Beignets and destruction.

[angledge]

My co-worker branniejan & I decided that we would use our day off to accomplish two things: 1) make a pilgrimage to Café du Monde, the quintessential New Orleans coffee shop; & 2) make a visit to areas east of NOLA, where the eye of Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

We actually made a pretty early start (thanks to Daylight Savings Time). We both were moving out of our hotels that morning, so once we had accomplished that, we walked down to Jackson Square, ordered three beignets & a cup of café au lait apiece.



We left a trail of powdered sugar behind us:



But then again, so did everyone else.

Thus sated with caffeine & sugar, we piled into the car & headed east into Mississippi. Our plan was to follow U.S. Highway 90, which hugs the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. However, we encountered many problems with this approach, such as traffic:



These ships had been lifted out of the Gulf by Katrina's 20-foot storm surge, & deposited in the right lane of eastbound Highway 90. There is so much chaos in this area that no-one has had a chance to get them moved yet.

A bit further along Highway 90 we were stymied in our journey by a washed-out bridge. A quick consultation with the map took us north to Interstate 10, where we crossed the one remaining span of the Twinspan Bridges, & we were in Mississippi. Down Route 607, we followed signs to the Gulf beaches in the town of Waveland, Mississippi. There, we encountered total devastation.

It is hard to describe how shocking it was to drive the streets of Waveland. The inland areas have suffered massive damage.



But this was nothing compared to the eradication of everything located along the shore.



What you're looking at in the above photo used to be a neighborhood block of five or six houses. There was absolutely nothing left of any of them – not even debris. The only way you could tell a house had been there was the foundation slab. I have to think that, if anyone had tried to ride out the storm in their home, they certainly must have died.



And even the concrete foundations were lifted & smashed by the titanic wall of water that poured in from the Gulf.



We would find scraps of the lives that had been here – a photo, a set of keys, some dishes – but for the most part, the storm surge had washed everything back out to sea.



branniejan & I walked around this particular foundation for quite a while. You could make out the pattern of the house from the scraps of flooring that were still attached to the slab – hardwood floors in the hallway, tile in the bathroom, linoleum in the kitchen. There was a mixer sitting in the center of the kitchen, & other than that the house & its contents were completely absent. Can you even imagine what it would feel like to come home to this?



The residents here, even though we didn't meet them, gave many signs of resiliency & unshakeable determination to return.



I have to admit, I don't know how much hope I would have in God or anything else if it had been my home. I hope I never get to find out how I would react.



I was utterly overwhelmed by this display of the wrath & power of Mother Nature. branniejan & I had planned to drive along the coast to Gulfport, but we were both depressed at the thought of seeing this scale of destruction extending for mile after mile. The hardest-hit area extends (more-or-less) from Waveland to Pass Christian, a distance of roughly 20 miles. To cast this in Bay Area terms, it's as if the entire coastline from Pacifica to Half Moon Bay had been wiped clean.

TUESDAY EDIT: branniejan has posted her collection of photos from Waveland. Some of them duplicate the ones posted here, but some are different ... & very moving.

Comments

[hollyinpa.livejournal.com]

OMG.

It's so sad to see these pictures. I can't imagine experiencing them in person.

Thanks for sharing, dear.

[effrontery.livejournal.com]

Very powerful.

What's the story with recovery efforts--have resources been allocated to these areas, are people who were displaced getting help? Definitely not hearing about this on the news.

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Well, all individuals qualify for Individual Assistance. Most of them, I imagine, are in shelters somewhere in the US (some of the houses had forwarding addresses & family status information spray-painted on them). The local government & private non-profit organizations qualify for Public Assistance - Federal funding to rebuild roads, bridges, other segments of infrastructure (that's the part of FEMA I work for, incidently). The US Army Corps of Engineers will rebuild navigation & flood protection facilities, like levees & docks.

As for rebuilding individual houses, if people had FEMA flood insurance, then they will get money towards rebuilding. Other forms of insurance might also pay off, but usually home insurance has an exception clause that means they don't pay for flood damage. But if folks didn't have adequate insurance, they are pretty well screwed.

Wow...

[jacesan.livejournal.com]

It's still hard to comprehend how trashed the area's become. Thanks for the update.

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

Wow. But the KitchenAid survived!

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Might be the neighbor's KitchenAid. The neighbor from eleven streets down.

[branniejan.livejournal.com]

So many memories made on this day! My first Beignets and Cafe au Lait, Insane drivers on the roads, the trip down Hwy 11, boats in the road, Burger King, the Causeway that keeps going and going and..., finally getting it about the levees, our reverent walk through the living rooms, hallways and closets of people we will never know yet never forget...I enjoyed this so much and am grateful that God has allowed us both to be here in this time and space.

[marasca.livejournal.com]

Those photos are... aweosme is the word that comes to mind. Not in the "that's so cool" sense, but in the "I'm in awe of the power of nature, and also of the determination of these people" way.

[funkyplaid.livejournal.com]

Your reflections are salient and the images, breathtaking. I mean, concrete foundation slabs? How powerful must that thing have been?

[angledge.livejournal.com]

How powerful must that thing have been?

This question almost caused me to get my geek on & actually calculate how much energy the storm surge would have expended on the coast. But, lucky for you, I realized that you weren't actually looking for a number.

[funkyplaid.livejournal.com]

But if it makes you happy, I'll sit idly by and wait for your calculation. I'm easy like that.

:)

[jacesan.livejournal.com]

The geek in me's curious, but the pictures tell the story. Will it really matter what the magnitude of the quake that flattens the Bay Area is?

G E E K

[angledge.livejournal.com]

I was trying to figure out how to do the calculation. The surge hit 200 miles of coastline & was between 10 & 30 feet high. I can't figure out a third dimension of the wave, but I read somewhere that the storm surge is essentially a dome of water under the hurricane eye. Katrina's eye was something like 50 km wide, so maybe you could use that dimension to come up with an average ... width? of the storm surge. Then, water weighs 1,700 pounds/cubic yard. So you could have a mass for the water that was moved onto the land. As for a velocity, I'm sure it would be possible to find out how fast Katrina was moving when she made landfall.

KE = 1/2mv^2?

Re: G E E K

[jacesan.livejournal.com]

That would work, but I'm sure there're some equations with partial derivatives and triple integrals that we can make the class use for the word problem on their upcoming fluid dynamics exam. ;)

Re: G E E K

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Partial derivatives? Triple integrals? What strange Moon language are you speaking in?

Brilliant!

[jacesan.livejournal.com]

They can calculate the moon's gravitational effect on the storm surge for extra credit.

Practicality, practicality!

[angledge.livejournal.com]

They could calculate it ... or they could just check a tide chart.

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

chicory coffee, I'm so horribly jealous.

Exile sucks.

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Any idea when you'll be home?

Re: Exile sucks.

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

Not really. The ETA is March but that is the earliest and with the military and Gov't, it might be a bit optimistic.