All those reports on the national news in 2005 and candid videos of people being all dramatic about the damage in New Orleans....well, they've seen DIDDLY SQUAT. Mississippi's coast took the brunt of the storm, got the life knocked out of it (such that a lot of residents vowed to never return), and quietly pulled its own citizens from the inside out to rebuild itself while New Orleans and Lousy-Louisiana got all of the media spotlight.
I see the pictures I'm about to show you all here, and it angers me that the media could miss so much. All of these photos were pulled from a website of slide shows, with comments for every photo.
One of the photos had a comment from an interviewee stating something about how "the hurricane was bigger than what was let on on TV." After spending a respectful amount of time scanning through all 104+ photos on this website, I could not agree more.
I posted several photos here that moved me enough to show you. However, if you have a free half hour, I highly highly recommend that you give this website a little bit of your time yourself and page through each and every photo. The symbolism in the photos is fascinating, and the stories are really something else. Click here for the full website of photos. As always, click on each of the following photos here for a larger image.
"This house on the corner of Lee Street and Highway 90 in Biloxi had been completely blown away. The eerie sight of steps without a joining home could be seen everywhere. Between 65,000-70,000 homes along the Mississippi Gulf Coast were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina's landfall (destroyed outright). Some 383,000 homes were left uninhabitable."
"The President Casino barge, which had been permanently secured to its marina-based platform for more than 12 years, was ejected from the marina, then blown over a half mile away, ultimately crashing on top of the Biloxi Beachfront Hotel (formerly the Holiday Inn Express), located adjacent to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum."
[Notice that the rotund building in the upper right-hand corner of this photo is the MS Coast Coliseum - where Joe and I went to see that concert over the holiday weekend....I never knew things looked like this at one point!]
"No flood insurance? Many along the Coast did not have flood insurance, and with many it was not because they wanted to take a risk, it was simply because they were in a location that was not ever thought to flood."[Let's just say I would be beyond FREAKED if this Honda Accord would have been the Beetle!!!]
"A wrecked Biloxi-Ocean Springs bridge."[Who knew asphalt could be so....crumbly like croutons?! WOW.]
"Stilts were all that remained in this area of Bay St. Louis/Waveland. Photo taken just days after Katrina came ashore."[I get the impression this used to be one of the ritzy neighborhoods.]
"Reduced to rubble. This is all that remained of the Bombay Bicycle Club at Reynoir and Highway 90 near the Beau Rivage in Biloxi."[JOE: notice what building is standing the background...the very Hard Rock cafe you and I ate at!]
"Personal belongings from homes dangle from a tree in this neighborhood on 5th Street in Long Beach, Mississippi."[I never thought I'd see a TV dangle from a TREE.]
"Slabs. Long Beach, Mississippi."
"August 29, 2005. A NOAA satellite photo of Hurricane Katrina as the storm makes landfall in Mississippi."
"The remains of Marine Life Aquarium in Gulfport, Mississippi."
"The Schooner Seafood Restaurant on The Point in Biloxi was completely washed away. The restaurant was later moved to Downtown Biloxi on Howard Avenue."[This would actually be the seafood restaurant Joe and I were trying to find...and pulled up to the empty parking lot instead!]
Aren't all of these photos amazing?! How could entire BUILDINGS be picked up and plopped back down as a whole unit, MILES away?!?!?! Wow.
No comments:
Post a Comment