Last year Hurricane Ivan hit near Mobile AL. I had been with a crew starting in the Florida keys and following Ivan's path to Panama City and then Mobile and then Biloxi MS (we overshot him a little). That storm damaged some buildings and dumped a lot of rain in Biloxi. It peeled some aluminum off our hotel and gave our satellite truck a scare, but sitting on the beach the next day it was clear that Biloxi would soon recover.
Not so for Katrina. Biloxi looked much worse when I arrived a week after the storm than anywhere I've seen after a hurricane. Last year Biloxi's floating casinos had water and wind damage; this year the giant barges had been lifted over the highway and placed over the highway 1/4 mile inland. Last year houses sustained damage; this year entire neighborhoods are rubble. The coastal highway looks like an earthquake hit it, several large bridges are knocked down, dominos style.
The cleanup effort is also much more massive. Biloxi is swarmed with troops, National Guard directing traffic as well as Navy Seabees working on construction, members of all US services mounting relief operations. In addition to that I met a Dutch sailor, spanish language media extensively covered Mexican troops in the area and we also saw the Canadian Navy. A flipside of the military relief operations is that travel around the small strip that Biloxi is on is very slow and difficult, which made the long hours of field work even longer, and made it much harder to feed things on time. In addition to the military presence there are police and firemen from around the country on the gulf coast. We saw the Atlanta Fire Department and the NYPD. There are also thousands of volunteers from the Red Cross and other groups as well as some individuals who came on their own.
We shot stories in other coastal towns: Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, Waveland. Gulfport's major import is bananas, which accounts for the giant chiquita containers (as in the kind an 18 wheeler hauls) all over the place: on porches, in storefronts, in the street. The beach at Bay St. Louis is relative high ground and it was under lots of water. In Waveland I saw a boat in a Burger King drive through. All along the coast it was dusty, smelled like death, and was hot.
Many of the poor do not have house insurance and are now destitute. Among people who do have insurance many had only "wind and storm". What happens to them is that the adjuster will look at their house and say they will cover everything above the water line. One man in a story we did had a water line on his wall about 7 feet high, nothing below that would be covered. I don't know what I'd do if I were one of these people.
With only a few exceptions people were grateful for our presence. They would thank us for what we were doing, they want the country (and world) to understand their plight.
Not so for Katrina. Biloxi looked much worse when I arrived a week after the storm than anywhere I've seen after a hurricane. Last year Biloxi's floating casinos had water and wind damage; this year the giant barges had been lifted over the highway and placed over the highway 1/4 mile inland. Last year houses sustained damage; this year entire neighborhoods are rubble. The coastal highway looks like an earthquake hit it, several large bridges are knocked down, dominos style.
The cleanup effort is also much more massive. Biloxi is swarmed with troops, National Guard directing traffic as well as Navy Seabees working on construction, members of all US services mounting relief operations. In addition to that I met a Dutch sailor, spanish language media extensively covered Mexican troops in the area and we also saw the Canadian Navy. A flipside of the military relief operations is that travel around the small strip that Biloxi is on is very slow and difficult, which made the long hours of field work even longer, and made it much harder to feed things on time. In addition to the military presence there are police and firemen from around the country on the gulf coast. We saw the Atlanta Fire Department and the NYPD. There are also thousands of volunteers from the Red Cross and other groups as well as some individuals who came on their own.
We shot stories in other coastal towns: Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, Waveland. Gulfport's major import is bananas, which accounts for the giant chiquita containers (as in the kind an 18 wheeler hauls) all over the place: on porches, in storefronts, in the street. The beach at Bay St. Louis is relative high ground and it was under lots of water. In Waveland I saw a boat in a Burger King drive through. All along the coast it was dusty, smelled like death, and was hot.
Many of the poor do not have house insurance and are now destitute. Among people who do have insurance many had only "wind and storm". What happens to them is that the adjuster will look at their house and say they will cover everything above the water line. One man in a story we did had a water line on his wall about 7 feet high, nothing below that would be covered. I don't know what I'd do if I were one of these people.
With only a few exceptions people were grateful for our presence. They would thank us for what we were doing, they want the country (and world) to understand their plight.
posted by Wes at 9:35 PM
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