My first house, which survived Camille.

[jobycom]

This is the house my parents lived in when I was born. It survived Betsy and Camille.



This station is where I lived when Camille hit, when I was four. It was an old Gulf station then, with a house next door. Water never reached it during Camille.



This K-Mart is across the street from the station. It was a field during Camille, and the water never reached the field. Eight bodies were found on the roof after Katrina, and a live alligator was trapped inside. One rumor was that a Mustang was also found on the roof. I haven't found proof of that.

[GOPisEvil]

1. Damn!

Stunning pictures. Just stunning.

[jobycom]

3. Here's one from the other end of the Coast, one of my favorite casinos

[GOPisEvil]

6. Holy smokes!

How recent are these? :wow:

[jobycom]

7. Thanksgiving weekend.

[GOPisEvil]

9. Wow...just amazing.

[jobycom]

18. Here's a picture that's part devestation, part progress.

This is Point Cadet, which is the tip of Biloxi where it juts out between the Gulf and Biloxi Bay. If you've seen pictures of the bridge that was destroyed, it begins right to the left of where I was standing. The tall building is the Isle of Capris hotel (or the Grande, but I think it's the Isle). The trailers are the infamous FEMA trailers, lined up on public ground. It's a mixture of debris and rebuilding and making the most of where they are. Notice the crane. Also notice the lights. There were few lights around here. The buildings and houses were all flooded, so the wiring is no good even when the houses survived. But the casinos had lights, and the trailers had lights. Maybe they were from generators, we couldn't tell. But the casinos looked like an oasis in the distance. They are all closed, obviously, but still there. I think some construction workers are staying in them.

It's just a hopeful picture, though it came out bad. Hard to explain, I guess.

[Rowdyboy]

2. My God! Thanks for the perspective...

This nightmare justs goes on and on and on.

[bigwillq]

4. Jeez.

What a mess. How awful. :(

[merh]

5. Which KMart is this and where was the station?

Did you see the images in the 2nd link in my sig?

How about that special WLOX aired Friday night?


8 bodies on the roof, how very sad :-( The death toll continues as the elderly give up after all they have owned is gone.

[jobycom]

8. Waveland, Highway 90 and 603 (or Nicholson Ave--it changes names)

Nicholson Avenue is just Highway 603 south of 90. The Exxon station is on the SE corner, the K-mart on the NE corner.

[jobycom]

10. I just looked through the images in your sig link

Interestingly, one is of a house I took a picture of, too. The one where the house is sitting on the red car. I have the same picture, only the car has been moved, and it was getting dark so the picture isn't very good.

Was the one of the slab your house? I saw when you posted it before.

[merh]

11. What Katrina left me

My house is on Back Bay, a few miles from the Palace Casino.
The Imperial Palace is across the Bay from me.

Waveland and Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian and Clermont Harbor all were just devastated.

Go on WLOX website and you can find where you can order the show the aired Friday night with additional footage, something like 4 hours worth. They have before and after shots.

[salin]

13. *cry*

words still escape me at this. Most of us may try empathy - but we can not even imagine this reality :cry:

[merh]

14. Oh, don't cry

I shed enough of those already. Buck up camper, I've got my life, I didn't lose anyone in the storm and I'm pig headed, I won't give up fighthing to get back to where I was before Katrina.

Folks like you and so many others here on DU (and no longer posting) have helped me in more ways than I can list. I'm grateful.

No tears - it will be alright. :hug:

If you want to help, send letters to your congress critters demanding they fund and support the reconstruction efforts. See Gene Taylors speech on the floor in the video in this link http://www.leftandrightfight.com/genetaylor.wmv

as discussed in this thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5491061

:hi:

[salin]

19. registering political complaints - without a doubt.

but after the last tornadoes in the area - when I went to my mother's home (where I was raised) - it hit me - that I can not imagine - as hard as I try, what it would mean to have the place blown to pieces with little to nothing to salvage.

Your perspective on this is incredibly awe-inspiring. May I have such grace and perspective if/when I face life changing hardships. You really are inspirational.

[merh]

27. thank you for your kind words.

