When we returned home to Gulfport MS in early September 2005 after evacuating to Alabama in advance of Hurricane Katrina’s Aug. 29 landfall, I didn't know what to expect.
I was anxious about what we would find after learning from television news that the storm had devastated the whole Coast from Bay St. Louis to Ocean Springs for the most part.
The first thing I saw on television about Harrison County was complete devastation, nothing left on the beach side, the Bay St. Louis bridge and Highway 90 bridge both gone. But we lived a little further back from the beach so I was hopeful. Billy went back home without me to see how things were. We had lost our home but unlike a lot of people, we were still able to get a few things we needed out. We were alive and so was all the family, so all was well. We have learned by now, to leave when a Hurricane threatens so most of the family had evacuated.
They came later and picked up the pieces, memories piled in big trucks. Funny, but my thought as I watched them taking things away was, "Now, I don't have the closet, where my sweet little cat, Alley, had her kittens"...I kept all of them. We have three cats. Alley got killed by some of those same trucks, after the Hurricane. Her babies had just turned one year old. I miss her still.
Nothing could prepare you for the devastation, even though we had seen the news. It was really bad in Gulfport, Bay St. Louis and Waveland. As we drove around, there was road after road of nothing, like someone had just cleared the table. This meant all the huge Oak trees, the beautiful plants, flower gardens,,,everything gone in addition to all the homes destroyed.
But nature has a way of filling the gap and new trees and plants are springing up everywhere,,,people are replanting their gardens. There are many places that are still empty spaces, but I am sure in time, there will be trees and flowers and plants everywhere again. It will never look the same,,a lot of history got lost along the way,,,but future generations will see the Coast in bloom again. Hurricane Katrina will only be a memory but I will always miss those lovely trees we lost. It takes a long time to grow a tree.