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

We rode out Hurricane Katrina in this house in the Quail Ridge subdivison. This is after some "tidying up." The chimney and most of the shingles are gone, and the eastern eave was blown out (giving us a view of the sky in the guest bath).

[Click here for Part I and Part II.]

Finally, the wind slowed enough for us to try to make our way back home. Cut off from all communication (even our cell phones no longer functioned), we wondered what we would see as we emerged from the boarded up house in Quail Ridge.  The Ford Expedition, shiny and flawless when we arrived the day before, was now pock-marked and dented.

A cursory look at the house revealed heavy damage. The chimney lay in pieces on the patio, the roofing was stripped, and the corner eave resided on the front lawn, explaining the new view of the sky from the guest bathroom.  Trees, usually lush with summertime foliage, were winter bare, even the evergreens.  Of course, many were so hobbled and broken, their survival was questionable.  And fallen, uprooted trees were plentiful, too.

Our house in Gulfport, Mississippi, a day after Hurricane Katrina (roads freshly cleared). We were two houses short of flooding.

In fact, we were barely out of the neighborhood when we came upon a fallen tree straddling John Clark Road from ditch to ditch. Apparently, our efforts to get home were over in less than a quarter mile’s drive.  As we contemplated turning around, two men with chain saws popped out of the pick-up in front of us (I love Mississippi men) and buzzed through the obstruction, tossing wood chunks to the side until a passable expanse emerged.  We dodged debris and scooted under sagging power lines the rest of the way, all the while dumbfounded at the amount of destruction this understudy to Hurricane Camille had caused.

Shipwreck at Floral Hills Cemetery in Gulfport after Hurricane Katrina. Notice the empty headstone vases...the silk flowers were all over the Bayou Oaks neighborhood in Gulfport, decorating the piles of debris.

The closer we got to home, the more we realized that something profound had happened. Passing over the bridge, we saw the dozens of boats that had been protectively moored inland; these were now battered or sunken or tossed ashore.  The streets of our neighborhood were impassable, so we parked and walked in, dazed by the gut-wrenching sight.  Our beautiful, manicured community had become a foul, rubbage-filled hell hole.  Our own house had luckily escaped flooding, but many of our neighbors’ homes would have to be gutted.  Furniture and clothes and personal belongings of every sort had washed into the streets; the eclectic piles lay smeared in the muddy silt of Bayou Bernard, colorless except for the surreal splashes of silk flowers that had blown over from Floral Hills Cemetery.

Many houses in Gulfport experienced flooding during Hurricane Katrina, even though they were not in flood zones. This is a house on our street in Bayou Oaks.

If someone had told us before this storm that one day our house would incur $46,000 in damages and we would feel damned lucky about it, I never would have believed them. But I assure you, as the reality of Hurricane Katrina became clearer, that’s exactly how we felt.

Tomorrow:  Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary – Part IV.

Karen Blakeney

The Quail Ridge House - shingles and garage door missing. Hurricane Katrina, Gulfport, Mississippi.

[Click here for Part I.]

August 28-29, 2005

The wind blew briskly as we climbed out of our SUV at Granny’s house in Quail Ridge. Our girls, Natalie and Michelle, were fine with evacuating, but Steven, like his father, wasn’t keen on the idea.  If he could have had his way, we would be riding out Katrina at our own house in Bayou Oaks.  Notice, I said Bayou Oaks.  Hurricanes and bodies of water are not a good combination ever.  I don’t care that we were not in a flood zone.

Personally, I didn’t think ten miles up the road was far away enough. I hate hurricanes; I prefer as much distance from them as possible.  The fellas in my family, on the other hand, seemed ready to don Superman capes to fight the apocalyptic wind in hand-to-hand combat.  Testosterone, I am convinced, carries a side effect of uncontrollable attraction to insane adventure.

My childhood experience with Hurricane Camille was enough adventure to last my lifetime. In fact, I would have preferred to be as far away from Gulfport, Mississippi, as possible back then.  Little Bryan’s smart mom and dad had whisked him off to Laurel during Camille, so he didn’t seem to have a grasp of reality about how awful sitting in the middle of a major storm can be.

