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.
When the state called and notified me that the president of the United States was coming down to the coast and they asked me to drive one of the vehicles in the presidential motorcade, my stomach did immediate flip-flops. Honor? Absolutely! A huge responsibility? I don’t think there is a word that fits the answer I have for that one.
Security clearance wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was only thrown into a secure and padded confinement room for two days and interrogated by Secret Service agents for hours on end. OK, I’m kidding! In reality, receiving clearance was painless and was easier than I thought it would be other than the images and thoughts of what was transpiring on the other end of that security clearance check.
The president of the United States came to our school today. It was very exciting. Especially since we had snipers on the roof! I'll start my story from the begining.
On Tuesday, I was at ballet and my friend said that President Bush was comming to OLA/SSC on Thursday. I thought OK, that is cool, but will we get to see him? My family is Democratic but I still think it would be really cool to meet him.
So much has been going on lately I have hardly had time to get used to something new and improved.
This weekend we painted our downstairs. It is WHITE!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to paint it TIFFANY BLUE. I was outvoted by my lovely father who wants a stripe of RED.
It has been sometime since I have written a blog. The daily life of an aftermath of a disaster threw this family a few unexpected curve balls that didn’t leave me much time to do anything but to refocus and get back on track with survival mode.
The holidays, well, it was better than I thought it would be considering the circumstances of celebrating a holiday homeless and in a FEMA trailer in a park. You haven’t lived until you try duct taping Christmas lights to a trailer and getting them to stick!
Hug! Hug! "How are you? How did you fare? It's so good to see you! How much water did you have? How's your house? What are you going to do?"
I know "Take it one day at a time!" That's the greetings you hear all across Bay St. Louis and Waveland wherever you go. You see people you know, some you've known all your life, and the greetings are the same.
Day by day the personal loss of possessions seems to get easier, both for myself and Heather. To quote Tom Waits "Memory's like a train, you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away, til the things you can't forget, and history puts a saint in every dream."
Since Heather and I lost our entire house and EVERYTHING in it (we've found 2 or 3 items, but not much), it has been a challenge to deal with the loss of "things" and especially mementos and keepsakes. At first I likened it to a mine field, where one walks along unsuspectingly and sees something to remind them of (fill in object lost) and then -- wham-o!!! -- just like a kick to the heart, the pain of loss would hit.
As the rebuilding of Bay St. Louis and Waveland progresses day by day, the time has come to step back to get a broader perspective of what’s happening in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged towns on which we have focused since the storm.
In the months ahead, rotating teams of MSNBC.com reporters will spend one week a month in "Bay-Waveland" reporting and producing a series of stories on the towns’ battle to rebuild after the most destructive storm in U.S. history. Look for our next update late this month.
BAYOU CADDY, Miss. – The irony of what is happening in the post-Katrina fishing industry along the Gulf Coast is as twisted as the steel in the ruins of the marina here.
She took it all, the killer hurricane did, boats and docks and gear, cars and trucks and homes. Rough and ready men and women who pulled their living from the sea lost everything to it. But Katrina’s awful churning of the fishing grounds appears to have returned a bounty of seafood to which government inspectors have given a clean bill of health.
Well I now have my algebra class back at OLA (Our Lady Academy).
It is really nice to be back in my all-girls school even if we have boys in the class. I think it is a step toward normalcy even if the school keeps changing our schedules around.
I thought I should write something, since I haven’t blogged in a while. I have nothing really useful or new to report, and I’ve been in such a funk that I haven’t felt like blogging anyway. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the positive attitude. Sometimes I just want to run away. Sometimes I want to curl up in my trailer, under my beautiful donated quilt, and be left alone for a day or two.
Here is the current situation: Insurance has paid out (hope I don’t get any hate mail about that). Building permits are available in Waveland. Waveland says we have to go up four feet -- not bad at all. NFIP(The National Flood Insurance Program) says we should be at 11-13 feet. Again, easy to do. We’re just gonna go right ahead and put the house up more than is necessary, but not insanely high. We want to go with a modular historic-type home as illustrated in the MS Renewal Forum book, and use the bottom level for a workshop.
Discuss (14 comments) 
Email this | 
Link to this
