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Published: October 18th 2005
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Floating Casino on land
Photo courtesy of Rose Coady 8:45PM
Biloxi is a mess, though I heard it was worse before.
We got down here about 3:30AM last night. There are about 110-120 of us. We are all sleeping under a huge red and white tent (picture a circus tent) provided by the Salvation Army. Lights are strung from pole to pole, but right now they're watching a movie (projected against the canvas), so I'm writing this near the well-lit entrance. We're in a place called Yankie Stadium, an old football field that the Salvation Army has leased to make part of its headquarters. The top of the bleachers are torn up. The press box is gone. We're sleeping on the grass.
We woke up at about 7AM. A trailer acts as the canteen. Coffee (non-dairy powdered creamer, two sugars), Pop Tarts, a banana, juice (they told us to eat up). The women working the food tent were nice. Some of the locals came in, too. Didn't talk to them yet. Was I too afraid?
Ate with Rachel and Rose. They slept by me, too. Not much sleep. Split into groups. Rachel and I are in the same group-- Tom's-- with Tamara. Folks from my Methodist
group from USC came, too. The groups went different ways. It was sunny, a little cool. The morning looked beautiful. Two groups (not mine)-- clean up/tear down houses. One group (not mine)-- canteen duty (go around the different neighborhoods and deliver food and such). Two groups (one mine)-- to the warehouse.
Salvation Army warehouse. Walked there. The streets were littered. Glass shards everywhere. Flies. Strong stench once in awhile. A toy here. A boat along the side of the road called "Good Times." (Later, someone told me they met the owner. He and his dog were on the boat when the storm hit. Owner went unconscious. Awoke on the side of the road, still in the boat.) A stack of photo albums, frames without pictures. Shredded plastic in trees/bushes, flapping like streamers or ticker tape. Video tape strewn about the road, broken VHS's. Broken trees. A tree on a house. Stepping over branches. Power lines down, snaked in the middle of the street. Houses off foundations, shifted into roads, away from front steps. A roof collapsed with nothing retrievable beneath it. Furniture, stacked, thrown about, broken, intact. Cars, mobile homes. A man changing a tire (white hair, beard). A
Debris pickup
Photo courtesy of Rose Coady Vietnamese couple sitting in a driveway. Some houses intact. The outline of what used to be a house. Unrecognizable goods, former parts of people's lives. Cars going past (I was surprised at the amount of traffic).
At the warehouse. A mangled dry dock outside. Boats mixed in with the steel beams, stabbed by them, entangled by them. People at the warehouse from all over. Salvation Army volunteers/workers. From Massachussetts, NY, FL, AL, SC, MN, etc. Workers and volunteers come on two-week shifts. Southern Baptist volunteers serving food. A Red Cross vehicle going by and getting cheerily heckled by the Salvation Army folk. "Ah, they're scoping us out," one Salvation Army guy called.
A huge warehouse filled with food, cleaning supplies, toys, hygiene products-- boxes and boxes and boxes. Buckets and buckets. Some put food boxes together. Some hygiene. I did buckets. Tom and I and two others, later more. We had to re-stack buckets of cleaning kits supplied by the Mormon church. They were shrink wrapped and falling over. Cut shrink wrap. Unstack. Put Salvation Army stickers on them (leaving the existing stickers). Put on pallets. Shrink wrap. Move.
Another group cleaned the yard (my Methodist Student
Collapsed roof
Photo courtesy of Rose Coady Network friends) and then had to clean sludge from an area nearby (replete with fecal matter of a significant amount). Later, they cleaned out a semi trailer of spoiled chicken, eggs, and hamburger meat.
Talked with a woman working for the Salvation Army who was displaced by the storm. Her name was Susan, maybe. Rode on a roof with a life jacket when the storm came. Later was on a yacht, I think. Lost her teeth or dentures in the storm and said she was embarrassed to be without them. I thought she was wonderful. They hired her to keep the bathrooms at the warehouse clean and stocked.
The things we ate: Lunch-- canteen room-- barbecue sandwiches, baked beans, pineapples, sweet tea, chocolate. Dinner-- canteen room-- spaghetti, salad, rolls, M&Ms. (Paul, from MSN, spilled his dinner in his lap and we laughed. He smelled like spoiled food and sewage, but we all smelled something like that by then.) The people: Carlos from NY, volunteer, charistmatic, funny. Rick, warehouse manager, serious. Others, but I can't remember names.
The warehouse was a shrimp factory. The sign says so, and I was told shrimping was a major industry in Biloxi.
Where houses were
Photo courtesy of Rose Coady I was told the Salvation Army will likely keep the warehouse running for at least a year. I see it, with so many boxes and so few people, clothes mildewing but food meaning something.
The country is pieced together here, shaken, but steadily rebuilding. I don't think I could've come last week, or weeks before. The despair when it first happened. I see it now, and there's motion forward.
A floating casino on the land. Another smashed into a hotel. Behind the warehouse. Three bridges: railroad (split in three), small road (non-existent but for tops of posts sticking out of the bay), highway (intact in the middle, stripped toward the warehouse side). Tracks torn up. Styrofoam on ground. Missing pieces everywhere. It was sunny, the breeze felt good on my face, and I stood with a fellow worker and then Tom and others. The warehouse was hot and stuffy, and the breeze cooled the sweat that had soaked through me. I breathed in fresh air, looked at the strong trees remaining on the land, the barrier islands.
The lights are on as we go back to the stadium. One-mile walk and it feels good, though my feet are tired. I lifted a lot of buckets, but I feel fresh somehow, though we all smell a little funky. I step on broken glass with every crunch of my tennis shoe sole. My knees (jeans) are blackened by dirt and dust and dampness from the warehouse floor. Gloves in my back pocket. Pen and small notebook in other back pocket. I walk with Rachel and Paul and Tamara. The sun set before we left. The sun was burning red and the sky was a heavenly mix of pink, orange, yellow, purply hues. The sun disappeared; the moon took its place.
Showers in the dark. A white trailer in the stadium-- Salvation Army provided-- cold water. Finding sleeping bag, bags under tent with flashlights. Clean clothes. Freshness.
The destruction is unbelievable. But I get to leave. That is what is hardest. I must imagine these houses, lives, as my own, and then, only then, can I begin to understand. I wish I could stay here. I could work as I did today, for purposes like I did today, for forever, I feel. Maybe I will.
Early morning tomorrow. Unresolution, but hope for now, and tomorrow, perhaps, too? One day done is one more day of work, more people fed, a step forward.
Hope, hope. All we have is hope.
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Kathy
non-member comment
Thank you
I'm so glad to read what people like you are doing to help after the storm. You are a blessing to the entire country. Keep up the good work.