Nathan, four-years-old at the time, took it all in stride. This was just a trip to “Janny’s” house.  He ate spaghetti and watched cartoons until the power went out.  Then he went to bed.  Nathan still slept a lot back in those days before his heart surgery.  As the winds increased to the point of howling, I was glad he could sleep through it.  I would have hated for him to spend that night like I did through Camille…wild-eyed and frightened.

The night got hairy quickly. After the power went out, a steady dripping sound began to blend with the constant roar of the wind.  Soon, every light fixture in the house began to drip and then pour rainwater, a sure sign that we had lost ridge vents and shingles.  While my mother tried to rest in the east bedroom, the winds escalated from loud to ferocious, and then she heard a powerful ripping sound from above.  She ran to the other side of the house to tell me she felt certain a tornado had ripped out a portion of the roof.

As I watched Nathan sleeping, a little Hurricane-Camille-deja-vu took over, causing me to worry that the house might deteriorate to the point of caving in on us. How would I protect Nathan?  Then a horrendous clamor of metal exploded above the roar of the winds.  “The garage door is coming apart,” Bryan called from the washroom where a windowed door allowed him to see the calamity.  “Watch Nathan for me,” I told my mom as I rounded the doorway to see for myself.

The entire ceiling over the garage was swollen with rainwater and bursting at the seams; and the garage door was a mangled piece of metal, buckling and banging in the wind. We should have left the state.  I felt like screaming, I told you so! Before I could launch into a tirade, Bryan and Steven slipped out the door and began trying to tie down the wildly flailing garage door with a long nylon cord.  My mom was a nervous wreck.  “Karen,” she said, “you’ve got to get them back inside!  It’s too dangerous!”

Mad as I was, I still didn’t want any harm to come to my guys. “It’s not important!” I yelled through the roaring wind.  “Come back!”  Bryan muttered something about trying to save our SUV from getting pummeled by the door.  The words were barely out of his mouth when a powerful gust busted down two storage room doors, blowing the one closest to Bryan off its hinges.  The explosion of wind lifted Bryan and Steven.  I could hardly believe my eyes.  They hung on to the flying door and tried to secure it back to the doorjamb!  Remember what I said about testosterone?

“Bryan, forget about it!” I yelled.  “Come inside!” They continued to struggle in the maelstrom of wind and water, determined to reattach that blasted door.  Who do you suppose won that battle?  Bryan or Katrina?  That wretched woman jerked him against the wall like he was Raggedy Andy.  In the process, his finger was slammed between the door and the doorjamb.  He winced, he finally let go, and he pulled himself together.  As he walked inside, he stiffened his face, I suppose to maintain dignity–would have made a perfect “I’m good” commercial.

As the evening progressed, the chimney came crashing onto the patio; now water and ash were pouring down the flue.  Dawn was breaking as we sloshed across the carpet and competed for a view through a small gap in the the window’s plywood covering.  The wind was still full force all these hours later; an assortment of debris…shingles, siding, branches, fencing…flew through the air.  Trees danced wildly, sometimes uprooting or snapping.  I wondered, shouldn’t this storm be slowing down by now?

While we gawked at the unrelenting tempest, Natalie’s cell phone rang. “Mom and Dad,” she said as she hung up, “Taylor’s house is flooding; they’ve moved up to the second floor.”  Flooded?  That seemed impossible.  Bayou View doesn’t flood; at least, it didn’t flood during Camille which was the worst hurricane in the history of the universe.

Or so we thought.

Tomorrow:  Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary – Part III

Karen Blakeney

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

My brother Tom and I pose at our house in Gulfport, Mississippi, almost a year before Hurricane Camille.

August of 1969 could be described as a month of turmoil and rebellion.  The Vietnam War was in full swing, provoking protests in the streets and heated disagreements at the dinner table.  The infamous Charles Manson cult went on a murderous rampage, killing Actress Sharon Tate and six other prominent Californians.  And on a 600-acre dairy farm in New York, a half million free-loving, mind-altered hippies stayed stoked and stoned during the Woodstock Music Festival.

