Katrina Fatigue/Welcome to the New Normal ** KATRINA PHOTO ESSAY**

My dear DU Friends,

When I posted my first Katrina photo essay, with shots from three months after the storm, I was shell-shocked by the destruction I witnessed first-hand.

By the time I posted my second photo essay at the six month mark, I was frustrated that the destruction was still so pervasive, and that most of the country still didn't realize how bad off the Mississippi Coast was.

But now we've hit the nine month anniversary mark, and I have to tell you, I'm just tired. We hear about Katrina fatigue, experienced by people living in parts of the country who have never seen the
devastation firsthand. They're tired of hearing about it. But for those of us who have lived among it, we're just tired.

Tired of FEMA rules that seem arbitrary and punitive.
Tired of contractors ripping people off.
Tired of seeing only casinos being re-invested in, while affordable housing becomes yet another casualty of Katrina.
Tired of the endless waiting: for appraisers, for funding, for building elevation standards to be finalized.
Mostly we're tired of the new normal.

In the new normal, we fight a never-ending, uphill battle against mold spores.


In the new normal, the beach is still piled with debris.


And of course the highway is still bollixed all along the coast.


In the new normal, there are still plenty of houses that stand deserted and destroyed.








But worse is what appeared when the destroyed homes and debris was cleared away.

Flowers grow where the bathroom door used to be.


Tire swings hang wrapped too high for children to use, swaying over slabs.


Ornamental palms invite you into empty lots.


A few random bricks are all that remain of a lifetime, or generations, of family labor.


Driveways lead to weed-filled plots.


And though you can see a few FEMA trailers, they're poor substitutes for the entire neighborhoods (and neighbors) that are gone.

Tomorrow I am leaving the Coast after being here for most of the past seven months. It's a bittersweet farewell. I feel so blessed to have worked here, so privileged (and guilt-ridden) to be able to go home to a home that isn't in a disaster zone. I'll also terribly miss the friends I've made among the residents and other long-term volunteers. Then, too, I may not be gone for good; I wrote a proposal for a one-year ministry/volunteer coordinator position, and if it gets funded, I'll apply for the job.

I also have plans to return, funded job or no, at the year anniversary, to take updated photos of some of the places I've shown in these photo essays. Hopefully you'll see some improvement. I have to warn you, though: many places I've posted remain unchanged (even from the first photo essay), and even the ones that get cleaned up are depressingly… missing, empty, and haunting.

So until late August/early September, adios my beloved Mississippi Coast!

So many lost. How the survivors manage to keep putting one foot before the other is a testament to sheer human strength.

A Gulfport police officer told me that substance use is up 600%, and the suicide rate is up 6%--mostly among the elderly who lost everything. :cry:

As odd as it seems, it's exactly this idea of the tough, resilient Mississippian that drives so many to alcohol, drugs and suicide. Who can live up to such a super-hero image amid such devastation? And who wants to? :cry:

we, the citizens of the United States, have the attention span of a 3-year-old.

My mind has had to shut out soooooooo many things to keep those things from driving me insane..

the criminal neglect of the gulf coast is just one of those things.....it hurts to looks at those pictures but I have to...and so should everybody else....

to you :pals: :hug: for your work and dedication.

How sad. It is so hard to comprehend that all these months later, the devastation is still so widespread.

Nominated for the greatest page.

I'll miss you :(

:hug: :loveya:

:hug: :loveya:

You missed a great music fest the other night. Hope that dude called you--as Tom Petty says, "The waiting is the hardest part."

:hug: :loveya:

we've gotten under your skin and you can't get rid of us ;)

That fellow did not call *sigh* - now that call to take place tomorrow.
The waiting, the uncertainity, the limbo....

The new normal. x(

Take care sweetie - have a good trip home and I promise to keep in touch and let you know how things are going. :hug:

Thanks again, for everything. :loveya:

Bless you for the work you have done in the face of insurmountable odds (and governmental indifference, apparently). I've never been to Mississippi, but New Orleans is one of my favorite places in the whole world (Mr. MorningGlow and I contemplated moving there only a few years ago), and it breaks my heart to see all those good folks who were victims of Katrina left to their own devices as another hurricane season arrives.

Would recommend this thread if I had enough posts. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

(what a lovely name!)

