Before you read- This is in the Off Topic section because it does not refer to runescape or arenascape, and is not in the origional Katrina post because I need a place for corrections and reviews to be sent.

 

 

 

 

 

Hello. As you can see, I am from the state of Mississippi, which has been recently affected by hurricane Katrina. During Thanksgiving holidays, I was able to go down to the coast of Mississippi and New Orleans. However, even though the images are still in my head, I have been losing many of them. This is the story of when I and a dear family member went down to the coast.

 

 

 

(I can not tell you much about me during the storm because it would be easy to find out the area I live in by the type of weather)

 

 

 

 

 

The night before, I had no clue that I had the choice to go to the coast. It was the thanksgiving weekend after Katrina, so I had nothing in my schedule to not allow me to go. I was about to go to bed when a family member asked if I wanted to go to the coast to work. Obviously, I said yes, or I wouldn't be making this post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Orleans- We arived in New Orleans (Where the group we were working with were supposed to be before they got reassigned to the Mississippi Coast) on the west side to get the grand tour. We started off on I-10 through the down-town and headed for my family member's collage. We could not get onto campass, it was closed due to cleaning. We continued down I-10 through the 9th ward, one of the hardest hit areas. Imagine a 3rd world country with water lines, well this is worse than you can even imagine. There seemed to be a tarp on every roof of that whole area. When we got to the Louisiana/Mississippi State Line, there was NO green. It looked more like a forest of telephone poles.... and for miles.

 

 

 

The Coast- This is the most horrible place to be right now. When I was there that weekend, I did not see a single blade of grass. It had all been covered by mud. We were working in a house that had been 12 FEET DEEP IN WATER, that is probably above the ceiling if you look up. To get an idea of what that is like, go through your house on the first floor. Note everything that is dear to you or not. Now, imagine all of that.... GONE. Wedding dresses, family heirlooms, thousands of dollors worth in funiture. The only thing in place is the hous itself... if your lucky. The building in which we worked out of had a shifted foundation obviously, because there is a big crack running along the walls. That only happened in A DAY, compared to hundreds of years for most other buildings. And all of this doesn't even count to the houses completely washed away, leaving just a slab of concrete.

 

 

 

Anyway, our job was to completely gut out the house, everything interior exept the wood frame. It was quite uneventful, excepting the entire trip. The looks looks on everyones faces.... including my own.... The devistation in a single house is too great to be described by words or pictures, let alone the effects on an entire city.

 

 

 

Most of the time, we were scraping up chuncks of soggy, moldy insulation and putting them into a pile of trash about 10 feet high and 50 feet long (this was for a single street). On one trip, I was leaving the house by way of the garage, and my eye happened to catch something.... a moldy wedding dress. This used to be someones life, and now it is ruined, gone, no way to turn back.

 

 

 

The worst sight During the entire trip had to have been the bridge. Highway 90 accross the bay of St. Louis is no more. Looking accross the empty pillars is like a road of nothing.

 

 

 

And the sad part is.... it hasn't changed. Six months and nothing repaired. I know it would have taken years for the coast to repair itself, but it has seemed to go slower than I expected. I don't know, you may dissagree, but these are my thought.But then again, these people have been affected by the storm of the millenium. They are making an effort to clean up the area and I salute them for that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P. Victems of Katrina and any other natural disaster.

 

I honor the survivors of this major disaster and others.

 

 

 

Feel free to discuss corrections or reviews.

That's very sad. I cried 1/10 of the way through.

aww man i hate even thinking about that...i was born n raised in new orleans n fortunetly i moved from new orleans long before katrina came but just knowing that places i once played in as a child are completely gone is jus very depressing...wat pisses me off the most is that they said they are thinking of not even rebuilding certain areas of new orleans (I.E. parts of 9th ward n certain areas in east new orleans)......well wen i did live in new orleans through out all of our minds we always thought new orleans one day would b changed dramatically by a natural disaster knowing that new orleans isnt very prepared for such a travisty...but no1 would ever realize how much of a dramatic change hurricane katrina would bring to us...

 

 

 

former 17th ward resident

 

 

 

:boohoo: GoSh I MisS ThE GoOd Ol' N.O. :boohoo:

 

 

 

~ZeLoT~