Posted on 09/03/2005 12:14:55 PM PDT by Cedar
Mississippi Gulf Coast Reeling from Hurricane Katrina From Ground Zero
By Keith Burton – Gulf Coast News Publisher
This is not going to be your regular news story. There are a lot of reasons for this. The first is that I am as much a part of the staggering story of Hurricane Katrina as the hundreds of thousands of people all along the northern Gulf Coast whose lives have been changed forever by this storm. After all, I live here too.
You cannot believe how difficult conditions are here and how frightening our immediate future is. This story will also be different because of how GCN is getting this to you. You have to know that communications, telephones, Internet and cells phones are not working, or working only marginally at the time of this report.
After great effort we have managed to get online, but we still need help and we are not sure even our current efforts will work long.
I have to thank GCN acting editor Perry Hicks, who is based in Virginia for relaying information from me to get some information out from Biloxi. And I want to thank my brother, Ken Burton, who is in Colorado Springs for engineering the GCN Survivor Connector Database to help people find the status loved ones impacted from the storm.
Many of you have already seen the videos and news stories from the national media. I can tell you that aerial photography, as graphic as it is, in no way shows the true story from the ground. I struggle to find the words. The faces of friends, and family, the hollow fearful eyes as Coast residents, long experienced with hurricanes, know that this is a life changing event.
I have to thank God that my home and the homes of my brother and parents survived. But that doesn’t mean in any way that we don’t have major work ahead of us. Like thousands on the Coast, our days since the storm has been filled with trying to clear downed trees from our roofs and making makeshift repairs to protect our property. The amount of debris from trees is staggering.
Imagine every tree and bush from a lush semi-tropical environment stripped of the green of life and dumped limp and lifeless. It is as if winter in the coldest states suddenly came overnight, yet temperatures are still in the upper 90’s. It is the heat and humidity that is so debilitating, which brings up a major point of survival here - Water!
Wednesday, the first distribution of water began to be seen. With just three days since the storm, that sounds pretty quick, but keep in mind that the high temperatures mean you go through water fast.
The national news media has given you the big picture on how the Federal and State governments are responding and the news has been bad on that front with widespread criticism. But people just don’t appreciate the scale of what has happened, and how hard it is just to begin to help.
First, just getting around is extremely difficult. Trees are down everywhere, especially in neighborhoods where people actually live. The news media generally talk about cities as if their downtowns was where everyone lived. But it is in the subdivisions and neighborhoods that Hurricane Katrina ruined lives and dreams.
Concerns over how badly Katrina tore into families and how shook people are is that officials have not released death figures. It will be shocking. One person who I know that is working on the recovery of bodies said that the teams are not being informed of the totals.
If the word chaos describes confusion, than Katrina may find itself another word for the same. It is now four days since the storm and communications are still nearly impossible. This is for residents and officials alike. It would be wrong at this point, however, to blame public officials for the problems that they are having with getting the help to the ground. The communication system on the Coast suffered tremendous damage and no effort of the scale that is needed can move quickly without communications. A lot of work on lines and telephone poles is underway, but we are talking miles and miles of line and thousands of repairs. Bell South and Mississippi Power are working as hard as possible.
There is some water flowing into homes and apartments at this time. The pressure is extremely low, and not enough to fight a fire with, but it will fill up a toilet tank. It doesn’t take long to realize that the simplest necessities of life make really big differences.
The lack of gasoline has largely stopped the sightseeing and frivolous driving that initially clogged the few streets that were opened shortly after Katrina. For the brave folks that have gone on gasoline runs, they report they have to go more than 150 miles just to find a few gallons as restrictions are in effect.
The result is people cannot risk driving much. This is a major issue because even if food, water and medical distribution centers are set up, people can’t get there.
Just last night, Long Beach police and city vehicles were out of fuel. The city’s employees were scrambling for fuel in school buses and wherever they could find it. The hundreds of emergency service workers are finding that once they get here, there are only a few places they can get fuel and those places are running out. If the fuel issue is not resolved within two or three days, the situation on the Mississippi Coast will become extremely dangerous.
