Building Bridges in Mississippi

Took the journey to Amsterdam Noord today, to say hello to a visitor from Long Beach Mississippi. Yup, one half of the wonderful couple that I stayed with on the gulf coast, is here in Amsterdam for a few weeks.

As we sat down and started to run down all the updates about people, places, and anything under the sun, she mentioned that the famous bridge between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian was just re-opened. (if you’ve never seen images of the bridge in ruins like fallen dominoes, it is pretty amazing)

I was pretty excited to hear the news. While so much of what I saw in Louisiana and Mississippi, seemed so hopeless, and so completely frozen in time when it comes to rebuilding… it is great to hear that such a vital bridge has been reopened.

As I drove from New Orleans to Long Beach, I of course, couldn’t take that bridge as it was still being rebuilt. I didn’t even get near enough to look at the construction work. But when I eventually make my return to the Gulf Coast, I have definitely made myself a promise to not only go see what rebuilding is taking place in Bay St. Louis, but also, I intend to drive along the bridge and hopefully feel some sense of excitement that rebuilding can and is taking place somewhere.

bmtv45 Long Beach, 1.5 Years Later

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This vlog entry is my attempt to show you what Long Beach, MISS. looks like today. 1.5 years after hurricane Katrina destroyed the coast and thousands of families lost their homes. It includes a walk around a destroyed neighborhood with my friends, the Tuepkers.

bm194 Insurance Companies Versus Gulf Coast Residents

During the road trip through the gulf coast, I spent some time with a lovely couple who live in Long Beach, Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina not only destroyed their home, it also erased their entire neighborhood, devastating their community. However after the storm they faced another reckless force.. the insurance companies. This is their story.

We Discuss:
– The day after the storm
– First observations, steps
– What kind of help was available
– The effects on the community
– Finding a place to stay
– Hurricane coverage and the fine print
– Strategy of insurance companies
– FEMA and their trailers
– The case
– The future for the community
– rebuilding or not rebuilding

An article about the case

Coming Back

Fall Out Mississippi

I arrived in Long Beach, Mississippi a little earlier than I expected. John and Jo, my hosts and local experts, were not home yet. Which allowed me to follow my nose and explore the barren landscape on my own.

Some 35,000 people lost their homes along this coast line, and up ahead I can see the beach.. or what is left of it. Mostly all I see is the extremely bright white sand that looks like it was just dropped off there to pretend to be a beach, and the ocean which is right there looking like any minute it will swallow everything in its path, yet again.

While it has been a year and a half, not much has been rebuilt along the shoreline. No one would dare to, I guess. On the other hand many of those families are still waiting to see if they can get some insurance money or funding from one of the designated sources. And beyond that, I hear that many have already picked up and moved inland… a mass exodus away from the ocean that helped to erase the homes they had known and loved.

I head towards the beach drive, which seems like it should be pretty as it follows the coast for as far as the eye can see. Lots and lots of beach.

However beautiful is not the word that came to mind. Baghdad is actually what came to mind, especially when I got to the two street lights that had been destroyed and left only the aluminium polls hanging over the street, looking like the two swords that hover over that main Boulevard in Baghdad.

Interesting comparison.. the gulf coast and iraq. Oddly enough more members of the Mississippi national guard have probably worked in Baghdad than in Long Beach. More money goes to the Iraqi government and the occupation effort than to the rebuilding effort. Fortunately for Iraqi’s, they didn’t have to deal with insurance companies that pretended they were there for the community and then refused to pay for the damages caused by Katrina. Then again, in Long Beach there are no troops going door to door searching houses and there’s no danger of suicide bombers, that I know of.

Eventually I got over the comparisons in my head and just focused on understanding the environment around me. Driveways leading up a hill… to nowhere. No houses, just slabs, or more ghastly.. the pillars.. white pillars which once held up a house, now looking for like the ruins of some destroyed Greek villa. Scraps of clothes, and other assorted person items can still be seen in a few trees and on the ground, the majority I later see in photos, having been cleaned up by the army corps of engineers.

After seeing all this and feeling like some stranger trampling a sacred burial ground, I went back to John and Jo’s. Sure enough, they were home… and that’s when the real learning process began… starting with how things went, day one after the storm.

Photoessay; Long Beach, Mississippi

As I was on the road for 6 hours today and am now secluded in Florida for an evening, I present to you a photo essay from Long Beach. Talk about desctruction.. just nothing left.. slabs of nothing.. overgrown with weeds and debris. Never seen anything like it.