Long Beach after Hurricane Katrina

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Its Christmas time, so I am making my holiday visit to friends and relatives in Mississippi and Louisiana. I detoured to visit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My family and I spent a week here in August - two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit.

Most of the news media has paid too much attention to the plight of New Orleans. The Mississippi Gulf Coast and other areas have been ignored.

I was able to drive a ten-mile stretch of what once was Highway 90. This highway is on the water of the gulf. The beach is one step to the south and the homes are one step to the north.

Except now the homes are gone.

When I look towards where the homes once were it looks like a forest. There are plenty of trees. The leaves are all gone from the trees. I hope the trees live and the leaves come back. But that is all I see. There is no wreckage of smashed and collapsed homes. There is no indication that people once lived here.

When I step out of my car and walk into the forest, the devastation becomes apparent. Sidewalks, streets, foundations of homes; these are everywhere, but there is no wreckage, nothing left behind. The storm surge of Katrina took the homes inland a mile or so. Everything was washed away.

One of my sons asked when people would return and build new homes. I don't know. Maybe a year or two or ten. Things will be different; things are always different.

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