:hug: Like the ole sweet potato said, "I yam, what I yam". I know no other way to be or to deal with this.

[jobycom]

15. So you were in D'Iberville?

I had several friends in Pass Christian who I saw for the first time in twenty years a couple of weeks ago. The houses they grew up in and that I used to hang out with them in were gone. One had floated into the middle of the street and had stayed intact, but everything else around it was destroyed. I saw pictures--it was just a sea of lumber and debris, like a landfill. It's hard to capture in pictures. Anyway, they saw the house after the hurricane, but couldn't get a vehicle close enough to haul anything away. Two days later when they returned to salvage what they could, the house had been bulldozed so rescuers could get down the street to the debris behind them.

It's unbelievable. One of these friends was my first girlfriend. The house we used to hang out is so gone you can't even figure out which street it was on--houses, signs, trees, everything is gone. It's just a field of debris for miles around. You can't capture that in pictures. As I'm sure you know.

[merh]

16. No, Back Bay Biloxi

behind Keesler.

My house was destroyed before the storm surge, the roof was in the middle of the street right next to my neighbor's roof. The rest of the house had collapsed and was pushed into the street with the surge.

When I first found my house, there were neighbors crawling all over it to get to their houses. Eventually it was bulldozed to out of the road. I didn't get to salvage much.

You are exactly right, photographs and videos cannot capture the obliteration.

[jobycom]

23. So you're just west of 110?

My parents on I were trying to figure out if we knew anyone in that area last Saturday when I drove past.

[merh]

26. Yes, I'm just west of 110.

You should have waved or come by the femansion.
:hi:

[salin]

12. I can't even pretend to imagine

the house I was raised in survived many a tornado in the area (including a big funnel cloud- not quite tornado - plowing a path through the field not more then 100 yards from the house, and another funnel cloud tearing up some trees in the north acre (an acre away from the house) - but even with that reality of near misses over the past forty years - I still can not fathom the house suddenly being a pile of rubble.

My heart goes out to your family - and to all whose lives were devastated by Katrina and Rita.

[jobycom]

17. We didn't live there anymore

The house my parents are in was reasonably unharmed, and I live in Austin. But it was more than my childhood homes which were destroyed. The places I fell in love, the house where I learned to kiss, the street where I took my kids last March to watch the Pass Christian Mardi Gras parade... all destroyed. Pass Christian may just cease to exist--the are talking of merging Pass Christian, Long Beach, DeLisle, and some little communities into one town.

But it's rebuilding. That first girlfriend I mentioned looked me up after 20 years of not seeing her. She's married to a really cool guy now, and a couple of weeks ago I visited her at her new house, which is a couple miles inland from Pass Christian. We were all standing outside under their trees looking up into the starry sky, and talking about what all we'd lost. They started talking about moving away, and her husband, who's from Germany and only moved there a few years ago, shook his head. "Why would I move away from paradise?" he said.

It's like that. It's a mournful optimism. People feel more lucky than cursed. I feel it, too, even from Austin. I've never wanted to move back so badly in my life. I can't because of my kids. But I'm working on a way to spend a lot more time there.

[salin]

20. wow

just wow - another inspirational view from this thread. I am so glad that I read it - responded - and read the responses. My heart is warmed by the human spirit shining through. :hi:

[merh]

22. I lived in my house 19 years

It was tough to see it that way and some times it is hard to see the pieces of debris in the yard, but heck, I have to keep looking forward.

I appreciate your encouragement and support. It truly helps. :hug:

[jobycom]

24. Wow, condolences. Just glad you got out. And hopefully the new house

will be really, really cool. If FEMA and insurance ever come through.

[merh]

28. I'm gonna rebuild, I just have to.

This is my home. Thanks for the good wishes and the chat. :hug:

[u4ic]

21. Oh my

:-(

Are there estimates floating about as to how long the cleanup will take?

[jobycom]

25. Trent Lott just blasted Bush over how long it was taking

Lott said that the cleanup was a quarter of the way done, and the rebuilding had barely begun, and Bush's promised money and assistance is nowhere to be seen.