Above:A 360-degree photo shows a rusted boat and other wreckage at Bayou Caddy, a port west of Waveland. (John Brecher / MSNBC.com)
About this project
In the coming months, MSNBC.com will focus its coverage of the Hurricane Katrina recovery on two cities on the hard-hit Mississippi coast.
Though Bay St. Louis and Waveland are far from the media spotlight on New Orleans, the intertwined fates of the people, businesses and institutions in these towns tell the story of an entire region's struggle to recover from the most destructive storm in U.S. history.
Hi, my name is Hannah Anderson. I am fourteen years old and I live in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, with my parents, my brother and my little sister. Before the storm I went to Our Lady Academy, which is the only all girls school on the Gulf Coast. After the storm we combined with St. Stanislaus (the all boys school next door). Both schools are on the beach but Stanislaus had two stories so their upstairs is fine. That is where we have all of our classes. It is very interesting to have classes with boys. Our principals told us that this is something we will tell people about forever so I guess I am getting a head start on most people.
Even as homeowners here clear their slabs, worry about money and become accustomed to the narrow confines of FEMA trailers, teenagers are tearing ahead, making plans, getting on with living.
It’s easier, of course, for the kids, unburdened by their parents’ trials.
“We have a lot of parties, in people’ houses, in FEMA trailers,” says Courtney Berthold, 15, a 10th-grader at Bay High.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- Under the shadow of a battered water tower declaring “Bay St. Louis, a Place Apart,” workers weren't taking a day of rest on Sunday at the North Bay Elementary School.
With less than 24 hours to go before kids return to class, crews scrambled to apply the finishing touches to the 17-unit prefabricated school, one of several that will accommodate students from K through 12 across the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District.
WAVELAND, Miss. -- Although it’s clearly not a priority, the city of Waveland’s Web site needs an overhaul – especially for anyone looking for information on post-Katrina building codes.
At a recent meeting, residents asked for information on the Internet. But it seems Waveland never bothered to put it there even before the hurricane.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- “I feel good, I feel real good,” says a delighted Jeanette Lynn Lusich.
Sixty-eight days after Katrina stuck, and a day after we reported for a second time on her family's long wait in tents, a 32-foot FEMA trailer was set down on her property on Lower Bay Road.
When we arrived Saturday morning, two contractors were checking the utilities, giving her a tour of her spanking new home, still fresh with the factory odor.
WAVELAND, Miss. -- When I heard that the local Wal-Mart Supercenter was operating out of a tent, I knew it was going to be quite a sight. After all, this is Wal-Mart we're talking about, the biggest retailer in the world, a company as hated for its size as it is loved for its mantra of low prices, humbled to working under a canvas roof.
As you might expect, when Wal-Mart builds a tent, it builds it big. This is no pup-tent, or even a contraption meant for a circus. This is a 16,000 square-foot industrial strength A-frame, complete with electricity and six 30-ton air conditioners.
Ray Cox, who has managed the Supercenter since 1996, says that it's all worth it to be able to provide the bare essentials, like food and water, and even a few much appreciated luxuries. He took us and our video camera on a guided tour of the "super-tent," chatting up his neighbors in the store as if everything was just business as usual.
WAVELAND, Miss. -- It’s garbage; lots of it, about 7.4 million cubic yards, about the size of 74 football fields, each piled 50 foot high, or maybe a medium-sized densely packed town elsewhere in the United States.
In Hancock County, it’s the estimate of the amount of debris that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects to haul out of here over the next year.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- Jeanette Lynn Lusich watches the trucks carrying the FEMA trailers zoom past her property -- and her tents -- on Lower Bay Road.
It’s now nine-and-a-half weeks since she and her family lost their home and possessions in Hurricane Katrina.
When we visited in late October, she was pretty cheerful about life for her husband and teenage sons, given the circumstances.
(Editor's note: This post is from an e-mail Maria Russell sent to her friends and family on Sept. 29. The photos were taken by Maria and her husband, Dave.)
It’s hard to believe that Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast one month ago today. Time sure goes by fast even when you’re NOT having fun.
Life is different now, and that’s an understatement. For the past two weeks, we have been able to park our little truck camper (which gets smaller and smaller by the day) at the Dodge dealership on Highway 90 in Bay St. Louis, thanks to our good friend, John.
