Hurricane Katrina

With reading up on all of the flooding you guys are experiencing up north, I figured to mention it to the locals down here in the south about any horrendous flooding stories they might have.

I figured this would be coming up as a response, but there were some hurrincane Katrina stories to retell.

Despite Canton being 3 hours away from the gulf coast, they said it rained and rained and rained here when Katrina hit at the end of August 2005, with heavy winds and extreme flooding. The Nissan plant was under water, and dozens of vehicles that were parked outside had to be scrapped and used as mere errand-runner vehicles from one end of the plant to another. They even pulled up pictures saved on our servers here at work and showed me Nissan Quests drifting through a huge pond of water out in the factory's yard.

Anyway, their primary damage wasn't like what we've all heard about New Orleans or any of those coastal cities (like Biloxi, which I am going to go see for 4^th of July and is rumored to still be in the rebuild process from Katrina). No, the primary damage I've been told about here in the middle of Mississippi is the gasoline shortage they experienced, since all of their main fuel lines and deliveries come off of tanker ships that port along the Gulf of Mexico. With the ports being all washed away, the gasoline stopped coming in to Canton, and people would line up for 4, 5, possibly even 6 hours, at a gas station just to fill their vehicle up with gasoline.

Jessica, my coworker here that I previously posted about, told me how the gas stations would ration off the number of gallons they'd pump out to customers each day. Back then, during the middle of the crisis, gas was $4/gallon like it is now with no real crises. You had to pay cash, $40, and you could only take a maximum of 10 gallons per customer. There were attendants at each and every pump here, and you had to pay at the pump BEFORE you pumped.

The only thing is, you never knew when the station would close up for the day to hold to their ration.

Jess told me that one day she got an insider tip about a gas station that was opening earlier than any other gas station in town – and told her boss that she was going to get in line and fill up her running-on-fumes vehicle and had to take a few hours off of work that day to do so. It was this, or take off a WHOLE day of work the next day, just for spending it waiting in line at a station somewhere with everyone else.

Jess told me she got to the station a half hour before it opened, to start waiting in line, and cars were already lined up and down the street in both directions. So much for a secret early-opening! She estimated about 40 cars were in line ahead of her, even a half hour before the store opened. While she managed to eventually get to the pump and get her 10 gallons, she said the station closed for the day about 5 cars in line behind her, to savor their supply for the next day. She just barely made it.

Now, the gasoline supply has been replenished and the average price per unleaded gallon down here is $3.89.

I've been told that even today if you get down to US highway 10, which runs along the Gulf of Mexico, you drive past smashed up boats on the shoulders of the road. There are still families living in trailer homes, building their real house next door to the trailer home. FEMA still has their trailers and UHauls down there in full force. There are also hobos that came into town from the swamps and are stealing residents' land by squatting on it and claiming it as their own, because the residents' deeds and titles were washed away with the hurricane so all proof has been lost. Your word is gonna be as good as the crook's now. Yikes!

In lighter views, though, all of the cities have been mostly rebuilt so everything is new-new-new and has that sparkly look similar to things in Florida and the Orlando area. It's not going to be the typical tin-roof shak homes I've seen down here, or any of the stereotypes you guys up north may think of when you hear the word 'Mississippi'. (And it's partially true! Last week I drove past someone's home that, for glass window panes, didn't even have real glass windows. They had SARAN WRAP stretched across the frame instead. Imagine that. A window being made of saran wrap that we use to cover our leftover food from supper every night!!)

I'm glad to be living where I'm living though – the new part of town, the upper-class part of town. Nissan brought a lot of riches with them when they plunked down here! There are subdivisions of homes here that offer you a LOT of house for the money. Homes that would run for $800,000 in Green Bay are half the price here – and just as plush. Whoa!