This can't be happening....the Evacuation Vacuum
  © Kay King

The destruction Hurricane Katrina brought to the Gulf Coast was overshadowed a day later as water continued rising in New Orleans.

Watching cable news channels for days at my son's Atlanta home, I grew frustrated and then furious at my inability to get any real information about storm damage on the Mississippi Coast.  Repeatedly, the newsmen
talked about New Orleans....then jumped to talking about Western Alabama.

The day after Katrina, my Hurricane Hunter older son called to say "Mom, just think of one word -- "insurance".  As a few pictures of the three Coastal counties in Mississippi started appearing on the internet, I tried to come to grips with having lost everything.

Day after day I tried to find information, pictures of specific areas where friends lived, where I worked....and found little or nothing.   Little by little, blogs and local area newspapers and radio stations started publishing
pictures of the devastation in Mississippi.

While homes in New Orleans were flooded and destroyed by a break in the levee system....homes on the Mississippi Coast were totally blown away.

The casino where I worked was destroyed, along with most of the other businesses along the waterfront.

There were no tears because I was in shock.  For eight days I watched the news and search the internet for more and more pictures.  The devastation I saw was beyond comprehension.

On the day, yet another call from my older son.  One of the Hurricane Hunters had gotten back to the Coast to check on his own home and had ridden a bicycle to my street.  Though many homes located North, South, East and West of my small one-block street had been heavily damaged, flooded with 10 or more feet of water
or, in some cases, totally disappeared -- my home was standing.  Even more, it had not flooded.

Hearing this, my bones turned to jello.  Even after the shock passed, I had tried to be strong and optimistic as I didn't want my family worrying about me.  Learning that my "stuff" was still where I left it....after seeing the photos of destroyed areas online and on TV....was hard to accept.

But I managed to accept it, of course.  This 30 yr old brick house is a trooper....she's a tough old broad and suits me well.  The fence lay under pieces of four large trees that had been broken off by the wind.  Only one had hit the house, damaging the roof with a glancing blow.  The hole it made was not large enough to flood my home with rainwater.

I've never considered myself a "lucky" person....after Katrina, I may have to rethink that.

The author, Kay King, lives on the Coast of Mississippi, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.  For more information about the disaster and the steps being taken toward recovery, please visit  

http://www.1disaster-recovery.com   .