Destruction on the Mississippi Coast

I cannot completely describe the destruction that we saw. Someone put it to me like this (and I agree). The pictures that we see on the news or the Internet or from someone who's been there do represent the destruction well. The problem is that you only see a small sampling. It's only when you've been there that you can see the massiveness of it. It's all around you. The house we were at was several blocks away from the beach. And as we looked at the house next door, which was not as far along as ours, we saw a FEMA trailer and a totally gutted out house. There was nothing but 2"x4" studs on the inside of the house.

Now if you go to the beach and travel highway 90 along the beach from Biloxi to Pass Christian (as far as we could go before it closed) here's what you will see. We saw the Grand Casino hotel still standing pretty. It must have truly been built well. I stood several hundred yards west of it and took a picture. I then turned to look in the opposite direction and saw the casino itself a couple hundred yards away washed up on the other side of 90 on the bank. The sign read "Grand Casino - Rest in Pieces".

In Biloxi there stands many shells of buildings on 90. They are almost all devastated and will have to be demolished, except for a few like the coliseum and Jefferson Davis' home. His home is bad off, but I guess you could say that they don't make homes like that anymore. The one thing that bothered me about it was that there was a sign there asking for donations to rebuild it. Now I have no problem with rebuilding historical landmarks. But lets get people back in their homes first.

Traveling east from Biloxi will get you nowhere on 90. The bridge is still gone. So we head west towards Gulfport. We notice that the number of shells of buildings begin disappearing. They are turning into empty slabs. The further west we go, this changes from being slabs on the coastline to being empty slabs going back about a block. When we arrive in Pass Christian we notice that communities are gone. And if we could have made it to Waveland, I'm told that the destruction is even worse. I don't know if I could have taken any more.

Things I remember seeing:

* A barge had been swept across Hwy 90 and was sitting where a hotel used to be.

* Trash was still everywhere. The trees were filled with plastic. Where did all the plastic come from?

* In Pass Christian we stopped at a place where several portable toilets were lined. There was no other place to stop for a restroom unless you headed inland.

* The signs that people created showed frustration and their attitudes about the situation. They ranged from "Happy New Year, Geico Sucks" to "Santa, please add Farm bureau to your naughty list" to "We will return" to "Why did I stay" to "We are home and will shoot looters".


What we need to remember is that what I saw was 4 mos. after Hurricane Katrina. This is not as bad as it was in the early weeks of course. But if after 4 mos. we still have this much devastation, then it will be quite a while before life gets back to normal down there.

Loyce Seawright of St. Paul's UMC in Biloxi said that there had been over 350 people housed at St. Pauls since September to help. And as you go down any street, you can see any number of church vans or teams working on houses. But clearly, there is so much more need for help. I only ask that anyone who reads this pray for those who are serving and those who are being served. And please don't forget about those hurting folks on the Gulf Coast. They're good people like Doris and Otis. They're good people just like you and me. Except they have lost all or almost all they had. Pray for them. Pray for yourself to see if God is calling you to help out in some way. I promise you that if you come down and serve, that you will not go home unaffected.

In the love of Christ,
greg