I was only nine-years-old, so I wasn’t exactly tuned in to the events swirling around me.  But I do remember August 17-18, 1969.  As  Blood, Sweat, & Tears belted out “Something Comin’ On” at Woodstock, my little brother Tom and I were hunkered down behind a small table turned on its side, hoping the fierce winds of Hurricane Camille would not blow in our windows or cause our house to collapse.

Destruction from Hurricane Camille, Mississippi Gulf Coast.

We had been upstairs, near the same room pictured above, watching the occasional transformer explode from our window, the only hint of light in the pitch black sky.  Then, in the glow of candle light, the ceiling collapsed on us, raining wet leaves and bristly branches on our heads.  Terrified that the house might be caving in, we ran screaming to the lower floor.  We stayed there behind that shielding table the rest of the storm.  Tom finally fell asleep, but I was wild-eyed the entire night, fretting the whole house was going to crush me to death at any minute.

Gulfport's Super Slide was almost identical to this one from Virginia.

A huge stack of burlap sacks were piled in our house that evening.  We were storing them for an entrepreneur cousin of my dad’s who had just built a “Super Slide” on the beach in Gulfport.  It was a new tourist attraction, a towering multi-lane slide.  Ticket-holders would carry the burlap sacks to the top, lay them out, and slide in waves to the bottom.  Cousin Dan was afraid the hurricane was going to blow the sacks away, so he asked us to store them.  They came in handy, soaking up the rain that poured in from the gaping hole in the ceiling.  The Super Slide and most everything else on the beach was swept away.

When the storm cleared, my dad and I walked to the beach to see the devastation.  Everyone was awestruck and certain that Camille was the worst hurricane the world would ever see.

[See also:  SS Hurricane Camille Gift Shop and Hurricane Katrina - Four Year Anniversary, a four part essay running August 28-31.]

The eyewall of Hurricane Katrina will pass over Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi.

I have written several posts about my hurricane experiences.  “Hurricane Camille – Forty Year Anniversary” will be published on Nathan’s Prayer on August 17.  “Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary” was written in four parts and will run August 28-31.  In September, I’ll post some extra photos demonstrating some of the destruction and loss our area endured.

I have always been fascinated by hurricane stories (I’d rather hear one than have one).  If you have an experience you would like to share, make a comment in this or any of the upcoming hurricane posts, or go to the “Contact” page.

Update:  See Hurricane Camille – Forty Year Anniversary, Hurricane Katrina – Four Year Anniversary – Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

SS Hurricane Camille and Gift Shop before Katrina (postcard)

For the first couple of years after Katrina, I could not take a ride down Highway 90 without my eyes misting over.  You don’t realize how much you love a place until it’s hopelessly gone.

SS Hurricane Camille after Katrina

The SS Hurricane Camille seems a quirky place to be sentimental over, but I can’t help it–I miss it.  As a child growing up on the west side of town, I made frequent trips to the gift shop with its garishly painted tugboat posted by the front door.  The tugboat, blown ashore by Hurricane Camille in 1969, remained on land and became a giant lawn ornament for a souvenir shop.   The shop had a selection of seashells organized in bins across the middle of the store that could be purchased for 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, …depending on the shell.  At ten-years-old, I considered myself a “shell collector.”

Even as an elementary school child, I visited on foot, several blocks from my home, to add to my collection.  I remember buying a strawberry top, a sundial, a pink murex, a tiger cowrie, an alphabet cone, a whelk, and more over time with my pocket change.  I saved up at one point to buy a Nautilus, a large spiraling shell with beautifully intricate chambers.

The first issue of "The Nautilus," school newspaper of Gulfport High School

Gulfport High School no longer has a school newspaper, but when I entered in 1977 (the first class of Admirals), a new name for the paper was being sought, and my suggestion, “The Nautilus,” was accepted.  I even drew the logo using my shell as a model.

