Stand Firm/AAC Relief Efforts: Pass Christian

Friday, September 16, St. Andrews member Wilson Carroll and I loaded up a carload and a truckload of relief and office supplies, and drove from Jackson through Hattiesburg, where we stopped at The Rev. Susan Bear's Church of the Ascension to pick up some more relief supplies, and continued on to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

There will perhaps be a time when I can try to make sense of what we saw, but this is not it. What follows is simply my attempt to describe what we saw, and give you a small glimpse into the destruction to the Mississippi Gulf Coast caused by Hurricane Katrina.

If you'd like to make a secure, tax-deductible donation to the American Anglican Council's Hurricane Relief Fund, please click here.

This is what many highway medians look like beginning a little north of Hattiesburg and continuing south. The destruction to trees is tremendous and consistent like this for about 85 miles inland:

As dramatic as the destruction to trees is, there is an eerie quality to the look of most of the trees that were left standing. It is as if you're looking at a snapshot taken during a heavy wind. This is not such a snapshot; this is just how the trees look now standing still in no wind:

As you're driving, from just south of Hattiesburg and continuing all the way to the coast, it sounds like it's sprinkling. But it's not rain, it's love bugs hitting your windshield:

From just north of Gulfport all the way to the coast, most of the billboards left standing look like this:

From a distance, they appear at first glance to have been folded over like a Rolodex card, but what has actually happened is that they have been "racked": They are actually two billboards, one facing each direction of traffic. They are not back-to-back displays like the print on both sides of page; they are angled in a "V" slightly off the perpindicular to the road. Since I-10 runs east to west, and these billboards are on the south side of the interstate, the wide end of the "V" points south; the apex points north. The wind that came in off the Gulf of Mexico from the south thus entered the wide part of the V and encountered something like a sail, and pushed the billboards over not from front to back, but from side to side, so that they resemble the frame of a boat hull:

Humor was not a casualty of Katrina:

As you move closer to the beach in Pass Christian, the military presence becomes very obvious: Checkpoints and the constant sound of choppers overhead.

At the intersection a few doors down from Father Chris Colby's home, a group of Wesleyans from Cincinnati served free meals to anyone who walked up. We availed ourselves of a few hamburgers and hot dogs:

Father Chris's home is marked by this sign:

We decided we love what the Colbys are doing with their roof:

This is the Colbys' back yard. If you look at the bottom of the photo, you can see that the felled tree serves as one end of a clothesline (all the appliances on the ground floor of the home were ruined by water). If you look to the left, in the distance on the far side of the railroad tracks, you can see a line of coiled razor wire arranged two deep, to keep people from entering the neighborhood through the woods behind the tracks.

Amazing scenes of destruction are plentiful. So many, in fact, that the brain quickly begins to filter out all but the most severe. Acre after acre of demolished trees, mile after mile of bulldozed debris...

...is all so commonplace that it takes something like this to grab your attention:

We unloaded most of the equipment and supplies, and a case of Bibles, for Father Chris's new home office where he'll conduct the business of the church. We took a truckload full of baby formula and food, hand sanitizing solution, diapers, toys, t-shirts and undergarments, and toiletries to Coast Episcopal School. Then the three of us set off down Second Street, headed for Trinity Church. This is a view down Second Street:

These are just a few of the homes along Second Street. Of the approximately 8,000 homes in Pass Christian, only about 500 are habitable:

The white house in the background once sat on the concrete blocks in the foreground:

Moving west down Second Street, the destruction leaves the realm of the amazing and enters the bizarre:

This restaurateur seemed to be making a statement of defiance:

The first glimpse of Trinity takes your breath away:

The majestic mangled light fixtures swayed in the soft breeze coming in off the Gulf:

Trinity's floor, which was graced with a rich red carpet (Father Chris hated it, I loved it), is now stripped clean, with exposed joists all over:

Only shreds of the carpet remain here and there:

Father Chris has created a humble yet powerfully stoic pulpit from the ruins of his church:

Plenty of live oaks survived the storm, but plenty perished. This one...

... left a pit into which all sorts of debris was deposited:

Everywhere you turn, there is something that shouldn't be where it is:

In the parking lot I found a street sign from Boisdore Ave., ripped from the pole where it stood - thirteen blocks away.

To the west of the nave, some of Trinity's stained glass can be found:

Trinity's church bells have a piece of a sailboat hull lodged in them. The boat's mast, boom and sails lie on the concrete in the background:

Part of the starboard deck and cockpit of the boat lie behind the parish hall:

The church's once-grand live oak grove leading to the sea is now in ruins:

Behind Trinity lies the Live Oak Cemetery, a place so beautiful and serene it made Savannah jealous. The destruction to Live Oaks left me speechless; it resembles a particularly disturbed Dali painting. Soon I found myself on the verge of tears, and had to sit down.

Some of Trinity's stained glass and red carpet made its way into the cemetery:

Note the carpet in the limb in the upper right:

Over in Gulfport, things are looking much better. Streets that two weeks ago were impassable are being cleared. Large pieces of tree trunks remain, but they are cut into lengths that are manageable for big machinery, and piled away from people's driveways.

A group of Texans has set up a chuck wagon, and makes coffee and cooks stews using cast-iron gear over charcoal fires:

"Booger" the three-legged dog keeps everyone company:

...and the military keeps them supplied with water:

There is nothing left of the Pass Christian Yacht Club:

Exposed tree roots on Highway 90:

The adjacent lane on a section of Highway 90 we travelled:

The Gulf of Mexico, from which this horror came.

If you'd like to make a secure, tax-deductible donation to the American Anglican Council's Hurricane Relief Fund, please click here.

Posted by Greg Griffith at September 17, 2005 12:04 AM (GMT -6:00)