angledge | Beignets and destruction.

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.

Beignets GOOD!

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:

Whole new meaning to the term dry dock.

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.

Crushed house – this was inland, so there is something left.

Crushed house – this was inland, so there is something left.

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

Not even debris left.

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.

Slab destroyed.

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

UHaul truck on beach.

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.

Nothing left.

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?

Hope in God.

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

Hope?

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.

We shall return.

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.