Lives Torn Apart – Survivor’s Stories Part IV of IV
Posted on 23. Aug, 2010 by Nathan W. Armes in Blog: On Assignment
Hurricane Katrina ripped homes from their foundations, trees from the ground and lives apart. Over the next few days I will recap three stories from Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, which felt the full force of the storm.
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 11, 2005
When Rebecca McIntosh, 17, smiles, her braces add to the innocent aura that surrounds her. Smiles have not come easy for the teenager since Hurricane Katrina struck. Smiles have not come easy since she began digging out pieces of her life from the ruins of home.
A few days after Hurricane Katrina decimated large chunks of the Gulf Coast, McIntosh, along with her grandmother, Kathy Everard, drove from Picayune, La., to survey the damage to their home. It was not what they expected.
McIntosh recounts climbing over debris fields that were once her neighborhood. She found her home a short time later.The roof to her grandmother’s house in the next lot. Her stuffed animals litter the ground.
Her hands are dirty and her boots are caked with dark, thick mud.
In the shade of what trees are left standing the mud is slick and full of bacteria from ruptured sewer lines and decaying organic matter.
It’s hard to image that a 17-year-old can hold up a mud-caked porcelain doll and still smile.
They both can be thankful they are alive, but they’re also thankful for two members of the Rowan County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Office, Maj. Tim Bost and Capt. Ronnie Terry. The department was assigned to patrol the area in and around Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Miss.
The two officers stopped by the pair’s home on a routine patrol and asked if they needed cold water to drink. Terry washed Everard’s hands with a bottle of water and gave her hand sanitizer and a pair of latex gloves. Then he washed McIntosh’s hands. In the middle of a flattened neighborhood, where so many have suffered, the act of one human washing another’s hands steals the breath.
As the Rowan Country officers walked away from the home, Bost paused and put his arm around McIntosh.
“You remind me of my little girl,” he says as his voice trembled.
His arm dropped back down to his side and he walked back to his vehicle to help more victims like McIntosh and Everard.
Cheers,
Nathan W. Armes
Denver Photographer & Photojournalist
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