It took many hours to figure out how I would begin this article. The last four weeks have been the hardest most trying time in my life. It is hard to see nothing but destruction around you, and try to remain calm and level-headed. I guess I should start with a little on me and my family.
My name is Toni, I am 21 years old and I have lived in south Mississippi my whole life. I have been married since the young age of 16, and I have 3 wonderful, spirited little boys. Hunter is 5, Devlin will be 2 next month and my sweet baby Orin just turned 9 months old. We lived a modest life and have worked hard to get where we are today. I work full time and my husband is a full time student working on a major in outdoor recreation leadership and an associates in automotive technology. We lived in Biloxi when Katrina hit, living in low-income housing ran by Biloxi Housing Authority. We had just started get things together for us. We waited a year to get our apartment and had just moved in a few months ago. Things looked like they might finally be looking up for my family. Then, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came and flipped my world around.
We had been through many storms before and had even been evacuated when Ivan came last year and again this year with Dennis. I think these “false alarms” had made a our coast naive. Many people, I believe, didn’t think our coast could get hit by a storm of this magnitude and well, many who survived Camille in 1969 believed if they held up through that then they could make it through anything (many of these people perished in their homes which held up during Camille, but were no match for Katrina). My family was here during Camille and lived a block off the beach. My grandmother was about the same age as me and my uncles and mother about the same age as my children. I have been shown pictures of my great-grandmother in a canoe after the storm, rowing through her own house collecting pictures that were floating about. The people of south Mississippi were naive then too. Southern pride can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. As bad as Camille was, it became the the standard that all other hurricanes were based, they would say “Its bad, but its no Camille”. It took some as many as 30 years to recover from Camille and in 24 hours Katrina dropped the coast to its knees.
We were going to evacuated for the storm, but like so many others here, money ran short and places to go were scarce. Dennis had set us back six hundred dollars in evacuation cost and it was not something we could afford to do again. The hotel I was working for offered its employees who would stay a free room if they would work the day after the storm. It was north of I10, which we knew would be safer than any other option we had, and the building was built “hurricane proof” from what we were told. So we packed what we could, some clothes,a few toys, medicines and our important documents and left our apartment. If only I knew then what I know now, I would have brought more things upstairs, more pictures, more furniture, more of the small things that seem to make life more livable.
The hurricane itself, from where we were, didn’t seem so “catastrophic”. We were kept very busy. We had many news crews reporting from our entrance and the hotel itself was booked full with those who were willing to spend one hundred and nineteen dollars a night for more comfort for them and their four-legged friends than they could find at a public shelter. We were “business as usual”. We walked dogs under a covered pavilion, we ran towels to rooms, ran errands for the news teams and we collected debris that blew by, mainly pieces of signs that flew off surrounding buildings and pieces of metal from the roofs. We slowly watched the storm surge creep into the parking lot of the businesses around us, but never coming close to our own “safe haven”. The one thing that never struck me as odd till recently is that there was indeed storm surge around us. I mean we were a good twenty or so miles inland. I think we all assumed that we had seen the worse and we would wake up the next day to the usual sounds of the city re-emerging like it always did.
The next day the winds blew just as hard as they had that night, the only difference was the lack of rain. We lost power about five AM and water shortly after. I joke and tell people I probably took the last hot bath in the glow of my flashlight. In the hotel we went about our duties of making sure breakfast was out for the guest and getting cleans towels out for the rooms. Later we all sat around a small t.v and watched the news who remained diligently on the air. With that, our worst fears were confirmed. The actual amount is unknown, but they say we had 32 ft of storm surge in Biloxi. Many called it “our tsunami”, the destruction was on the same level. Everything on the beach side of highway 90 (A highway that runs from LA to FL, most of which runs right along the beach in coastal MS) was decimated. Casino barges were ripped from their moorings and tossed like toy boats to the other side of the highway. The casino my mother-in-law worked for “landed” on top of another hotel a mile away completely turned around, but the lighthouse that was attached to it was relatively unharmed. In most places nothing remains of the buildings but a sign. Old, beautiful, turn-of-the-century houses were washed away and in many cases the only thing left are concrete stairs leading to no where. In many places the whole road was swept out to sea.
