Day 1: Mississippi - Notes from Joyce

Today was definitely overwhelming. We picked up Greg LaFreniere from the Long Island Catholic at the airport and then headed west of Gulfport to the other side of the Bay of St. Louis. Along the way as we got closer to the devastated areas, the debris picked up. There were the stray bags and bottles of bleach hanging in the trees, the blown out neon display signs that look like shredded paper and finally, the damaged or destroyed buildings.

One thing you notice everywhere are the blue roofs. The Army Corps of Engineers are installing strong blue tarps on people’s roofs to keep them protected while the people make arrangements to have their roofs fixed. Greg said you can see the roofs everywhere from the airplane window flying in. I came in at night so I’ll have to look for them on my way out on Saturday.

Shirley Henderson, our local host, took us to Beach Street right off of the Mississippi Sound where we saw many upper-middle class homes torn apart. There were toilets laying in the yards, stray clothing, furniture, etc. What repeatedly struck me were the steps that led to nowhere. You would see driveways and front porch steps that led to homes no longer there.

We were talking about the need to use cell phones and Shirley said those first few days she was driving around offering to charge up people’s cell phones using her car adapter because she knew how much they needed it and no one had power.

We drove along the beautiful beach to visit St. Clare Parish, which is located right on the beach. It’s a beautiful area where I wouldn’t mind having a home, but now there is nothing there. Many of the homes have few remnants of their existence. Yes, some of it had already been cleaned up, but much of it, Shirley said was sucked back out into the Bay of St. Louis by the storm surge. They say there is a line of debris 30 miles out where everything went. I learned that the Mississippi Sound is the area between the coast and the Barrier Islands. After the Barrier Islands the Gulf of Mexico starts.

St. Clare Parish just started school today. Their parish and school are being housed in Quonset huts. A gentleman from Alaska donated more than 20 to the parish. They are air conditioned and heated. The parish is having Mass in one.

The pastor said people keep bringing parts of the parish church back that they are finding in the area. When they got back after the storm the first day, they found the parish and school were destroyed. The pastor said he never found the pews. The pastor at Our Lady of the Gulf said the same thing.

Next we visited St. Stanislaus Prep School and Our Lady of the Gulf Parish. It’s a gorgeous view of the Mississippi Sound as well. Right on the beach.

The pastor of the parish there is Irish and gave us some good quotes. He was telling us how this tragedy has helped people come to see what is really important. He said the storm had byproducts that he said were things like genuineness. People now generally care for your answer when they ask “How are you?” When they meet you they aren’t interested in going anywhere else because they have nowhere else to go so they spend genuine time with each other.

Both pastors and the religious we spoke to talked of how there is a real sense of the people of God now. Folks linger for a long time after Mass sharing their experience and spending time together. Shirley and Dick Henderson have mentioned that too. Too bad it takes a tragedy to make us realize this.

He also spoke of the psychological impact the storm has had on priests who are supposed to be even-tempered and have it all together.

He mentioned the suicides of the people in the area. One of the sisters at St Stanislaus mentioned an increase in drug abuse and car accidents [the latter she said is because people are zoned out, in shock].

After lunch we drove to Pass Christian and downtown Biloxi. Pass Christian is worse than what we saw earlier. The population looked denser and is wiped out about a half of a mile inland, it seemed. We visited St. Paul Parish where we’ll go again tomorrow. It’s crazy. That is washed out too. Many of the buildings are still standing in shell only. Again, they don’t know what happened to their pews either.

In downtown Biloxi, we saw the casino barges that broke loose and came up on land smashing everything beneath them. These barges are huge – two and three stories high and one looked about two football fields long. Crazy. The cathedral wasn’t damaged even though its just 3 blocks or so from the shore. It’s on a little higher ground apparently and they think one of the casinos broke the path of the devastation.

The poor sections of Biloxi still had people living in their destroyed homes. That’s what was noticeably different from the middle class and wealthier sections that we saw destroyed earlier.

The devastation is so wide and we’ve only seen parts of Mississippi, not Louisiana. Of course most of the damage there is from the levees.

- Joyce Duriga, Our Sunday Visitor