A Day of Recovery After Hurricane KatrinaLisa A. Pflug A Day of Recovery After Hurricane Katrina Lisa A. Pflug, 5016 Menge Ave., Pass Christian, MS 39571 rosesinthepass@yahoo.com Sept. 21, 2005 Two days ago and three-and-a-half weeks after hurricane
Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, I finally managed to contact a
friend from Washington D.C. I
told him about the first week after the storm, when all forms of
communication were almost nonexistent and we desperately tried to find out if
family and friends in neighboring counties and Louisana were okay, and tried
to solve our immediate problems of living without power, water, sewer, or
transportation in the heat of a southern summer. My friend asked what we had been doing in the weeks since
then while not working, and I found it difficult to explain why we had been
so busy. I told him how it took
time to salvage what we could from our flooded garage, wrecked yard and my
plant nursery, and that when our house nearly flooded during the storm, we
had feverishly carried our important belongings and supplies upstairs. Our home was in chaos and we needed
time to put things in order. I
told him how it took time to deal with insurance, FEMA, contractors, and how
many things need to be done in person since phones are still out. For him and others who might not
understand the tremendous energy it takes to recover even a semblance of a
normal life in a destroyed community, I offer this insight of a typical day
nearly a month after the storm. After working only two days this week for the first
time since the storm, I took a vacation day yesterday. The day started with my two dogs
sneaking out of our yard, requiring my husband, Charles, and I to spend the
next hour searching for them.
Our fences are broken from fallen trees so our two large active dogs have
to stay inside unless on leashes or careful watch, and I obviously didn't
watch them carefully enough. It
is less than a week since I found a neighbor's dog dead in front of our
house, hit by one of the huge speeding trucks hauling storm debris from downtown
along the main street where we live.
It was heart-wrenching to deliver the grim news to a couple already
traumatized by the storm. When
my husband finally finds our two dogs, I cry in relief for them and us, and
sorrow for everything that has happened here since the hurricane. I wonder how long it will be before
the first day that I don't cry. Now running late for the day's activities, I dress
(yes, I've been out looking for the dogs in my pajamas, but little things
like that don't matter anymore) and water my rescued nursery plants by hand. The plants that survived the flood
and nine days of no water are scattered here and there, and the sprinkler
system needs repair. I then
drive around the corner to a shelter where about 100 people left homeless by
the storm now live. These are
people who do not have family or friends to offer them homes, nor the means
to get a home for themselves.
Even if they had money, there are no homes or apartments to buy or
rent. I drop off a DVD player
and tapes we stood in line to buy last night after work, and some donated
games and books that we picked up earlier for the children. I look for Miss Vivien, an elderly
lady living at the shelter who I have promised to drive to a FEMA site to
register her for housing. She
has mild dementia and was abandoned by her only family, a nephew who
evacuated, lost his home, and is not returning. I can't find her, but talk to one of the Red Cross
volunteers about what will happen to Miss Vivien after all this is over and
what we can do to help her. No
one has answers. I plan to come
back in the afternoon. I say hello to an older gentleman smoking outside the
shelter, and he asks me how I did in the storm. I answer briefly and ask how he did. I'm in a rush, but it is obvious he
wants someone to hear his story, so I sit down with him and listen. He didn't evacuate his apartment near
the beach, in denial about how bad the hurricane would be. When the water started rising, he
swam outside among floating cars, washing machines, building debris, and
trees, and latched onto a floating piece of a picket fence. Debris started to pile up around him
and he feared being trapped and drowning, so he left the fence and grabbed a
large waste bin floating by. It
had only about a foot of water and garbage in it, so he got in and closed the
flap. He spent four terrifying
hours floating in that waste bin, crawled out after the water receded and
left it grounded 100 ft. from his home, and collapsed nearby on a pile of
rubble. Neighbors from up the
street looking for survivors found him and took him to a shelter. After a day, he couldn't stand
the overcrowding and drifting stench of human waste accumulating in the
non-functioning bathrooms, so he left and spent the next twelve days in his
ruined apartment building, living on food and bottled water he scavenged from
the debris. I asked about his
plans for the future. He told me
that once he had temporary housing provided by FEMA, he would look for a job,
confident that he could find one as a salesman. Before I leave, I ask for a name to remember with his face
and story. His name is Wallace,
and I think he will be better off than most other people at the shelter. Back home, Charles and our friend Bobby are loading up
water, food, and supplies for a salvage operation, as we now call them. Bobby is a friend who was visiting
his mother in Florida for the hurricane and returned a week later to find his
home demolished, spread over three lots in his neighborhood. There is half of a house sitting in
his pool - it is not his house.
We have been on many salvage operations there to dig through smelly,
muddy debris looking for his 'treasures,' as he calls them. We have recovered quite a number of
his treasures, but only through tedious dirty work in the baking sun, and for
now, most are sitting at our home awaiting cleaning or renovation. Our schedule for the day includes a
salvage operation at a storage room he rented in neighboring Bay St. Louis
and a salvage operation at another friend's house in the area. Our first stop is to Woody and Shawn's
place. These are our friends who
are living outside their destroyed home while they salvage belongings and
repair their house. Shawn says
they are doing okay, but we take some towels with us to wash for her, and
plan to look for some pillows for them. We drive several streets over to my friend Pat's house
to pick up some items of sentimental value to her. She evacuated locally for the storm, but ended up in
Orlando, where she now has her son in school and is planning to stay
permanently. I still can't
believe my dear friend will no longer be around to walk through the garden
and chat over coffee. She hasn't
been back since the storm yet.
She is worried about looters, but her house is in such bad condition
after flooding to the roof, I doubt looters would go in it. Her house looks reasonably intact
from the front, but it has shifted off the foundation and the back is
collapsed. The back door is open
and we enter. It is disgusting
and the stench barely tolerable.
