Lives Torn Apart – 5 Year Anniversary of Katrina Part I of IV
Posted on 19. Aug, 2010 by Nathan W. Armes in Blog: On Assignment
At around 6 a.m. the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast leaving a scar that has still not completely healed. As a younger photojournalist working for a small paper in North Carolina five years ago, this was a story I really had no business venturing into.
I had no plan but felt compelled to drive as far south as possible to document the events that I had sat wide-eyed watching on my computer screen and television.
Planning to travel on my days off I packed my Jeep with food, gas containers and water then headed to Biloxi, Miss., where I would find myself sleeping on the floor of the photo department at the Sun Herald. The newspaper had survived the storm surge and was a base camp for journalists from all over the United States – and the world at this point.
The first morning in Biloxi the journalists that had been covering in and out of Biloxi suggested I head toward Waveland, Miss. Then they pointed to a large map.
“Anything south of these railroad tracks is gone,” one photographer said as he traced the outline of the tracks that followed the contours of the coast.
The huge storm surges caused the majority of the damage – that and the debris the huge waves carried through neighborhoods and streets. You could look up into the trees and see the effects the crashing debris and waves had by locating the scars almost 25-feet into the trees. Cars, dumpsters, and bits of broken homes crashed through the tall stands of pine early Aug. 29.
The photographer was correct, the railroad tracks was the point of no return and no storm surge – on record – had ever reached that far north.
Covering this catastrophic event has had lasting effects on me, not just mentally but in how I looked at my neighbors. Would my neighbors wade out into a historic storm surge to save me like Chris Steiner did for his 79-year-old neighbor, Martha Keen? The two where forced to ride out the hurricane in the bottom of a small boat anchored by a heavy steel trailer.
“This was not suppose to happen,” Steiner said as we sat near the nameless fishing boat that saved his life.
At around 4 a.m. August 29, the power went out in Waveland, Miss. Then all hell started to break loose.
** Over the next few days I will be reposting small vignettes (and photographs) written during my stay in Waveland, Bay St. Louis and Biloxi, Mississippi. The following is a column that I was asked to write after returning from the Gulf Coast.
Thursday Aug. 19: 5 Year Anniversary of Katrina
Today, Friday Aug. 20: Chris Steiner – Waveland, Miss.
Saturday Aug 21: Deborah & David Burgess – Bay St. Louis, Miss.
Sunday Aug 22: . Rebecca McIntosh & Kathy Everard – Waveland, Miss
VIA: The Hickory Daily Record. September 8, 2005.
At sunrise, calm surrounds me. The gulf waters are tranquil. The sky is full of inviting pinks and blues.
I close my eyes tight, and I could be on any beach at sunrise.
If I listened hard enough, a peaceful silence is broken only by tiny waves lapping at the sand by my feet.
I open my eyes and turn around.
The beach where I am standing is full of debris. A chair, a half-buried Coke machine and rusting twisted metal litter the sand. A fishing net hangs in a Spanish oak. A large pile of waterlogged hymnals sits by the street.
Many historic homes that once stood proud in Gulfport, Miss., are now slabs of concrete.
The destruction on the coast south of U.S. 90 is staggering, but coastal locations in and around Waveland, Miss., are obliterated. What were once neighborhoods are now piles of wood, washers and dyers, photo albums, broken plates and broken lives.
One week later, the thick layers of mud are beginning to dry, but the stench of decay remains. If not for an onshore breeze, the smell might be overwhelming.
Everywhere I turn I am reminded of the lives lost and those victims yet to be recovered, but when I meet people like Rebecca McIntosh, 17, of Waveland and Deborah and David Burgess of Bay St. Louis, Miss., I am reminded the spirit of a resilient people remains.
I am also reminded why people rush to donate cases of water and diapers through their church or volunteer with the Red Cross.
If people like Judy Miller, Catawba Country Red Cross Chapter volunteer, did not help the people of the Gulf Coast, then a woman in a shelter in Biloxi, Miss., would have never retrieved her cat Trixie, her only companion. Miller ventured into a storm-damaged apartment to save a stranger’s pet.
Another local Red Cross volunteer, Natasha Denny, just graduated from Catawba Valley Community College and planned on applying to Chapel Hill to study law. But after a few 12-hour shifts at a shelter in Mobile, Ala., she plans to focus on helping people. She says it’s a great experience and the three weeks of volunteer work will teach her many things about herself and life.
“I know I will come back and not take so much for granted,’ she says.
We all have so much in this country – plenty of food, plenty of water and plenty of hope and compassion. Citizens like Denny and Miller reach into themselves to find the will and energy to extend a hand to those with nothing. Even though the both would shun the attention, we should thank them and all the volunteers who find something in themselves that they are willing to give to a complete stranger.
The Gulf Coast will rebuild. You can see it in the face of Rebecca McIntosh when she smiles while talking about finding a porcelain doll, given to her by her grandmother, in the muddy ruins of her home.
Deborah and David Burgess celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary on Sept. 1 in their muddy Bay St. Louis home. They sleep on a waterlogged mattress.
They have no running water and electricity, but yet they offer me a canned soda they received from a neighborhood shelter. At first I declined, but Deborah insisted. So I drank one of my first cold drinks in two days, standing in the Burgess’ living room with warped floors, a soggy sofa and destroyed artwork.
I do not feel guilty, because it made her happy. It was the least I could do. It’s the least any of us can do.
****
The following is the original layout and you can click on the image to load a larger view. Look for part II on Friday.
Cheers,
Nathan W. Armes
Denver Photographer & Photojournalist
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