[Becky]

It's on everyone's mind today in my area that this is the 10th anniversary of Katrina. It's one of those things you remember very vividly.

The day before the storm hit was a Sunday and I got word that the superintendent of the school district where I worked had already called off school for the next day. I told my mother and brother that it must be pretty serious be he NEVER called off school. There were other times that hurricanes were hitting and I was the only fool on the highway headed south while I met car after car headed north. So we went to the store and got some supplies like bottled water, non perishable food, etc.

It had been a very active hurricane season. My friend Karen lives in Mobile (right on the Gulf) and she and her family had evacuated so many times that year that they said to hell with it and just stayed home for Katrina. It was almost like the weathermen had reached a "cry wolf" situation because they kept telling people to evacuate and then nothing came of the storms.

I live about 200 miles from the coast, so we don't evacuate for storms. People come to this area when they evacuate. The coliseum in Jackson, churches, and hotels in this area and further north are where people come when they leave the coast.

Well, Monday came and the storm was coming in. I think we lost power about 10:00 in the morning. My mother, brother, and I gathered in the living room with our cats and as many of the dogs as we could get to come inside. We had the windows open because we had learned a long time ago that when a tornado is in the area it's best to have your windows open to relieve the pressure inside your house--all you could hear was the wind. You could see trees snapping and limbs falling, but you couldn't hear the trees break because the wind was so loud. It was like nothing I'd ever seen or heard before. So, of course, we were wondering if it was like this HERE, what in the world was it like on the coast? Our only connection to the outside world at that was a battery operated radio and the only thing we knew was that things were bad, but no one really knew how bad at that point.

We did have two generators and those were like having a million bucks stuffed under your mattress. Gasoline and Ice were gold. Even having generators, you couldn't use them but for short periods at a time because of the gas shortage.

After the storm had done its damage, we learned over the radio that the Gulf Coast was wiped out--the entire city of Waveland was gone. Sections of I-10 had been lifted by the storm surge. Bridges were gone. Almost every structure on the coastline had either been completely destroyed or damaged so badly that it would take months, if not years, to rebuild.

But it wasn't just the coast--the devastation stretched up the entire state. Even in my hometown, 200 miles from the coast and further north, homes were destroyed. I think most of the state was without power or telephone service. I remember trying to get a line out to tell someone that I was okay and to check on Karen. Eventually Karen was able to get a call through to me via her On-Star satellite service through her vehicle. Then my friend Yvette from Florida called and yelled at me for not calling anyone and I told her, "I can't get through to anyone!" There was a very sweet thread here on Dry County of people asking if I was okay.

We were without power for about a week--we were lucky! My friend who lives a just a little further south than me was without power for a month. We tried to cook everything we could out of the freezer on the grill and share it with friends and "neighbors" (we're kind of isolated--don't really have neighbors) because it was going to ruin anyway and some people didn't have food.

We put together a 1000 piece puzzle that's still on our coffee table in our living room. We would run the generator for about an hour at night to cool the house off a little bit because it's hot as hell in August in Mississippi. We would watch the news and see the devastation. It was heartbreaking.

I remember we all slept in the living room because we were scared because of all the crime going on, people looting and killing one another in New Orleans. We didn't know if that was going to happen here too. It was frightening because you didn't know if someone was going to turn on you. It didn't happen here, but the fact that it was happening there made me wonder and made me scared.

I remember taking cold showers because we have no hot water when have no electricity. I was just glad to have running water and a roof over my head. My mother told me the whole time she was watching the trees snapping in the yard she was praying that the ones near the house wouldn't destroy the house and she promised God she would cut them down if they made it through the storm. And she did get them cut down just as soon as she could. You can imagine how busy tree workers were after the storm.

It's been ten years, but it seems like yesterday. I've been to the Gulf Coast several times since then--from soon after it happened to a few months ago. the progress is amazing. They've rebuilt bridges and roads and buildings. Some of the old homes and historical sites are lost, but the spirit isn't.

One of the things that has been done since Katrina is these carvings from trees that the storms killed:

http://www.biloxi.ms.us/katrina-biloxi/sculptures/

This is what we do in Mississippi--try our best to make the best of a bad situation.

[Bleeding Purist]

This was a good read getting your personal perspective on what was happening in Mississippi, often overlooked due to New Oreleans.

It's unfortunately that this section of the board isn't used the way it used to be. There have been many good discussions and shares here over the years. It's good to see it utilized like this.