FLASHBACK: Sharing Images From Storm’s ‘Ground Zero’

Scotty Hancock spent a week in southern Mississippi, seeing Hurricane Katrina’s destruction firsthand.

Monday night at the old Kroger building on Hicks Drive, Hancock, the Floyd County Emergency Management Agency director, shared his photos, videos and personal accounts of the devastation with RomeKares volunteers.

“I wanted to let these folks see what their time and donations are going toward,” he said. “There is a lot of good going on down there.”

While no pictures may truly capture the scene, volunteers got what some called their best portrayal of the damage.

In a PowerPoint presentation, they saw Biloxi’s decimated houses, and boats resting on land miles from their docks. Other photos featured bottom

Scotty Hancock, the local EMA director, said he wanted to "let these folks see what their time and donations are going toward." floors of casinos that had been completely wiped out.

One of the more uplifting pictures, however, was of National Guardsmen distributing ice to hurricane victims. That ice, Hancock said, was from RomeKares. “I was so excited when I saw that truck. I told the driver to make sure he told the guys in Rome that I found them. It was great to see that.”

Rome’s Robert and Linda Weaver have been giving their time at RomeKares, helping needy families anyway they can. After Hancock’s presentation, they said they are even more devoted to assisting.

Linda Weaver said. “I can’t imagine what people must be going through after losing everything. This really gives me a better perspective of just how hard it must be for them.”

Robert Weaver said he’s seen tornado damage before, but nothing compares with what he saw in the presentation.

Keeping the images of the destruction in mind lets him know he’s doing the right thing, he said. “I don’t have much money to give, but I do have time. And I’m willing to share that if it will help.”

In nearly every shot, dead foliage abounded. Hancock said that is the case for close to 30 miles offshore. “The salt water washed up and killed just about everything.”

Hancock departed for Jackson, Miss., on Sept. 1 with nine other Georgia emergency management directors. Together they formed a community relations team, serving as a liaison between FEMA and storm victims.

Hancock said he had not known what to expect in the storm-ravaged state. His eyes, he said, discovered a devastation no camera could do justice.

After a weekend providing information about how to receive federal aid to repair homes, he left Sept. 5 for Gulfport — what he referred to as the “ground zero” of the storm damage in Mississippi. He returned to Rome on Saturday.

A man in Biloxi, Hancock said, told of a large aquatic creature swimming across his yard when the storm hit. “He said he didn’t know if it was a shark or a dolphin, but whatever it was, it went inside his house. It’s just unreal to think about.”

RomeKares’ Thom Holt and Charisse Durham said their many trucks taking supplies to the region could not have happened without Hancock. “We were up here getting supplies, but we didn’t know where to send them. Having Scotty there was a huge help because he was there talking to people and then telling us where it needed to go,” Holt said.

“This re-energizes the whole effort,” Durham said. “To see how widespread the damage is, and knowing that it will take years to repair, it makes our assistance all the more worthwhile.”

I worked in Gulfport with the North Carolina Baptist Men Disaster Relief in September of last year, about 6 weeks after the storm hit. I can tell you it was far worse than anything I saw in New Orleans. Parts of Mississippi were completely destroyed. One small town just east of where the eye hit the shore was completely wiped off the map. Literally. There was not one building left standing in that town.

I have hundreds of picture from when we went down, as well as about 30 minutes of video I shot while there. The pictures are bad enough, but what made it really bad was the smell. Where we worked in Long Beach (near the shipping ports) the stench was overwhelming. Several hundred shipping containers filled with chickens to be processed had broken loose and were like battering rams in the storm. Well, after all was over, several hundreds of thousands of chickens were scattered all over the place. By the time we got to Gulfport there were still hundreds of thousands of chickens still laying on the ground everywhere. Some of our crews had to shovel chicken remnants out of the way to get to work on the houses. It was so bad, I didn't eat chicken for several weeks after I got home.

As far as I am concerned, New Orleans was lucky. The way the press has ignored Mississippi is appalling. Mississippi was far worse than Louisiana and they have been essentially ignored.

I think I still have some pictures online and I will post a link to them if I can find it. It is pretty amazing and outright sad as well.

Louisiana did get hit twice in three weeks, remember Rita? The reason NOLA got all of the news attention was accessability and all the drama. Also it was a major city.

I have friends from Ocean Springs and they said that the storm surge lasted 3 hours then subsided. The flood lasted three weeks and then when Rita hit the city flooded again. The storm surge obliterated everything in it's path but the flood also destroyed most everything it touched. It's really different on a lot of levels.

It is hard to wrap your brain at the sheer size of the destruction. When you take the impact zone of Katrina plus Rita you have total destruction from East Texas to Florida and in some areas almost 100 miles inland.

I just have to say that the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief was the big unsung heroes. Believe me they were noticed by the people who were helped. Thanks for the help!

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