The damage in Mississippi, town by town. Particularly mild-blowing is the summary of the devastation in Biloxi:
Legacy Towers condos survive. . . Ryans, Red Lobster, Olive Garden washed away along U.S. 90. . . Lighthouse still standing. Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge gone. Bottom floor of the library and the home of Jefferson Davis home, Beauvoir destroyed. . . . Sharkshead Souvenir City gone. . . Edgewater Village strip shopping center gutted . . . Also gone: the steeple of historic Hansboro Presbyterian Church; Waters Edge II apartments; Diamondhead Yacht Club, the old neon McDonald’s sign on Pass Road . . . Massive damage in east end of city. . . almost total devastation primarily south of the railroad tracks near Lee Street, Point Cadet and Casino Row. . . Beau Rivage still stands. . . Hard Rock Casino, scheduled to open in early September, suffered 50 percent damages. The signature guitar, said to be the world’s largest, still stands. . . At least five casinos out of commission. . . St. Thomas the Apostlic Catholic Church, which sits on U.S. 90, is gone.
It strikes me that, in a way, New Orleans is to Mississippi right now as the World Trade Center was to the Pentagon on 9/11. If nothing was happening at all in New Orleans, the utter devastation in Mississippi would, by itself, make Katrina one of the most awful, destructive and deadly hurricanes in American history. Yet because what’s happening in New Orleans is of such horrifying and historic proportions — essentially, the total destruction of an entire metropolitan area, happening before our eyes — the devastation in Mississippi is, improbably, relegated to playing second fiddle in the news, just as the Pentagon attack (which would have been, by itself, the deadliest and most audacious terrorist attack in American history) played second fiddle to the World Trade Center atrocity.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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August 31st, 2005 at 1:31:32 pm
I was thinking the same thing last night, watching the news.
Biloxi looks like a warzone, but the flooding in NO has taken all the news…..Not that this is a bad thing, its just fact.
August 31st, 2005 at 1:35:02 pm
Do you really think anyone on the ground is concerned that they aren’t getting *less* media attention than someone else?
Really?
August 31st, 2005 at 2:06:38 pm
Did either of us say we think that?
No.
Do you just like to pick fights, RoC, or what?
August 31st, 2005 at 2:13:40 pm
Pictures of Keesler AFB are making the rounds in military e-mail circles. The commissary (grocery store to you civilian types) had six feet of water inside.
Having been to Keesler half a dozen times the past 8 years, I’m familiar with many of the landmarks mentioned in this post. That McDonald’s sign on Pass Road is a couple blocks from the west gate of Keesler. I drove by it many, many times. Hard to believe so much of what was familiar is now gone.
August 31st, 2005 at 2:14:33 pm
no.
August 31st, 2005 at 3:07:21 pm
Darth Cirrocu,
I’ve seen those pictures from Keesler and have seen the sit reps. I work for AAFES (Army And Air Force Exchange Service) and the base exchange had six feet of water in it too (it’s down to ankle-deep now) - if it’s like most bases, the commissary and BX are probably next door to each other. The sit rep reads like a disaster novel - base housing is unlivable, the aircraft hangars are all gone with just the frames left. It’s like Homestead in ‘92 after Andrew, just a much larger base.
August 31st, 2005 at 3:25:58 pm
I was thinking the same analogy last night as well. Guess it’s because the news crews couldn’t reach the areas without a lot of difficulty. It’s slowly becoming apparent though.
Also, the waters came and went in Biloxi and places, while the crisis is VISIBLY still happening in New Orleans. ‘Race against time’ stories are compelling. Can’t blame the news teams that much, until they have hard data from these communities it makes it difficult to report. Still, think they should dedicate more air time to them.
August 31st, 2005 at 3:55:41 pm
Exactly, Pedro.
The situation is still fluid on the ground in NO. Things are happening, cops are getting capped, thugs roaming the streets, Sly Stallone’s trying to find a way out of a flooded tunnel, etc.
August 31st, 2005 at 4:21:35 pm
“I have confirmation… yes, confirmation, that John Lithgow is very angry and has a gun and is pursuing Sylvester Stallone. Not good news for Stallone, eh, Randy?”