I'd never been to Mississippi before the storm, nor New Orleans. I really wish I could have seen both places before Katrina. It must have been a tropical paradise.

Thanks annabanana and intheflow! It's great to be here! Actually, I've lurked for years, but I felt compelled to stand and be counted after weeping like a baby at our town's Memorial Day parade. "Don't know what you've got till it's gone" indeed--via natural disasters or 'pug travesties...oh wait. In Katrina's case, it was the same thing... :grr:

record and for working so hard and doing the good work you have been doing.

I never know what to say in these threads or to people I know who are trying to live with this. There just are not words that don't sound stupid given the amount of horror and frustration faced daily on the coast.

From someone sitting in her comfortable home I would just say thank you to you. Nothing else really works.

Posted on Mon, Jun. 05, 2006
LEFT BEHIND
National media attention continues to follow the Big Easy’s plight, leaving smaller towns feeling ...
By RYAN LaFONTAINE
rlafontaine@sunherald.com

BAY ST. LOUIS - With much of the national media attention still focused on New Orleans’ struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina, Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre says it’s a wonder South Mississippi receives any help at all.

“There’s still so much emphasis on saving New Orleans or rebuilding New Orleans that all of us in South Mississippi are being overshadowed,” Favre said.

Since late August, arguably most of the national media attention has been on New Orleans, as reporters from network television channels and major newspapers flock to the city to cover its plight, and some Coast leaders say their story has become an oh-by-theway footnote at best.

(snip)

In Bay St. Louis, where less than half of the pre-storm households have returned and about half of the homes were destroyed, officials are projecting a $12 million deficit in the next two years because of lost revenues, and Favre said City Hall already is operating on borrowed money with no way to pay it back.

More at http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/14744772.htm

about the malaise of being largely forgotten by the media and the nation.

In related news, today's SunHerald also had this headline:

Brick walls abound for housing authority... just not the types residents can live with
By TOM WILEMON
tewilemon@sunherald.com

BILOXI - The Biloxi Housing Authority lost 62 percent of its units to Hurricane Katrina, but none have been rebuilt in the nine months since the storm.

Inadequate insurance and sparse federal funding are the reasons, said Bobby Hensley, the agency's executive director.

"It's strictly money," Hensley said. "The insurance is slow to come and the insurance is inadequate. The Mississippi housing authorities insurance pool provided $10 million for the five housing authorities in the three coastal counties. There was over $100 million worth of damage between the five."

Biloxi did receive a $7.8 million emergency grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, but the same federal agency assessed Biloxi's damages at $57 million.

(Snip)

More at http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/14742551.htm.

I can't believe low-income renters have to gut and rebuild their apartments, or even just sneak through fences to see if they can retrieve family photos. What a souless nation we have become! :grr:

Word is these lazy folks just want to suck on the government teats and don't want to work to try to rebuild their lives. They just want their bling and they want the fancy rims and the hell to their homes and their lives before Katrina. :mad: :grr:

:hug:

Another George Bush "Mission Accomplished" Success Story!

Brought to you by the same folks who gave us:

- Freedom in Iraq
- Affordable gas
- Integrity in The White House
- The hardest working Congress in decades
- A President who's always on the job (no vacations!)
- Spreading the Christian love (not judging or persecuting gays)
- Keeping the deficit in check
- Reining in useless government spending
- An Energy Policy that works for all Americans
- Tax cuts that help the poor and middle class the most
- A smart, intelligent President admired around the world
- Puts American jobs first over outsourcing because it's good for America
- An Administration with an open mind and an open door

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

Sorry, even I couldn't keep it up any longer!

George Bush should hang his head in shame for what he's done to America. And the clean up effort (or lack of) in Louisiana and Mississippi should be more than enough proof of how much he cares about America.

Thank you for the images. They are very disturbing, but people need to see the truth.

I forgot you were gonna be here on the first. I got caught up in getting settled. I hope we can get together sometime.

Your pictures are outstanding and I appreciate your bringing awareness of the MS coast to light. Your help and concern is so greatly appreciated.

Employed and all! i'm not sure if we'll get that getting together thing going this time since i'm leaving in the morning, but I'll pm you and we'll see if something can happen.

