I wanted to finish my personal narration before discussing issues the DKos community appears to be most interested in. In my next diary I will attempt to incorporate answers to the questions folks have been making in their comments. This will include my personal observations about initial relief efforts in my area, general observations about the storm damages I observed, and ongoing relief efforts to this date.
I feel overwhelmed and humbled that my first diary on this topic made the "Recommended List." I feel overwhelmed with all the outpouring of support, sympathy, and the insightful questions from readers via their comments. I can only say "Thank You" so many times. I hope that writing these diaries is making a small contribution to the people here on the coast who ended up with much less than myself after Hurricane Katrina.
Please read my diaries with the continued perspective that I (my town of Gautier) was on the eastern-most fringe of this storm. We did not receive a "direct hit."
My storm-related excitment on Monday, August 29 didn't actually end with seeing my flooded house.
My wife and I had spent the storm with three other families; each family owned a home in the general area. Monday afternoon, after the winds subsided enough to drive, we carpooled in the one vehicle still running to check out the other three houses.
We went to my house first as I needed to find my spare glasses (to replace the pair I lost handling the boat earlier that day). As mentioned in my previous diary, we discovered my house had been flooded three feet deep.
The next family was also my next-door neighbors, and we then checked their house. It had been flooded about two feet deep. We looked around and could see that EVERY house in my development, 200 or more homes, appeared to have been flooded.
Then we went to the fourth family's house, a few miles north in a more rural area outside of Gautier. We were unable to reach it due to downed power lines and trees blocking the roads so we turned around and returned to the home where we had stayed during the storm.
Meanwhile, the homeowner's wife managed to make a cellphone call to her Dad in Grand Bay, Alabama, about 30 miles east of us. Her dad reported his house was undamaged, although with trees downed all around him. When he learned of our condition he told her he would "come get us." My personal opinion at this point was that we would be spending the night there in a very wet house and started thinking of ways to sleep reasonably comfortable.
But, two hours later her dad arrived in a convoy of three vehicles! We all piled in, taking some still dry clothes (and my camera equipment - I don't leave home without it). The convoy had useds Interstate 10 and the northern (west-bound) span of the I-10 bridge across the Pascagoula River getting to us, and didn't have any problems.
But, going back east we used the southern (east-bound) span of the I-10 bridge. It was about 8:30 PM now and pitch dark. No street lights were working, and across the river the shipyards and refinery were all dark - something I had never before seen. We crossed the west Pascagoula River span and half way across we "saw it" just as we passed it.
"It" was a large floating crane that had struck the south-bound I-10 span and knocked the highway span four feet off alignment with a small gap between the sections. We hit the mis-aligned span at normal highway speed, felt the bump, and my heart jumped up to about throat-level. But the span didn't collapse and we kept right on moving.
I turned and watched other vehicles also crossing that damaged bridge span. As we continued across the southern bridge span I saw two other reasonably large boats, a pusher tug and a commercial shrimping boat, jammed against the bridge. I judged that the river was still about 5 to 8 feet higher than even "flood stage" levels.
We spent Monday evening camped out on the dry couches and floors of our guest's home in Grand Bay; all 7 adults, two children, and two dogs (we left the cats in Gautier) plus the family who owned the house. We got to take cold water showers the next morning and had a hot breakfast, then convoyed back to Gautier. Now, we saw that the southern (east-bound) span of the I-10 bridge was closed.
We used one of the convoy vehicles to check out the house we hadn't been able to get to the previous night. The roads had already been cleared enough to get through and we found a
miracle - the house was just high enough to not have been flooded, and had no significant wind damage. We were all quickly invited by the home owners to make their house our "base of operations." No power, but it was a least dry floors to sleep on.
We also discovered that the second car of one family in our group, which had been left at their house during the storm, still worked. So now we had one dry house and two cars for four families. Our hosts during the storm had a portable generator which we hooked up and provided lights, fans, a working satellite TV, and the play station for the two children.
Gas for the two running cars and generator was not a worry - we had five dead cars all with
full gas tanks we could siphon plus some gas in jerry cans. We pooled what edible food and supplies we could salvage from our homes and ended up with a good weeks worth of decent meals.
We quickly settled into a routine of car pooling to our three homes each morning for recovery work. Prior to sunset we would carpool back to our "safe house" for a cold shower and hot supper, watch a bit of satellite television and sleep. In the morning we'd have a hot breakfast (the host's wife was a wonderful cook) and then carpool back to our homes for more work.
As bizarre as it may sound, by the end of the week I felt like we were all living in a "Survivor" style reality TV series. Only without people getting voted out.
Overall, we were more comfortable than most people on the coast that first week. None of us
were even thinking about going back to our jobs. We knew nothing would be reopening until at least power was restored.
My biggest single concern during this week was contacting my family and my wife's family back in China. I had managed to get a brief call to my mom Monday evening after the storm passed, enough to tell her we were okey and our home was flooded. But cellphones and landlines went down later that Monday evening, and after that we had no way to contact anyone.
My wife, who had only arrived in the US from southeastern China six weeks prior to the storm, had no opportunity to contact her family. I knew they'd be seeing news of this disaster on Chinese TV, recognize it as the area she had just gone to live, and would be worried about her.
I was also concerned about getting transportation again. My venerable Isuzu pickup was ruined from flood waters. I had put my late model Isuzu SUV into a dealer repair shop in Gulfport (about 30 miles west of Gautier) just prior to the storm and now had no way of determining whether it (the repair shop and my SUV) had survived. I had to assume my SUV was also gone. I knew I needed transportation once power was restored and life began to return to normal.
By Saturday morning following the storm we regained limited cellphone and landline telephone service. I contacted my family and asked to borrow a car from my nephew in Murfresboro, Tennessee, part of the group of family physically closest to me. When my nephew received my message he "mobilized," and by early Monday morning (Labor Day) the week after the storm my sister and her husband arrived to bring us up to Tennessee. That night, at my nephew's house, my wife and I had our first hot shower since before Katrina swept through.
The next day we made a LOT of phone calls from my nephew's house, including one to my wife's family in China. Judging from the sound of their voices, my wife's family was indeed very aware of what was happening here on the coast and had been very worried about her.
This was also the first opportunity I had had to get news about the extent of storm damages. We had seen the news coverage of New Orleans from our friends satellite TV, but knew almost nothing about what had happened in Mississippi.
We got my loaner truck prepped, did some shopping, and headed back to Gautier late that evening, arriving early Wendesday morning. By the time we returned, power had been restored and our "Survivor" group broke up. So I'm going to end my personal narration of Hurricane Katrina here.
In my next diary I will address my personal observations on initial relief efforts, local communications, and observations on how my community picked itself back up. I'll finish by
providing some info on continuing relief efforts and some ways people can help.