“Susan, I’m reliably informed that Lithgow has said, and I quote, “I won’t let anything get in my way…”
(Sorry, but if I don’t have these little outlets I’ll probably cry. It’s just all so f*cking tragic. Today’s news from Iraq re the stampede was the cherry on the cake. News soon from me on the Brit reaction)
August 31st, 2005 at 4:29:38 pm
Please keep us up to date on what is gone and what is not. My Wife and our two children have vacationed in Biloxi/Gulfport since 1997. We fell in love with the people and the towns. We are from a little town of about 2,000 people, and we love the down home/laid back feeling of this area.
We were there June 19-24 and had a wonderful time. We ate at the IHOP, OLIVE GARDEN, OUTBACKS and several other places. went to the sharkshead souv., arcades, mall, prime outlets. and the shopping center just across I-10. A sweet girl named Tiffany Mallett gave me the best haircut I have ever had. We went to all the casinos,at the IP we visited with many people we knew there, we ate there and watched movies.
We also went fishing with Eris Turner and her daughter Missy on Biloxi Bay Charters. My youngest son caught a 40 lb. redfish. Eris and Missy made us feel at home, they are some good people. I went by to see detective McKeg but could not find him at the biloxi P.D. We had meet a couple of years ago when he helped me with a problem.
On the 7 hour drive home we planned our next vacation and every thing we were going to do next summer. We’ve been to disney, universal, the smokey mountains, but god knows we love Biloxi.
while viewing the destruction last night we wondered about the places we have been and the friends we have made there. And we prayed for all the people affected by this terrible tradegy. My toyngest (15 yrs. old) asked: “I want to go back to Biloxi next summer just like we have been doing and I want to fish with Eris and Missy again and help the towns get started again”. We all agreed we wanted to return and visit.
Please keep us up to date on the condition of the different places and businesses there and god bless all.
August 31st, 2005 at 8:56:56 pm
I don’t know what the obsession is with New Orleans, but, I can assure you, the difference between the west side of a hurricane’s eye and the east side is night and day. I suspect some of the obsession is because, to a large extent, the media is not allowed in the east-side areas that have been completely destroyed. For example, there’s a 24-hour curfew around the Gulfport area and it applies to everyone, including the media. No one has any business going anywhere because there’s no anywhere to go to.
A guy from Enterprise took a truck load of food to Biloxi, and people were tearing the bags off the truck before he could get the truck stopped.
A friend of mine, who commutes from Gulfport to Mobile, left for Gulfport Friday when it looked like the storm was headed for Mobile. No one has heard from him since.
Everyone I know who lives on the Mississippi coast lost everything they owned. (But they’re still alive, so you won’t hear them bitchin to some reporter. And you damn sure won’t find them looting: Not only are they above that sort of behavior, but they’d expect to be shot for it.)
I’ll guarantee you there are numerous people in Pascagoula and Biloxi and Gulfport and Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis and Waveland that, right now, wished they had a Superdome, or and other roof, over their heads.
Sorry for the disjointed rambling. Enjoy your running water.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:14:31 pm
I apologize for the smartass ending to that last post. I know you guy’s mean well (and I never lost running water, I’ve already got power again, and, by this weekend everything will be back to normal for us), but I’ve been listening to horror story after horror story coming out of the Mississippi Coast on the local radio. And, on the one or two occasions I’ve been able to hear a national news report, it’s all New Orleans all the time.
In New Orleans, they don’t have a dry place to sleep in the Superdome. In Gulfport, they don’t have an airconditioned place to put the dead. Does that kind of make what I’m trying to say clear?
Again, I apologize for the previous post.
September 1st, 2005 at 5:20:09 pm
I felt the same way — that the MS Gulf Coast was being somewhat overlooked in media coverage, but I thought it was just me, because Mississippi is my homestate. (I live in the Northwest part of MS, in the Delta.) I came across your blog while doing a search. Very interesting. Thank you.
Sweet Magnolias, aka Kim
September 1st, 2005 at 7:43:10 pm
Hey Kim,
Sorry for the language in the other posts. I had just had my electricity restored and had a chance to see the national coverage of the hurricane, and I couldn’t believe the focus was on New Orleans. (All I heard for three days were broadcasts out of coastal Mississippi. It’s terrible over there.) Folks that aren’t down here simply don’t understand. If you have relatives or friends on the coast, I hope they are all okay.
September 5th, 2005 at 4:15:39 pm
Can you tell me if there were damages, etc. to the Edgewater Bend Apartment complex on Eisenhower Road? We have an elderly friend that lives there and have not been able to contact her. I called the day before the hurricane and couldn’t reach her, so I hope she got out ahead of the storm.