I was showing Nathan my old shells, the same ones I purchased from the gift shop all those years ago.  He liked them okay, but he is a “candle collector”–buys scented candles from

the Hallmark store whenever he gets a chance.  He has about twenty with scents like vanilla cupcake, juicy

Shells I bought at the SS Hurricane Camille Gift Shop: tiger cowrie, whelk, strawberry top, sundial, alphabet cone

watermelon, red apple wreath, fresh cut roses, and sparkling lemon.  He put my strawberry top to his nose–I don’t think he was impressed.  Still, he said he’d like to have them one day…some things are more appealing when we get a little further down the road.

[The SS Hurricane Camille was demolished in May of 2008.]

See also:  Hurricane Camille – Forty Year Anniversary.

West Ward Elementary School; Gulfport, Mississippi; 1968

Would you believe I can name almost every one of my second grade classmates?  Mind you, I’m fairly pathetic when it comes to remembering the name of someone I met yesterday, but I’m semi-remarkable when it comes to 1968.  I’m the tall girl in the back row of this photo, first one on the left.  And that might have been the last year I qualified as “the tall girl.”

The school, West Ward Elementary, overlooked the endlessly cresting waves of the Gulf of Mexico (in fact, we’re facing the gulf as we pose for this photo), and like Gulfport High School, it was fittingly the home of the Commodores.  The building survived Hurricane Camille in August of ‘69, but did not survive progress.  It was bulldozed in the 90s  and replaced by the Island View Casino.

The principal, Mr. Walt Ewing, is standing in the back.  He ran a tight ship, so most of us were supremely terrified of him.  We all told ghastly tales of rumored paddlings for minor infractions–the paddles got larger with every story and evolved into torture devices with holes that sucked up pieces of butt with every stroke.  I think I was more afraid of my second grade teacher,though– Mrs. Krass, the lady with the interesting genie hairstyle.  She switched my open palms with a ruler one day for pulling out my Crayolas too soon.

It’s funny to look at that little second grader (me) and then look at Nathan who is now a second grader himself.  Thankfully, paddles and palm-whackings are a thing of the past (I think I’d have a stroke if someone tried to hurt him).

Alright.  Let me prove my mental acumen:  (Top, L to R) Karen Parker (me), Denise, Greg Gilstrap, Teddy Gaston, Robin Jackson, Karen White, Mike Cook.  (Middle, L to R) Sonia Guyton, Dennis Cospelich, Kenny, Mark Pell, Deborah Ladnier, Thomas Cook, Beth Harrod, Darryl Moore.  (Bottom, L to R) Dawn, Tina Serrato, Karen MacMillan, Shari Cornell, Carl Couch, Conrad Hawthorn, Betty Jean, Phyllis, Shari Davis.

So how’d I do?  If you recognize yourself or a friend, I would enjoy hearing from you.

Related posts:  Mrs. Hutto’s Sixth Grade Class,  West Ward Elementary Revisited.

Gulfport's Bayou Oaks subdivision (my neighborhood) after Hurricane Katrina

The bulk of my memoir, Nathan:  A Heart, A Storm, A Prayer, deals with the figurative storm we faced while seeking a solution to our child’s health crisis.  But smack-dab in the middle of our ordeal, a literal storm dropped on our city like an atomic bomb.

I never imagined Hurricane Katrina, the same storm that shook a few trees in Florida, would transform into a monster and eclipse the infamous Hurricane Camille.  The degree of destruction caused by Katrina astounded South Mississippians and shattered the local wisdom that wind speed is king.  Afterall, the great storm of 1969 was 50 mph stronger!

We learned overnight that size does matter. Neighborhoods previously unscathed by Camille were pummeled by Katrina.

We also learned that people are incredibly generous with their time and resources and labor when tragedy strikes.  The outpouring of support from people all over the country (and all over the world) was a sight to behold.  Not only did we see governments and major charities step up, but church vans ran up and down our streets for months and beyond, brimming with construction supplies and eager workers.

This August will mark the four year anniversary of Katrina.  We’ve come a long way, but many families have still not recovered from their horrendous losses.  And there are permanent historical losses that can only be resolved with the creation of new history, new traditions.