I remained hopeful about my home, I mean we were at the top of the hill, the highest point of my road, the water couldn’t have possibly come up that high. We were so wrong. Our apartment’s placement was 3 blocks from the beach and a block from the back bay, most of Biloxi is situated on a peninsula, completely surrounded by water. We didn’t make it to our home till 3 days after the storm. We waited for roads to be cleared, and let rescue workers in to do their job. The stink of the sewage seeping onto the road was smelt all down my block. Wood built houses had collapsed like card houses. I now even distrust the integrity of cinder block as it was strewn about like leggos in the road. We approached my apartments and low and behold they were standing! We opened the door and before we walked in we could smell the all to familiar aroma of mold. Inside, our furniture was tossed about the house, our fridge had been knocked over and now lay flat on the floor. The water level inside the house measured at 5 ft., which was miraculous considering the outside water line was twice that..and a few feet down the road water reached over the roof top in places.
We lived in a two story building, the kitchen, living room, and dining room were down stairs and the bedrooms upstairs. The water inside had made it half way up the stairs, and had the storm surge not left as quickly as it had come, I believe the water inside would have come as high as the water outside. Everything the water touched turned to mold. We went in and begin throwing things outside, our life was tossed on the curb to picked up with the debris.
We kept basic things upstairs, beds, cloths, toys, but we lived our life downstairs, as a result the things most commonly used were destroyed. We began the process of “treasure hunting” trying to salvage what we could before mold had a chance to ruin it. All the while we made “runs” twice a day for basics like bottled water, ice, and food. We left the hotel after 3 days, our management didn’t want the employees cluttering up perfectly usable rooms which filled up almost instantly. We went to my mother-in-laws and stayed there.
The house was already full, my mother-in-law and her husband, her daughter and her son and boyfriend, and now me,my husband and our three kids..10 people called this refuge home now. My sister-in-law also lost her house to a tree. The first week was a blur, probably the shock of it all. We tried to maintain sanity in the heat of the day and overcome the darkness of quiet nights. We were unaware of the political storm that had began shorty after the storm had passed, we focused on keeping what little bit of sandwich meat we had cold in the ice chest and keeping the kids cool in heat that didn’t seem to end. I was beginning to worry about formula for the baby and running out of diapers. I finally came across a damaged WIC center where they were clearing what was savable for the shelters, and the man there was kind enough to give me enough formula to get me by a few weeks.
The kindness of the people around us was unmeasurable..people would ride by and let others know where they could get supplies and which gas stations had reopened. It was not uncommon find someone you don’t know ride by and ask if you had enough water and ice. My mother-in-law met a man who was walking around in nothing but a ripped pair of scrub pants. He had escaped his home by hammering out a hole in his roof, and was able to make it out with 3 packs of cigarettes and the cloths on his back. They gave him a few pairs of pants and some shirts, and he gave us 5 pounds of frozen shrimp and let us bucket water out of his pool so we could flush the toilets. My husband had some gas in a few 5 gallon cans and went around trading people a gallon of gas for a gallon of water. A new fear had arose in the aftermath as well, looters. For the first few nights at my mother-in-law’s my husband slept with a B.B gun at his side. We awakened to every noise outside, making sleeping more difficult.
We washed cloths out of buckets, and hung them to dry, we spent our days ripping my mother-in-laws carpet out which had been ruined when storm surge invaded her home. We created a new “normal”. The smallest things amazed us, like the trickle of the returning water, though it was not drinkable, it provided our first showers in a week. We would pick up the phone every now and then and we were so happy when we could make phone calls again, although the lines were filled with so much static calls could barely be heard. We kept our hopes up by praying for the return of the power and playing card games in the candle light.