(Editor's note: This post is from an e-mail Maria Russell sent to her friends and family on Oct. 12.)
It's been more than 6 weeks after Hurricane Katrina and life is going on. Our weather has cooled down a lot and the days have been so pleasant. Makes doing all this "outside work" so much easier to deal with!
Are you and your community still wanting and wondering what you can do to help with the relief effort? Well, I thought the following list might be helpful. While I was working (actually, volunteering) at the Chamber yesterday, a woman who is a business owner in Waveland came in with a Needs List. Waveland and Bay St. Louis are one-in-the-same, in my opinion. One melds into the other; when they rebuild, they should combine the two and make it "Bay Waveland," Mississippi. But what do I know?
DIAMONDHEAD, Miss. –- Everybody has a Katrina story in the cities of Bay St. Louis and Waveland. Most people are homeless, or at least forced into trailers or relatives' homes. They are frustrated by the endless red tape and anguished about an uncertain future in a region where recovery is measured by tons of debris moved, number of houses demolished and businesses back in business.
They are tired of FEMA trailers, tired of the bureaucracy, tired of the devastation, tired from worrying about money, their jobs and their children.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- After Katrina, School Superintendent Kim Stasny quickly set about assessing the damage to the system she had worked hard to build up. She quickly realized it was extreme.
All six public schools in the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District were hit hard. In the best cases, all contents were ruined -- electrical systems, sheetrock, computers, lockers and books, study materials. In the worst cases, buildings were reduced to piles of rubble.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- In another world, Brenda Hoffman is the intensive care unit services pediatric manager at Hancock Medical Center while Sydney Saucier is the medical unit manager.
But that was before Hurricane Katrina. These days Hoffman is the paint manager while Saucier doubles as the purchasing stock agent and trash cleanup coordinator.
(Editor's note: This post is from an e-mail Maria Russell sent to her friends and family on Sept. 9.)
Now it’s Friday, and we are in a campground in Robertsdale, Alabama. Dave and I don’t really know what we’re going to do next. We’re just taking things day by day. Right now we’re just exhausted; mentally, emotionally and physically. But, all things considered, we’re fine. Thank God we have the camper and a reliable vehicle. We feel like we can go anywhere, and yet we don’t know WHERE to go. Isn’t that an ironic situation for gypsies like us?
We will keep ya’ll posted. Thanks to everyone who have offered us a place to stay … had we known it was this easy to spend a week here and a week there, we might not have plunked down the money to buy a house.
(Editor's note: This post is from an e-mail Maria Russell sent to her friends and family on Sept. 7.)
Our friends from Knoxville arrived, not only with a trailerful of supplies, but with the announcement that a television crew was en route with the sole purpose of focusing on Bay St. Louis. It seems that the media is fixated on New Orleans, Biloxi and Gulfport, but there is little mention of our little town or Waveland. This was the first time I really felt Hope. Not for Dave and me, but for all of the other people left homeless, jobless, and helpless by Hurricane Katrina.
We found the makeshift relief site that Sharon, our friend from the post office parking lot, told us about. Turns out it was a grocery store that had been in business only a few weeks. After the storm hit, the owners, Beverly and John Davis, just opened their doors to their neighbors and let them have whatever they wanted since there was no relief in sight. (The storm hit on Monday; when relief had not shown by Thursday, the police in Bay St. Louis broke into the Winn-Dixie and allowed people to get food and water. Hearing that was so unimaginable! Why wasn’t help here???)
(Editor's note: This post is from an e-mail Maria Russell sent to her friends and family on Sept. 6. The photos were taken by Maria and her husband, Dave.)
Rumor was that post office was going to be bringing in trailers and try to restore business, so we were asked to move. So today we moved across the street to a church parking lot. But we liked the post office parking lot better; the old oak trees provided the nicest shade and relief from the heat of the day.
Over in our new digs we were able to disconnect our camper from the truck, and now that we had the mobility, we made our way to our neighborhood. Although we already knew that our house no longer existed, it is still a shock to see NOTHING THERE.
(Editor's note: This post is from an e-mail Maria Russell sent to her friends and family on Sept. 5. The photos were taken by Maria and her husband, Dave.)