I will update you more soon.
well...finally...bet you have been steamed.....what a way to start your new life down South.
my apologies
glad you didn't get blown off the hill onto Grant's ditch
Oh yeah, quite a way to start off...lol. At least I haven't been blamed. :) Hadn't finished unpaking, so when the power went out, it really was like a nightmare camping trip from Hell.
I must tell you, I think I'll take an earthquake over a hurricane. I have NEVER seen rain clouds move so fast, and the howl of the wind is uniqueand eerie. We lost several limbs, but no huge branches. On one side, the trees look like winter... stripped of almost all their leaves, but all of the squirrels survived and the yard was filled with hungry birds the very next morning.
listening to NPR normally makes my blood boil. Listening to it in a crisis would indubitably send me through the roof.
NPR was so maddening, bourbon, that if I'd had a spare radio, I would have smashed this one several times!
One time I was driving between Tuscaloosa and Jackson on I-20. It was during the Bosnian War, and I heard an NPR correspondent interviewing a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) correspondent regarding the situation on the ground in Serbia.
The CBC correspondent said to the NPR correspondent without the slightest hint of self-awareness that Slobadan Milosevic was using state-owned media to put forth a steady stream of pro-government propaganda. At that poin, I started laughing so hard that I almost drove off the road.
Prayers for Mississippians.
That could have been really dangerous had you hit the wrong pothole. :) Love that Yazoo clay. There was one really bad spot that I always was careful about. It was in between Forest and Meridian. Back in those days I would actual drive above the speed limit. I once made it to Tuscaloosa in 2 hours. :)
My sister-in-law said they took their three cars and filled them all up. I'm not sure where they went, but it had to be in Jackson, and she didn't say anything about how long it took. She was just so happy to have gas in all three cars. They have been housing a teenage friend of my nephew because his family's home has no power. S-in-l's parents were eating with them tonight because even though they have power, they have no groceries. She said they are housing people all over Jackson in churches and the Coliseum, and lots of other places.
Walk to church????
Walking to church would be possible, but highly dangerous especially toting a 15 mos. old and a 2 mos. old. There are 2 major roads between us and our church.
Thanks for the update. My folks are in Picayune. Heard from them about an hour after Katrina went through and they and their home were well. Have heard nothing since.
It was just a thought. :)
Thanks pollyg107
http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3802127&nav=2CSfe6Nr
The gas shortages have caused some criminals to go to extremes. Hinds County EOC director Larry Fisher says that overnight Thursday two gas tanker trucks were hijacked on their way into Mississippi . State officials may now have to provide security and escort them to gas stations.
"There was another distribution point somewhere in Georgia , and they were coming across. There was one coming out of Texas . They both got stopped at a road block. They were hijacked, the gasoline taken away from them. This gas is being sold as high as 20 dollars a gallon," said Fisher.
So far, the hijacked fuel trucks or the people who stole them have not been located.
State officials may now have to provide security and escort them to gas stations.
May? I'd say, ABSOLUTELY.
Oh my.
THAT is rich. Count on me to repeat your story!
Sorry, I've been away from the computer, just getting back.
I'm originally from MS, but at the present in Arkansas (but MS will always be home to me).
"In MS, some unknown number of the dead will never be found, washed out to sea"
That's what my 91-year-old aunt said (who incidentally is from MS but worked for the Corps of Engineers in New Orleans for 18 years).
So glad you at least heard from your folks early on. Guess all the city services are down there now.
A friend of mine has family near Shivers (close to Mendenhall) -- she had not heard from them at all still on Thursday, but hopefully by now she has. I haven't been back in touch with her yet.
Do you know anything about the Mendenhall/Prentiss area? Also, I've been wondering about Natchez and how those antebellum homes made it? An early report sounded okay for Natchez, but don't know if it was verified.
Would you like to be on the MS ping list?
Yes, that would be great. Thanks.
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