Coming Home Three weeks after evacuating for Hurricane Katrina, I returned home. I could have returned a week sooner....but the idea of coming back to 95 degree heat and high humidity -- and no power -- did nothing for me at all. My son followed me back to Mississippi so as to help with downed trees, etc. The trip home was much easier than the evacuation and we were within 30 minutes of home when traffic suddenly slowed to a crawl. As far ahead as we could see -- a line of vehicles moving at 5 miles per hour. Half of I-10 was closed due to storm damage so the second lane of the highway was carrying traffic East rather than West.. The road at that point is a raised highway where traffic is going above the swamps and tributaries along that coastal area. Every few hundred yards were signs that said "IMPORTANT....traffic must maintan a 45 mph speed across the overpass". That worried me as we were going substantially less. Were they trying to say that part of the road wasn't 100%, too? Home at last....the house stands, many of the trees don't. After taking care of my pets and resting a few minutes, we climb into my son's truck and head out to see what the area looks like. One block South of my street....the houses are empty. I learn later that they had 5-8 feet of water in them. Two blocks South of my street, the homes are simply gone! My son points upward...I look up to see clothing, toys, etc hanging 20-30 feet high on limbs of huge oak trees. That is where it caught as the 28 foot tidal surge receded. We drive past a friend's house...the front wall of the house is gone, everything destroyed inside. Driving from my subdivision into the town of Ocean Springs, we don't even speak. We stop and park near the long bridge I drove to work daily. It is not there. The huge slabs of concrete have fallen in the water and only a long We drive Front Beach Road where huge homes stood on a hill across from the water line. The homes are not all gone....but all have flooded. What was a small rise that runs along the street and leads to the "hill" is no longer smooth. Huge oaks and pines have been totally uprooted....pulling out 6 feet and more of the earth with them. The damage more widespread and much worse than I expected. Every street has piles of "junk" sitting in front of it....washers and dryers, refrigerators, kitchen cabinets, clothing, once beautiful furniture, toys -- all of it piled with waterlogged carpeting and drywall. Although all of these ruined piles are filled with "material possessions", they are all part of the lives of the families that owned them. I don't see homes -- I see families displaced, much-loved posessions destroyed. I wonder how you explain to your young children that you no longer know where you live. Do families come together -- or fall apart? I find I can't look at any more. For now at least, I can't think of this any more. My son feels the same and we head for my home even more grateful that I have a home to go to.
The author, Kay King, lives on the Coast of Mississippi, the area hardest hit by Hurricane |
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