After spending Sunday night (of Labor Day weekend) in Gulf Breeze, Florida, we made our way to Bay St. Louis on Monday. Evidence of Katrina was seen on I-10, beginning just east of Mobile and then it got progressively worse; trees were downed, billboards knocked over, cars that had run out of fuel parked on the shoulder. Passing Biloxi, we spotted big boats high and dry, in the middle of nowhere. The damage was more severe the further west we headed, and when we got off at Exit 13, Bay St. Louis, the reality hit us like a ton of bricks.
WAVELAND, Miss. -- Terri Johnson loves her city. A third-generation Wavelander, she works in the sheriff’s department while she and her husband raise two teenage boys.
Terri Johnson stands in the ruins of her Waveland home after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Click 'Play' below the image to hear Terri talk about her dream home and to see where she hopes it will be built.
She says she wouldn’t live anywhere else, even after Katrina pummeled her family home, flood waters wrenching the seven-bedroom dwelling 10 feet from its base, wiping out memories and her life’s possessions.
In a thunderous clamor, the Pink Panther slots are eviscerated: slammed, crushed and rendered unrecognizable before our eyes.
The video poker machines also fold violently when the steel claw slams and mashes the metal into digestible pieces, then scoops and deposits the debris into a dumpster.
The Caterpillar 318C backhoe does not discriminate, ripping apart the 25 cent as well as the $1 gaming machines gathered outside the Casino Magic warehouse on Wednesday.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- It was a tale of two cities, and two wildly contrasting council gatherings.
In Bay St. Louis, there was a sober businesslike town meeting Tuesday night, with discussion about debris, building codes and ways of raising more money for the community.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- On Monday, their first day back to work, teachers at Bay St. Louis-Waveland Middle School weave their way among shipments of desks, piles of sheetrock and teams of workers on their way to a meeting in the cafeteria.
With just a week to prepare for the return of students on Nov. 7, all but four teachers have returned. For many here, it is the first time they’ve seen each other since Katrina hit. It is a bittersweet reunion. As Principal Carolyn Barcelona speaks to the group, the raw emotion is apparent. The teachers careen from laughter to tears and back.
WAVELAND, Miss.—One of the great ironies in the landscape of Katrina recovery efforts is the success of the New Waveland Café. It is, in fact, a soup kitchen, and for parts of the last eight weeks, it has served as many as 4,000 meals a day. It is still doling out 1,500 to 2,000 meals a day.
It is remarkable as much in its atmosphere as in its volume. Imagine being asked, after standing in line for dinner at a relief center, having lost your home: “Would you like walnut vinaigrette with your salad?”
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss.—Yes, there was Katrina, but the goblins and ghouls have managed to creep out of the crevices anyway. In downtown Bay St. Louis, where there are a few functioning shops, adults stand by to hand out the sugary Halloween essentials, as they do every year. There are far fewer kids than usual -- many are still living where their families evacuated -- and may not have homes here anymore.
But gradually, they come out: Spiderman, Snow White, a fireman, a swashbuckling pirate, Blues Clues, Mulan, the Incredible Hulk, a skeleton baby in a stroller, and many, many princesses.
Hosting the event are ghouls in traditional gear—a witch, a mummy, a skeleton. But they are attended by the nightmare characters of the day— FEMA man, Katrina debris, and the biggest black fly in Bay St. Louis.
KILN, Miss. -- If you follow the flow of dump trucks out of Waveland, chances are good that you’ll end up at Hemphill-Eutaw Temporary Waste Site, one of four sites grappling with the seemingly endless piles of wreckage from Bay St. Louis and Waveland.
Refrigerators, it turns out, are more plentiful and more problematic than most types of waste, which is why there are 20 workers at this site alone dedicated to nothing but dealing with the dead ones left behind by Katrina. This group is from Onyx Environmental Emergency Response, a subcontractor to Ashbritt Environmental, which is overseeing waste removal for FEMA in this area.
WAVELAND, Miss.—When the Morrell Foundation came to Katrina’s ground zero they hoped to provide temporary housing for those displaced by the storm. That didn’t work out—politics prevented it—but the good news is that they had a Plan B.
That’s the way it often works in the world of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and otherwise seat-of-the-pants aid groups. They arrive, they find a niche, they do a lot of horse-trading, and they make a difference. Ask anyone.
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