Surreal

I had the chance to go to Biloxi with Todd on a business trip this past week. We had a blast just laying around and relaxing while Daddy was in meetings all day.  It was hard not to notice the devastation in Biloxi, both past and present. 

Before we even got there though, we got turned around (we went the scenic route..off the interstate) in New Orleans and went through the lower 9th ward. I'm sure you all have heard of this place.  It is very low income and the place that got hit the hardest with the waters from Katrina...well..not from Katrina, but the levee failure from Katrina.  When you drive around New Orleans, every now and then you'll see the 'x' on a home, or a water line on a house way higher than there should ever be one (up to the second story sometimes), but mostly, 5 years after the fact, you don't see much of that. Driving in the 9th ward though, was a different story. There were a lot of homes that were brand new next to homes that were utterly sad.  I saw a lot of red x's still remaining...and yes, I saw a handful of x's with something other than '0' in the body count quadrant.   My stomach was in knots the entire time we were driving through.  The car was silent as we looked around us.

We continued on our way and got 'unlost'. We drove down through Highway 90 through Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, etc.  All of these towns were "new" towns.  We went to Walmart in Bay St. Louis...it was brand new.  All of the buildings were new...they were wiped out by Katrina. Very surreal.

It got very very surreal driving into Biloxi. There used to be dozens of turn of the century houses...beautiful homes that I always admired when we drove through.  Now, if you see a home, yes, it's likely to be beautiful, but it's been built in the last 3 years or less. A lot were in the process of being built.  The storm surge wiped out those beautiful old homes. :(

Here is a picture tour of highway 90 in Biloxi.

Pictures are with my point and shoot camera...mostly while driving...so please excuse their lame-ness..lol

See the building in the background? Follow your eye to it's base.  There is a slab there. It looks to be a part of the building, but it's not. The building is a good ways behind the slab.

Steps to nowhere :(

New build

Driveway to what?

Beautiful new homes take the place of turn of the century homes.

Another empty slab....with a for sale sign. We saw LOTS of those.

I'm guessing that with every 'new' home we saw, there were probably 3 or 4 slabs or empty lots that obviously had something in it before. The other thing that's hard to see is the trees...how they have been twisted and turned and just mangled. The big oak tree's looked funny. Some of them were only growing leaves on one side of the tree (that's the way the wind blew the limbs). Some were not growing leaves at all...they were dead (i'm guessing from the salt water) but looked alive b/c of the vines growing on them.  It was weird to see for sure.

Now here comes the really heartbreaking part.  In the news, you frequently hear how these coastal towns have been hurt twice..they are just now coming back from Katrina, now they are being killed by oil. I understood that...I live here. It a bit hard not to notice.  But now I REALLY understand that....with all of my heart.  The pictures you saw above were on the north side of the highway I was on. On the south side was the beach...a popular vacation spot for many area's (including mine).  Here are pictures of the beach..during the peak of vacation season.

I didn't truly get it before...now I get it.  These communities have been 'screwed' twice....and it's heartbreaking to see.  I was near tears on that first drive through Biloxi.