My friend couldn't take her three cats to the shelter, and they
drowned in her house, but were removed two weeks ago by her ex-husband who is
now also in Orlando with his entire family. The place is a wreck, soaking wet, and fuzzy molds are
growing rampant. I locate her
pie safe lying on the floor, one door open, and start to remove her china and
pottery, some of limited monetary valuable, but all of great sentimental
value. Much of it is intact so
I'm pleased because it can be cleaned and Pat will have some of her treasured
things, like her Mother's Wedgwood vases, a wedding gift. I have to pour muddy water out of
some of the vases, and the wafting odor when doing so is nearly
overpowering. We are wearing
boots, gloves, and dust masks to protect us from the mold, and we have to take
breaks outside to escape the unbearable heat and smell. I go into her bedroom to look for
items in her dresser that she wants.
I get Bobby to help me stand the dresser back up, but the drawers are
stuck, and I doubt the things she asked about are salvageable. She asked me to pick up a few of her
son's favorite stuffed animals, but after removing the bathroom cabinet from
the doorway to get into her son's room, I know that even after a lot of
washing, no child should have anything that has ever been this contaminated
with mold. I don't think my
friend fully comprehends the devastation this kind of flooding causes. I didn't either until I saw it for
myself. The stench is something
I cannot forget. I pick up a box of pictures lying in the grass, we load
the boxes we've filled, and drive along the Bay to exit the
neighborhood. It is impossible
to drive quickly. Debris is
piled high on both sides of the road, and we can't stop looking at the
devastation even though we have seen area already. We talk about houses we enjoyed looking at and now can't
tell where they once stood. We
gawk at debris hanging 20 ft. high in trees. We stare at boats and cars strewn about like toys tossed
by a child. We can't believe
that the Bay St. Louis yacht club is totally gone, and the bridge across the
bay that connected Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian is only a set of pilings
now, and even many of those are missing. We see a lady sitting beneath a tree in front of a concrete
slab littered with trash, resting and enjoying the summer breeze on her
face. I ask if this was her
house - it was - and tell her I am sorry. I ask if she was able to find any of her things, and she
says, "Only a few."
"Do you know what the storm surge was here?" I ask, and she
tells me it was 31 ft. It is
impossible to imagine what the place looked like at the peak of the surge. We arrive at the storage center where they are
bulldozing the buildings, and we realize we are lucky to have come that day
because the following day the whole place will be demolished. Without mail or phones, customers
could not be notified about the demolition. Bobby breaks the door to enter his room since he doesn't
have a key, and all his neatly stacked bins of stuff are now in a jumbled
heap, wet, and covered in mud.
It stinks so bad that I have to step outside periodically to keep from
gagging. He finds some
salvageable items, but his master's thesis, books, boxes of financial papers,
and nearly everything else is ruined.
He finds two boxes of pictures he forgot were there - one are old
family photos from his sister.
He swears in anger and frustration because these are the things that
are most important to him, and he normally wouldn't have them in storage, but
the hurricane caught him in some temporary disarray at home and he hadn't
realized the pictures were there.
I walk over to the pile of debris next to the building we are in to
scavenge a couple of plastic bins to carry stuff, and see bunches of huge
hard-bound books - Hancock County judicial and land records from the 1960's
and 1970's. They will all go to
the landfill. I sadly realize
that important records from the whole coast are now lost. We load up Bobby's boxes in the
trailer and head for home. Once there, I go inside to cool off and rest. I have to shower first because I feel
contaminated by the filth we have been in. It is nearly 5 pm, and the brutal heat wears me out. Bobby stays outside and unloads his
stuff to begin cleaning some of it.
While we drink cool water and eat a snack, Charles and I look at some
aerial photos he has downloaded from work. We locate friend's houses, and observe how the storm surge
pushed the debris from much of Pass Christian into piles along the railroad
track and how the poor folks south of the track have no debris on their lots
to search through. Charles shows
me where a neighborhood on the bay has been wiped clean and the debris now
sits hundreds of yards away in undeveloped marshland jutting into the bay. I don't know how they are going to
remove it. I put on bug spray and go outside to clean some of
Pat's things so I can box and store them for her. The mosquitoes are bad already, but we know after the
first rain following this three-week drought, there will be a plague of
them. Bobby and I work until dark,
then go in to clean up and eat dinner, which we get to at about 8 pm. Dinner consists of apples, cheese,
peanut butter, and canned soup that we can now heat in the microwave with
some Styrofoam bowls we just got yesterday. We're happy about heating the soup for a change (little
things matter) and we joke about how we are feasting on a multi-course
meal. We have well water, but it
has not been disinfected yet so we drink bottled water and have to rinse all
our dishes in bleach water to clean them. We have enough to do without washing dishes anyway, so we
try to use disposable plates and utensils. For no good reason, we are still being super-frugal with
our plastic forks and cups. We
mark them with our names and wipe them clean to reuse. It's become a habit, I guess. We chat about the usual topics - FEMA
housing, news from the local paper about the hurricane recovery, and how
great Mississippi has been handling this tragedy. A quick clean-up, and we get ready for bed. Tomorrow I am taking another vacation
day from work to pick up Miss Vivien from the shelter for a trip to the FEMA
station, stop at a local school to get information for my sister who is
trying to figure out where my niece can spend her senior year of high school,
then Charles and I are going to shop for a car. A month after the storm, we are still using the rental car
that Bobby drove in from Florida.
We will try to keep track of Hurricane Rita out in the Gulf, praying
it won't hit us but feeling guilty because we know that means it will hit
someone else. It'll be just
another regular day here in Pass Christian. Copyright 2005.
All use prohibited. |