I am back.
Where do I start?
On the drive down, we started seeing damage about 20 miles north of Hattiesburg. It was limited to trees and billboards.
Hattiesburg had more damage. More trees down. Wires down. No billboard survived. Shingles gone. Roofs gone or damaged.
We continue on. We still have 90 miles to go.
More driving through mainly rural highway areas. All the trees now point in the same direction. Very strange.
Road sign missings. Overpass signs gone.
We're getting into Pascagoula now. Things look like Hattiesburg except a little worse. More roofs damaged, more trees down. They have power though. Cars are driving around, and gas stations and restaurants are open for the most part. Where is all the damage?
We still have 10 miles to the coastline.
Driving further in now. Tree damage is not much worse, but roof damage is getting worse.
We're at our destination. We're about 1.2 miles from the water. Most all business are closed. The ones that are open have spray-painted signed up informing people of that fact. Power in this area came back on yesterday.
Water is back on, except there's a boil-water notice. That should be lifted by today with a little luck. The water is no longer brown and doesn't smell like sewage.
The water that had not been handed out earlier is starting to go out now. Bottled water is in abundance actually.
The red cross has moved to 2 meals of about 4500 servings each. This has dropped to about 3300 now. It appears people are leaving town and/or have started to get back on their feet.
FEMA is still arriving in stages.
The private sector is doing the real work though. Utility companies are already on their way back home (as far as outot state crews are concerned). Power is back up to everyone that still has a house standing. the streets are sort of clear. At least 1 lane is open to most places.
We worked at this feeding depot some. Trucks needed unloading and loading. Food and supplies needed sorting. The baptists have 3 forklifts there now. They had fuel, but no pump. But we had a barrel pump and were able to fuel their lifts and the refrigeration unit on an 18 wheeler trailer.
Ice is not being handed out quickly enough. Red cross has trailer loads of it. At the rate they're handing it out, 80% will melt before it is used.
Clothes are in an oversupply situation. There are so many clothes there that a LOT of them will be thrown away.
We "borrowed" some pallets of ice and struck out for the coastline.
Things got worse quickly.
Except for a few houses right on the water, most houses were still standing.
I'm working on getting our pictures, and will post them later if possible.
Visualize...
1. Take all your carpet, carpet pad, sheetrock, wall insulation, roof shingles, roof boards, doors, windows, mattesses, possessions, interior doors, appliances, cabinets, lawn mowers, and anything else you have.
2. put it in a blender for 2 minutes on puree
3. add in 100 gallons of mud, dead fish, and sewage
4. blend some more
5. pour it out all over your house, yard, street
It was bad.
People had started "cleaning" up this mess. Basically they were shoveling it to the curb. The city was coming through with an empty 18 wheeler equipped with a crane arm and clamp. They picked up all your crap with very little ceremony or respect and took it to the dump.
Everyone had spray painted their name/NEW phone #, insurance company, etc on the side of their house. If they did not have a house, or if it did not have walls anymore, this information would be on a piece of plywood in the front yard.
There were a lot of dead cars. Water height estimates were 24-28 feet at distances of 3/4 mile from the shore.
I will never forget the smell.
People were appreciative of the water and ice we were handing out, but many did not need any. It seems that they were calling in relatives and friend to help them clean up some. Power/water/gasoline were available again, so if you had money you could start doing whatever you wanted to.
I saw a motel that flooded on the ground floor to 8'. A mold abatement company had arrived. EVERYTHING from the 1st floor was piled at the curb. They had huge dehumidifiers in each room drying everything out.
A local restaurant survived and was serving food. But they had no floor covering and very little interior walls left.
Lots of snakes.
No mosquitoes (yet).
Not what Mississippians would call hot, but very hot for the visiting "rescuers". They called it "incredibly hot".
Lots of people were living in tents in their front yard. A few had gotten an rv to live it. The RVs were not from fema.
By the time we left, the bureaucracy had arrived and was in full effect. At this point, I mean that in a good way. More and better food was arriving. Organized volunteers were arriving by the busload. FEMA/MEMA were actually getting a start on getting a handle on the situation.
If you want to help... I'd say to volunteer at a local shelter. If you don't want to meet the people there you can still help support the shelter anyway. They many need people to run errands, donate money (always popular), or look for local jobs for the refugees.
