Damage in my neighborhood


Katrina Images

Tractor Trailers and Paper Rolls

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The House diagonally across the street from ours showing the huge paper rolls and trailers from tractor-trailer rigs from the Port of Gulfport.

If the port had evacuated the trucks and equipment as they were supposed to do, many of the houses and businesses would still be standing. The truck trailers were seen by at least one witness (from his roof) battering down a house near ours. The trailers weigh a lot. The paper rolls are said to weigh over a ton and there were hundreds if not thousands of them scattered over West Gulfport.

The following pages are views of our neighborhood West Gulfport) after Katrina. (Only a couple today. More later.) At the time of these pictures, a tremendous amount of debris has already been removed. Right after the storm, you could not get this far South on the street. Our house is the second house South of the railroad tracks.

(For those who are picky about the English and say South should not be capitalized in this context, I say that I am a proud son of the South and it should always be capitalized.) After this storm, I am especially proud of the citizens of Alabama, Mississippi, Texas ... and yes most of the folks from Louisiana. Yes we ask for some help, but we are not waiting for it. We are picking ourselves up by our bootstraps as best we can.

Should we get help? Should we rebuild? No one asked that about Florida and North Carolina when devastated by several storms last year. No one asked that about the earthquakes in California and Alaska. It is certainly without question that no one asked that after 9/11. Why is it being asked now?

You hear about other areas here on the coast that have been devastated, but there is one that few think about. Gulfport, Mississippi ...particularly South of the CSX Railroad Tracks. Many have adopted communities in our Harrison County such as Pass Christian, Long Beach and Biloxi and they sure needed it.

You don't hear about us in Gulfport. On the following pages you will find images of a bit of the damage. (Pictures just can not show the true devastation.) Just think about it, about 26 or so miles in Harrison County, with 2 to 4 blocks north of the beach GONE in Gulfport. Many more blocks are destroyed for all practical purposes and will have to bulldozed. One family has a sign out in front of their slab on Highway 90 (the Beach Blvd.) saying it was the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

In other communities many, many blocks for miles are gone! Literally gone!! Slabs and debris are all that is left! In some areas of total destruction goes back a half mile or more.

It can best be described as an Atomic Bomb without the fire.

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