though. My mother and sister also had these same bad feelings before Katrina even formed, as well. As the storm was in process, I was reading the message boards on the Sunherald online and heard that storm surge was inundating the firehouse on RR street in Gpt. I knew that was close to my parents home and I became hysterical here in Norfolk. My family had to calm me down. I thought I was actually having a nervous breakdown, something I had never had but figured that this was what it must feel like. I was 1000 miles away and felt totally helpless during the storm and for months afterward. I knew this storm was turning out to be worse than Camille, by that point. What I did not know was that my two aunts, uncle, cousins and their children and spouses were all staying at my uncle’s home on 54th street and the house was flooding from the bayou. I was told everyone in my entire clan was going to evacuate and travel somewhere far from where the hurricane was to hit. I never knew that many family decided they could not evacuate and had no where to go and had stayed behind to endure this magificent storm. During the hurricane, they had to wade through deep water to get to the two-story home across the street for protection. My aunt/uncle lost everything from storm surge and eight cars parked at their house were ruined. The other aunt had 3 feet of water in her home on 39th street off Washington Avenue from a creek that was 3 blocks away. My sister’s ceiling caved in and she lost most of her belongings in her home off Aniston Avenue due to a tornado. Her house had to be gutted and 5 family members lived in a crowded FEMA trailer for a year. My parents were four blocks from the Gulf and had storm surge stop in their back yard. Their den and laundry room flooded and they lost most things in those rooms. The rest of the house was built higher. My parent’s bedroom had 2 huge trees inside it and water from rain went down the hall to rest of the house. The hurricane then went through the Jackson area where three siblings and my in-laws lived and caused alot of damage to their homes. After the hurricane reached them, I lost all contact with ALL of my family in MS for two weeks. I had no clue how anyone was, if anyone had died in the storm, who had evacuated and who had not. I did not know how bad the damage was to all of the family members homes. I tried reaching family by cell phone, regular phone, mail and could not get any information about anyone. The inability to reach any family and find out any information about anyone was a nightmare. I finally understood what my grandmother in Nebraska and aunt/uncle in Oregon went through when we had Camille hit. I finally reached my sister in law and a cousin-in-law by cell phone two weeks later to get the run down of what happened to everyone. It was November before I was able to talk to my parents or hear anything from them, though. The first time I saw the coast and all of the damage from Katrina was a year and a half after the hurricane had hit. When flying in to the Gulfport airport with my son, we were astounded, the damage we viewed from the air was as bad as what we saw on video and pictures. The damage was surreal. I never thought, after Camille hit, that our coast would ever endure any storm worse than Camille. I was wrong. Katrina was far worse, in storm surge and damage, than Camille was.
When we stayed during Camille, as a third grader that I was, I could remember hearing the howling winds and thick-glassed windows breaking out in the church that we stayed in that night. I remember a house of my PE teacher exploding on the beach and we could see the orange light from the flames during the height of the storm. I heard story after story of people swimming for their lives during the dark while Camille was terrorizing our coast. Others hung on to trees and floated on mattresses or anything else they could hold on to. I remember the story of the hurricane party in the Richeleu Apartments where it was thought only one person survive – Mary Gerlach. I just read, recently, that there was another survivor in that apartment building where all three stories collapsed from the storm surge and swallowed up the people who had stayed. My uncle had to pull people who were in shock hanging onto trees after Camille was over. My brother had to tag dead bodies after Katrina. My sister, the manager of the ER at Memorial Hospital, saw things during and after hurricane Katrina that she still cannot talk about or tell me, to this day. The only thing that I was told was that people who were in the storm surge swam to Memorial Hospital, which I understood was also under water from the Gulf storm surge. Well, anyway, I could write a novel on hurricanes as they fascinate me very much and I have had many experiences with them as you have. Thank you for writing about your experience with Katrina. I loved reading about it. Bev Payne
I understand your anxiety over not being able to communicate with anyone after the storm. Cell towers were down, so we could not reach our son, Adam, at UAB until we left town and got into Alabama. He was about to come looking for us. He reported that young ladies at UAB whose families lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were crying in the hallways. It was a very stressful time, not just for those of us on the coast but also for people like you who could not reach loved ones.
I could certainly understand how Adam felt. I tried thinking of every possibility of getting down to Gulfport to help the family out and bring them supplies. I heard that extended family were begging my brother to bring them bottled water, food, etc because they did not have enough because so many family members homes had been hit with storm surge and lost the food/supplies that they had stored. I also heard family was using a gun to protect their homes from looting as that was a big problem after Katrina. Had my husband not been deployed and me working, I would have found a way to travel to MS and take the family supplies and help.