Three months since Katrina, devastation on Gulf Coast
WAVELAND, Miss. -- Hugh Lemoine, a Mandeville, La., construction supplier, returned two Sundays ago to the ruins of his beach house here on eerily named Waveland Avenue. Thanks to Hurricane Katrina's waves, in fact, his roof now sits just north of where it recently balanced atop his home.
Its foundation has been swept completely clean, save for two commodes that hung on for dear life as the bathroom around each one dissolved.
"The wave went in seven miles," Lemoine says, still in awe. "Right here, it was 33 feet high."
A small collection of videotape cassettes rests in the dirt beside his shoes. Are they his?
"These are someone else's," he shrugs.
When Katrina demolished it on Aug. 29, the retirement home Lemoine built with his wife was just five weeks old.
Three months since America's most destructive natural disaster lashed this region, this randomly selected street still resembles hell on earth. After the fourth, fifth, and sixth months since Katrina have come and gone, and fresh crises once again demand the nation's attention, Waveland Avenue's property owners and their neighbors throughout much of the central time zone's coast still will need empathy and support. Among the roughly 7,000 who called Waveland home, the Biloxi Sun-Herald reckons 6,000 still are exiled. The storm pulverized some 60 percent of buildings.
In this part of town, just east of the Lemoines, there is little evidence that a home ever rose at the southeast corner of Waveland Avenue and Fell Street. Uprooted and twisted trees encircle the lot, but nothing remains of a house that stood nearby until that dismal Monday morning. A few champagne glasses lie on the dried muck. A walker is knocked over on its side. A lonely metal cane with small rubber feet stands at attention, as if dutifully awaiting its owner's return. A wheelchair is splattered with mud, yet festooned with washed-up but still-colorful Mardi Gras beads.
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Its foundation has been swept completely clean, save for two commodes that hung on for dear life as the bathroom around each one dissolved.
"The wave went in seven miles," Lemoine says, still in awe. "Right here, it was 33 feet high."
A small collection of videotape cassettes rests in the dirt beside his shoes. Are they his?
"These are someone else's," he shrugs.
When Katrina demolished it on Aug. 29, the retirement home Lemoine built with his wife was just five weeks old.
Three months since America's most destructive natural disaster lashed this region, this randomly selected street still resembles hell on earth. After the fourth, fifth, and sixth months since Katrina have come and gone, and fresh crises once again demand the nation's attention, Waveland Avenue's property owners and their neighbors throughout much of the central time zone's coast still will need empathy and support. Among the roughly 7,000 who called Waveland home, the Biloxi Sun-Herald reckons 6,000 still are exiled. The storm pulverized some 60 percent of buildings.
In this part of town, just east of the Lemoines, there is little evidence that a home ever rose at the southeast corner of Waveland Avenue and Fell Street. Uprooted and twisted trees encircle the lot, but nothing remains of a house that stood nearby until that dismal Monday morning. A few champagne glasses lie on the dried muck. A walker is knocked over on its side. A lonely metal cane with small rubber feet stands at attention, as if dutifully awaiting its owner's return. A wheelchair is splattered with mud, yet festooned with washed-up but still-colorful Mardi Gras beads.
More...
posted by Kent at 10:02 AM
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