Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf Coast during the day on Aug. 29, 2005 as a Category 4 storm. My husband and I stayed in our Pass Christian, MS home with our three dogs. Pass Christian is the town where one of the worst storms to ever hit the US landed in 1969 - Camille. Camille had been the benchmark for dangerous hurricanes, with winds topping 200 mph and a storm surge of 25-28 ft. Katrina was far worse. Winds were lower, but the storm surge of 28-30 ft. was larger, and the storm much wider, causing devastation from Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana to Mobile, Alabama. The west side of the storm inundated Plaquemines Parish, washing away some of the Mississippi delta, and flooded St. Bernard and New Orleans Parishes with up to 20 ft. of water which will take weeks or more to pump out of the below-sea level regions. The 35-40 mi eye of the storm landed in the Bay of St. Louis, pushing massive amounts of water up into the Bay and all the bayous and rivers that empty into it. Surging waters destroyed nearly everything within a 1/4 mile swath inland, including most of Old Town Bay St. Louis. The east side of the eye with the highest winds, passed over Harrison County and Pass Christian, Mississippi, obliterating nearly all of Henderson Point, Timber Ridge, Pass Christian, and Long Beach. Only 70% of Pass Christian is habitable. Storm surges and wind destroyed businesses, homes, ports, harbors, and historic landmarks in both there and in neighboring Gulfport and Biloxi. The USGS is working on a map of the storm surge and estimates from the only building standing on the bay side of Pass Christian put the surge there at 37 ft. That's 10 ft. higher than the surge in Camille! We estimated the surge at our house 2 miles inland to be 25 ft. This is unprecendented, and one hypothesis is that the westward motion of the hurricane passing near southern Louisiana piled water up against the Mississippi River levees, then the northward turn pushed it into the coast.
The following pictures of my home and nursery in Pass Christian were taken the day before, and the day of Hurricane Katrina. After are pictures of other areas of Pass Christian, Timber Ridge, Henderson Point, and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and some of our friends.
All images and content copyrighted, 2005. No use allowed without written permission.