Welcome home! :hi:

Just read your sig blog and I have been wondering about you. Yes these are horrible times to be so tired of being tired and nothing seems to get done.
here is my foster pup from the search, rescue I did in NOLA. Stay safe, my friend.

first pic taken about 3 wks after his eye removal surgery/ reconstruction done by Univ of LA after he was pulled from the toxic floods:


he lived in the ICU at the volunteer camp in Gonzalez for 6 weeks

here he is at my place in Tennessee : pic taken about 7 months later. He is all cleaned up and safe. So many did not have even a glimmer of hope.

The OPs images here are powerful. It is hard to describe in words what happened in that area. I am voting this thread as a greatest post.

Bless you for talking care of him. I hope you are doing well.

and your work on the Gulf Coast.

:hug:

I'm heading back down in July, taking a group of students with me. I can't stay anything like the amount of time you did, but hopefully with the numbers of people I'm taking we'll be able to make a difference, even if it's only to one person's house.

Having been down there as briefly as I was, I can't imagine working long term like you did. I was there in March - and I STILL have the sore throat I got while I was there, haven't been able to shake it. Need to see a doctor about that.

My daughter during that trip had a reaction to something, we'll never know what, and her face started swelling up - badly. A nurse we met managed to get a prescription for her, but she was headed toward having both eyes swell shut. My daughter went back to do relief work as soon as college let out, she called me last night, shaken, because she's sick again. Went to the hospital for an infection within days of landing there, and now 2 weeks later has a new different infection of some sort - the medic is suggesting she should go back to the hospital or give up and come home early.

And these are just short term little jaunts. Nothing like living in the area month after month. I can't even imagine being a resident there, especially living with children, being exposed day after day to god knows what molds and toxic mystery slime, all that wreckage that doesn't even show up in your photos.

We had a guy at camp who had what sounds like a similar-type swelling. It was an allergic reaction to a bug bite. The bugs down here scare me (monster beasties!), so I'm projecting that diagnosis onto your daughter.

Well, it sounds strange to wish you to have a good time with your student trip, but you can at least be productive. And remember: if you don't laugh you'll have to cry. So feel free to laugh while you're back here. :hug:

when her head looks like a watermelon, it turns out.

She was all pouty one night, and told one of the filmmakers and I that the veterans had offered to help her out. I figured that had to be good, we had a few medics, and some of the others must have some kind of first aid training. Turns out they'd offered to find her a paperbag and punch some eyeholes in it for her.

I had tears running down my face from laughing so hard. And yes, I'm fully aware that makes me a horribly bad mother, but dang, it was funny.

For all you've done!

This is wretched that's for sure. I'm sorry for all of you who still live there and feel no one cares and who can blame you when our "caring" government just ignores the Gulf Coast. I was amazed at that mold, it looks like a growing weed!

Bless you intheflow and God be with you.

The varities seem endless! :scared:

Gee thanks!

I live in Louisiana and appreciate all the help people in the affected regions have received. You're a saint.

:rofl: Just using my unemployment for good, not evil. :evilgrin:

Mississippi has some of the most wonderful people of anywhere I have ever been in the world. I'm looking forward to going back later this year.

Thanks for coming down to help. Where do you stay when you're down here? Put a plug in for your volunter camp!

From a Biloxian that knows that we would be so lost without the volunteers. :hug:

:loveya:

I am crying now, again. Thank you, thank you so much for your help, your pictures and stories to keep this in people's minds. We were there during the storm. My house was flooded, but redeemable with hard work, however the town was gone and my vehicle ruined. To start over and not grieve my children any further, I moved to Houston and was fortunate to have family help establishing a new life. But I miss my friends and will always regret not being able to stay to help rebuild so have done what I could by writing letters to CNN, Red Cross, etc., and have to remind absolutely everyone that H.Katrina destroyed MORE than New Orleans. It did destroy a paradise, lovely towns where you didn't have to lock your doors, your children were safe, and everyone was your friend - "Hey, baby, how you doin today?" Missing Mississippi.

