Because It's Still Home (One Year After Katrina)

Because It's Still Home:
One Year After Katrina

When I turned five in August 1969, we Gulf Coast folks had just suffered the fury of Hurricane Camille two days prior.

When I turned 41 in August 2005, we had no inkling of the onslaught Hurricane Katrina would unleash ten days later. Had I known what was coming, I would have celebrated my birthday differently. I would have gone home.

I would have taken hundreds of photos. I would have tried to capture the essence of where I grew up. Somehow, I would have tried to chronicle those special places before they ended up the scarred and ransacked leftovers of a catastrophic storm. I should have known it would happen. Living inland for so many years as an adult lulled me into a false sense that those photographic opportunities would be there forever.

Growing up in coastal Mississippi, I knew that everything I treasured could be lost in the matter of hours. August and September always meant that the Gulf of Mexico could deliver another Camille, a killer that showed no mercy for the sensibilities of humans.

Now I rely on photos taken by strangers to remind me of how things used to be. It is a deeply disturbing fact that many of these newcomers never heard of Camille until Katrina arrived. For thirty-six years, the people of the Gulf Coast rebuilt their lives and restored what Camille devoured. And now, on the one-year anniversary of Katrina, they persevere. Heroic volunteers have bonded with the natives as friends. Some of the visitors have decided to stay. And together they wield a powerful weapon in the face of ongoing recovery. They call it community, a place that feels safe and hopeful, a place to bravely call home.

No matter how long I am away, I feel the pull of that salt air and the vibrant warmth of the people. While we all have the usual daily struggles, these south coast folks have dealt with all that plus the thick, suffocating layer of loss that remains. On a recent trip to Gulfport with my mother, we didn’t feel so well. She has been very sick, and I have been very worried. When we arrived at Highway 90 that stretches along the beach, a familiar lump of disbelief rose in my throat.

Clumps of broken concrete still dot the sites along the seawall, but mostly an open landscape gapes at the southern horizon. Ghosts of familiar buildings haunted me as I tried to get my bearings. I missed the turn for Memorial Hospital on Broad Avenue, a road I have taken a hundred thousand times. It’s a sobering experience, to see the ragged remnants, unable to recall exactly what was lost. There is no way to fathom it.

But, the signs of rebirth bolstered a hope that new homes and businesses will indeed rise on those empty lots. Here and there, construction has begun. From condos to raised cottages to homes fortified with concrete and steel, the new face of the Mississippi coast is emerging, slowly but surely. Battered and broken, the coastal live oaks stand vigilant. They remind everyone of the strength and beauty that endures in spite of Mother Nature’s assault.

As the sun lowered itself behind the outstretched arms of those oak tree sentries, the clouds broke into an artist’s dream, a panorama of ruby reds and glittering golds atop the shifting waters of the Gulf. It was the kind of sunset that I remember from my youth when I strolled the beach at low tide in fervent anticipation of the promising years ahead. What does the future hold? I wondered. I suppose it is a question that never leaves us, one that is particularly poignant when your past has washed away.

I pray for the people there. I hope they can look into those brilliant sunsets and recall the unique and fortifying pleasures that are found in a sense of place. To truly appreciate those pleasures is to comprehend the reason these survivors continue to love the very waters that nurtured a savage storm. It is where they belong. It is a place like no other. It is home.