12/11/2005

My Bro's 'Hood

Yesterday was the first time I've been down to see my brothers and their neighborhood since Hurricane Katrina hit. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the city of Gulfport opened Hwy 90. I thought the barbed wire would be gone but it's not. My brother's home was one of the very few south of the railroad tracks that had no water in it.




One of the roads leading up to my brothers house.







One of the many containers from the Port of Gulfport. These containers contained anything from bananas, pineapples, frozen chicken, frozen pork, industrial paper rolls, and clothing. The chicken and pork are proving very difficult to clean up. Fortunately, where I was, most of the containers seemed to just have clothing or industrial paper rolls.







This child's toy brought a sense of poignancy about what I was looking at.






Some of the homes that had extensive damage had FEMA trailers in front of them. These people are still waiting for one.






This house was washed from it's foundation. It's about a half-block from my brothers.







One of my brothers, Mike, and their home. The water was underneath their home and caused some buckling of the floors due to wave action but did not make into the house. They are very fortunate, because the house across the street from them had a lot of water damage.






The barbed wire. It bothers me that this is still up now that Hwy 90 is open.








Heading back toward the beach, the wasteland.






My family was very fortunate. All of our houses are standing. The one that had the worst damage is being repaired. Three of us were unemployed because of the places we worked at were either heavily damaged or destroyed outright. I am very lucky that I can continue to work at my old job at reduced hours. The other two have found good jobs elsewhere.

Yesterday wasn't too bad as far as seeing all this destruction for the first time. I was thinking about it and it hit me. In my previous forays, there was a lack of people. Yesterday, there was more traffic on Hwy 90 and there were people at the beach. In fact people were taking pictures of me walking along the beach!

7 Comments:

Blogger GunnNutt said...

Thanks for posting the pictures. I'm sure it isn't easy to continue documenting all the desctruction that still affects all of you. Dang, it seems like another world!

I'm very glad to hear that your family is doing well.

4:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It all looks so grey.
Is this due to all this salt absorbed by the land?

4:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GN,

You're welcome and it is another world for us, very surreal.

felis,

It was one of those cloudy days with a wind chill in the 40's. The grayness of the ground is a result of the bulldozers mixing in the debris, dirt, and sand.

5:18 PM  
Blogger St. Casserole said...

Seawitch,
Thanks for these pictures. I haven't gone to Biloxi yet. I've seen what you show here.
When you come to Gulfport, let's go have lunch.
I'm glad you and your family have homes. It's really something to have a solid roof over one's head. Our home survived, too.

6:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

St C.,

It really is a blessing to have a roof over our heads. I'm glad that your family home came through okay as well. Lunch sounds like a good idea. The pictures are a way for me to work through what I'm seeing.

6:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I worried that the soild was so contaminated with all this sea salt.

4:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

felis,

The rain we've been having lately should wash a lot of it out but most of probably went out when the storm surge subsided.

5:11 PM  

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