On August 28, 2005, in preparation for a hurricane that was in the Gulf, I left my home to go stay with a daughter and her family that lived about 1/2 mile from the beach in Pascagoula. I could have stayed at home but I chose to be with them rather than staying barricaded (plywood on windows ) in the house waiting to see what was going to happen. Well, most of you know what happened ..... we were to be participants in the fury of a storm named Katrina. The night before the storm none of us slept very well and were already exhausted the next morning when Katrina was going to pay us a very unexpected visit.

I am almost ashamed to say that we were heckling the hurricane and saying it probably was all a bunch of hype. My daughter and son in law were not born when Camille hit the Gulf Coast but I was. I resided in Gulfport at that time and had already experienced the unexpected and the unprecedented but somehow the old cliche "experience is the best teacher" didn't hold true for my not forcefully suggesting that we leave.

It was about 930AM when this fast moving water started rolling down the street, filling the yards very quickly and continued rising to frightening heights until it seems it was in the house in a matter of minutes. God was definitely with us as the plywood on the windows prevented glass breakage and the raging water from rushing inside and possibly collapsing the house. Had that happened, we have no doubt that we would have died that day. We huddled in an upstairs hallway at the top of the stairway with the four little children, a dog and five cats (four newborn kittens). We had seen the neighborhood houses, when looking out an upstairs window, with water reaching their roofs and their cars parked in driveways completely submerged as was the son in laws truck.

After no response from 911, we began praying without cessation. We learned later that what we each asked for was that the children's lives be spared. We remained in a state of terror until finally the water began to recede and we felt that we were going to survive. We didn't know then the extent of the widespread destruction all along our coastline and that the aftermath was going to take a lot more courage to survive than the actual storm.

CELEBRATING? THREE YEARS OF KATRINA

AUGUST 29, 2005 to AUGUST 29, 2008

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Not only will the projected President of the United States have a strange and foreign sounding name, our hurricanes at this late date seem to be following suit. As Gustav decides whom it will wreak havoc on, I know that I should be making preparations just in case it is our area but I can't. Strangely, I have become lax just trying to figure out what is happening. There is a phrase that plays and replays in my mind, "the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming". We can't seem to get back up from the blow that we took here from Katrina. There are no shelters for us .. in vain we try to find rooms in hotels that are miles away. I, for one, am tired. I will not board up the windows etc., I intend to just close the door behind me as I leave my house and go to my daughter's as I did doing Katrina. Will we be safe? Who knows? Maybe as safe as one can be having Chevron refinery so close to my daughter's that now puts out 365,ooo barrels of oil a day. There's that haunting word again, "Oil". It seems to be prevalent in the news today.

Three years later and not much progress. I read recently that one of the coast's cities put their country club back that cost millions of dollars. A lot of "hoopla" was made over that accomplishment. I apparently am different in that I see the suffering of the PEOPLE and , yes, they do suffer. There are still 4000 in Fema trailers or mobile homes. Do they hope for their world to get better as President Elect Obama says so often or should action be taken? I go for the latter.

WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - Building South Mississippi Together |Another Mississippi Soldier Dies In The War On Terror

WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - Building South Mississippi Together |Another Mississippi Soldier Dies In The War On Terror: "GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) - The Department of Defense says a soldier from Greenwood has been killed in Iraq. The military says 40-year-old Sgt. 1st Class George Stanciel died Aug. 19 of wounds suffered when the base he was at came under mortar attack."

WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - Building South Mississippi Together |Mississippi Soldier Killed In Afghanistan

WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - Building South Mississippi Together |Mississippi Soldier Killed In Afghanistan: "JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A 101st Airborne Division officer from Oxford was killed in Afghanistan after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb and attacked by insurgents, military officials said Tuesday. Army 1st Lt. Donald C. Carwile, 29, died Aug. 15 along with another soldier, Pfc. Paul E. Conlon Jr., 21, of Somerville, Mass., the Department of Defense said Tuesday in a news release."

WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - Building South Mississippi Together |South Mississippians Remember Hurricane Camille

WLOX-TV and WLOX.com - Building South Mississippi Together |South Mississippians Remember Hurricane Camille: "BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Sunday people all over the coast remembered the lives lost during Hurricane Camille. The storm of 1969 devastated the coast and nearly 200 people were killed or never found as a result of the storm."

Publish Post

Bush to visit Gulf Coast as Katrina anniversary nears | clarionledger.com | The Clarion-Ledger

Bush to visit Gulf Coast as Katrina anniversary nears | clarionledger.com | The Clarion-Ledger: "NEW ORLEANS — President Bush will visit New Orleans and the Mississippi Coast on Wednesday to check out the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

The White House said Friday that Bush is expected to deliver an afternoon speech in New Orleans, then travel to the Mississippi Coast for dinner with community leaders.

Katrina struck August 29, 2005, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans and wiping out Mississippi coastal communities. At least 1,800 people died.

The federal government has poured billions of dollars into the rebuilding effort.

Local officials plan commemorative ceremonies August 29."

Looking Back To 2005

083005.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Bush says Russia must 'keep its word' - The White House- msnbc.com: "WASHINGTON - President Bush, expressing his concern over Russia's military actions against neighboring Georgia, on Wednesday said he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Tbilisi to show support for the Georgian government."

It's raining here tonight but I think it's too late to save flowers or lawns. For the past three years we have had droughts and very high temperatures ... today was 96 degrees. I love a rainy night with the roll of distant thunder. It's very pleasant to me. Yes, sometimes we have what I call normal weather and sometimes we have had fierce hurricanes. On August 29th, it will be three years since Katrina came into our lives and devastated our cities. Not any one area in Pascagoula is completely rebuilt and spruced up. I drove around today and I noticed only a few cars or none on the route I took. Where are the people? Well, if they are like me, they are staying close to their homes. Why? I haven't the vaguest! Could we just be tired of surviving, waiting and apprehensive that something that shouldn't have happened may happen again? Will another hurricane take a "swipe" at us and destroy what we have struggled to put back? I am able to ask all the above questions because it is the way I feel. Maybe the handful of people I see in Wal-Mart or in grocery stores and gas stations is an indication that people are having a rough time making ends meet. And maybe, like me, they stay home to protect what they still have.

Post Office

Fema Trailer In Back

Market Street

Market Street Crossing Hwy 90

You can see from the pictures why I ask, "Where are the people"?

I believe that if I had been locked in a room for the past three years with no communication to the outside world that I would have been able to tell each year that the anniversary of Katrina was drawing near. I can't speak for anyone but myself so I am going to try to tell you how I feel. I, my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren should have died that day but we didn't. Somehow I had the sensation that we were lifted above the tragedy that was happening below We prayed incessantly, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, our voices loud and clear as we asked for God's mercy. What has happened to me is that I still feel like I am suspended in air just waiting for the other shoe to drop and then I will make my descent. Is that anyway to live, of course not, but that is how it is for me and maybe many more people. They call what has happened to us mental illness but I call it an emotional illness. Death can come suddenly as in a car crash where many are killed instantly or from a long illness where you are under heavy sedation. To be alive and vibrant and KNOW that you are going to die was nightmarish enough but the way you knew you would die was even more horrendous. The house would have eventually collapsed or you would drown. You know how most things that happen in our life are recalled by what we call a "trigger"? A song or a word might bring the event back to you to relive. That's what the month of August is to many of us now ... a trigger.

My new PC is great. My old one couldn't burn music CD's but this one can so I have been purchasing songs from Amazon I have to be careful as I have what I call an obsessive personality and I know that I will have zillions of songs before I finally tire of it or Amazon has no more to sell me.

Until later.