The parts of downtown that survived are very cute! And the people I've met from there have all been warm and open. If I get the job down here, Bay St. Louis is one of the areas I was thinking about moving to. I'm so sorry for your losses, txwhitedove. :hug:

take care of yourself, get strong and heal your wounds. We will still be here and will still need help in the years to come. Come home when you can and as often as you can. :hug:

*no caption needed*


sign carried by plane that flew over JazzFest just before Bruce Springsteen went on stage

I love that shot of the house. Have always felt affended that part o my anatomy could be associated with the Chimp-In_Chief.

You were at Jazz Fest, too, funkybutt? And I didn't pick you out in the crowd? I can't believe it! Of course I got a shot of the banner, too. Loved the way the crowd cheered when it flew overhead!

i can't believe you didn't see my funkybutt in the crowd! Glad you were there! :hi:

It was by far the loudest round of applause and cheers of the day! You think Bruce paid for it?

We never thougth Bruce might have paid for it. We thought it was a rogue pilot thing, since it only flew over the crowd once, while the commerical banners made many passes overhead.

Can't believe you saw me but didn't say hi. :(
:rofl:

Thank you for chronicling your/our/the journey. To those of you we leave behind here, our love,our prayers and hope. To those who will follow/or share our time here or times of your own, in helping rebuild the coast, we send our thanks in advance, and the knowledge that once you come here you are changed forever for the better. As some wise person said, you find you are part of something much greater then ones self!

;)

Thank you usedtobesick, thank you for so much, most importantly, thanks for caring. :hug:

I'll miss you guys. :loveya:

I will be back with my son who has a internship with the Sun Herald starting in July. We'll play golf and you can teach me some more southern slang. I hope this finds you well my friend. I hope the house thing works out and I promise I will come and visit when I am down again...

:hug: :loveya:

I hope you get your funding, in the meantime, enjoy the spring, smell the flowers, demold yourself. Thank you for continuing to post these pictures, hope to meet sometime.

..on my way back from a family vacation in FL. You can't really imagine the devastation until you see it first hand. Blue tarps dot the landscape from Mobile to Baton Rouge and then from Lake Charles to Beaumont. The entire eastern half of NO abandoned. FEMA trailers in yards and parking lots. The rows of rusted out cars underneath the I-10 overpasses. The Garden District resembling downtown Detroit. I couldn't recognize the hotel I'd been in only a couple of years ago. I knew I had passed it when I got to the Rite-Aid on St. Charles.

It's absolutely staggering. There are no words to describe it.

One of the other long-term volunteers and I were discussing this today, in a way. We've both been here the better part of a year, and we're kind of... well, not immune to the damage, really, but we can see progress. I mean, there aren't piles of debris piled over our head along every street up to ten miles inland anymore. But when we pick up new short-term volunteers from the airport, and drive them to base camp, we see the destruction all over again through their eyes. And it really is still very bad. It really still looks like a bomb was dropped on the Gulf Coast. :(

Sometimes it is just overwhelming. I didn't have a wide angle lens to include the art museum (I think that's what it was) that is also on this block.

And ever since, I've been hearing story after story and they have brought tears to my eyes. After seeing the pictures, I am just blown away.......I had no idea.....

I mean, I have a million of them, myself, but then, I've been living in the disaster zone. Why are you working on disaster files so far away from the disaster?
:shrug:

At least you're being affected by the files and stories, unlike, say, this administration. I tend to think when they see disaster files, they just round file them. x(

I work for a mortgage company, in their loss mitigation department, where we help people keep catch up on their mortgages when they're behind. There are four of us who take care of the hurricane disaster files.
duckie

WHEN WILL IT END??? I have been cleaning ALL NIGHT because it is so hot in the day.... must sleep.

I wondered when you were going to visit my thread! :hug: Nice to see you, and I hear you on the "too hot to clean by day" thing. I think all Gulf Coasters should become nocturnal in the 9-month summer y'all have. It makes far more sense. I hope you're taking care of yourself while cleaning--drinking plenty of water and avoiding inhalation of mold spores. :hug:

:hug:

You are in my thoughts and prayers. :loveya:

:hug:

back to cleaning

:loveya:

:hug:

:loveya:

,....tears flow down my cheeks.

You're an exceptional human being.

I still can't believe I live in a nation where its own people seem abandoned by those who have so much power and so many resources to redress such catastophic events. I'm just, stunned.

Thank God for people like you!!! :hug: Thank you!