Nine days had passed and I can remember exactly where I was when the power returned..I was in the bathroom giving my two year old a cold bath to cool him off. I heard my mother-in-law praise the lord and I knew what it was for. I turned on the light and stared at it like a moth drawn to it. We went about shutting all the doors and windows, and immediately ran the dishwasher and started a load of laundry. The TV I think was the first thing on, it stayed glued to the news as we let it all sink in. Until then we hadn’t worried about who was and wasn’t doing their job, and which celebrities had made their way here to help, and even now these things don’t matter to us.
Here we are now, four weeks later. It took me two weeks to find out about the fate of our apartment, it was decided that the damage was irreversible and they were condemned. They offered us an opportunity to relocate to another state or city, but this is my home. My husband’s school has gone back and my son will start his new school Monday, and I have found a new job (I had to quit the hotel when the mold growing there became a hazard to my health). We applied for FEMA but was denied because their on-line application system had put us in as many as four times, right now we are in process of appealing. We waited in long red cross lines in the heat and most of the time red cross would never show up. Finally, last Monday our efforts paid off and this Monday I received a voucher for $1565.00. We used it for things we needed and slowly we try to replace the things we lost. This is the only thing the government has offered me, and unlike many others around me, I am thankful to even get this. Many believe the government should be doing more for them. Me, I am just thankful to have the air mattress I sleep on and my family driving me crazy. I say I have seen the best and worst of humanity. I have seen riots over food and money, and I have seen complete strangers open their homes to give those who have no place to go a roof over their head. I have faith in my city and state, and I am with my government in saying that we will rebuild, not just buildings, but lives as well. It will of course take time and plenty of patience. For those of us that call south Mississippi home, it is worth it. Like a the phoenix from the fire my town will return as beautiful as was before Katrina, and I pray that the hardship of the last month, will be a lesson for the future.
WOW Sharon You are amazing. If I am ever caught complaining about my life could someone just kick me hard…. I love you and I dont know you but if you need anything please just ask. Suzen
Tony sorry I called you Sharon but I am just learning your name. So TONY YOU are amazing..
Toni, I stumbled across your story while searching for a picture that’s been burned in my mind for a couple months (at least since the storm). I didn’t find the picture, however I found the means to envision what I was looking for. You see, I am also from the Coast. Although 10 years older than yourself, I find myself in a very similar situation. While you are apparently on one end of Biloxi, I am on the other side. The side somewhat spared, I guess you could say. My mother has been left with a slab, like many others, and somehow or another these people are thankful for having “that much.” I truly don’t know how we will all keep it together. For me, it seems everyday is a struggle. My three children don’t seem to understand. My husband is from up north and his family seems to deem our “treasures” as “just stuff” and we should all just get over it. It’s times like this that I wish I could just have my “stuff” back for a moment.
I hope you and your family are well and things are on the up and up.
Thanks Toni for your story. ( SANDI–If you would like to share your family’s experiences with me please contact zoehare@msn.com). I was just in N.O. working on a book project documenting people’s experiences of the storm. I am talking to a wide variety of people in the city and surrounding areas with idea of reflecting a real picture of teh storm, the deluge and the continuing tragedy, as folks attempt to re-build their lives. I will return again this later this month to continue interviewing people and taking pictures. Stories like yours are hard to comprehend by someone like me who was safe and dry in San Francisco when Katrina and Rita came to visit the Gulf Coast. My two little boys have never known suffering beyond being required to finish their broccoli before they can have a cookie. Without having lived it, one will never know. In California several years ago thousands of middle and upper middle-class folks lost everything in the Oakland/Berkrly Hills fires. Wildfires are the annual counterpart to your hurricanes, I suppose, but it’s the same thing no matter where you are or the nature of the disaster–The terrible and raw power of stories of loss and survival move us to listen, to hear deeply. There is nothing more compelling than tales of suffering. Because we cannot truly feel another’s pain, and because we cannot help but desire to, we strain to enter the reality which the story unfolds–there is a sensation of stretching, straining ourselves to enter the feeling of the sufferer. So as we seem to find ourselves largely protected from truly knowing another’s pain by the refuge of our individual subjectivity, our humanity, our fellow-feeling non-the-less compels us toward compassion, and empathy…. This is the thing that matters. Because w/o empathy compassion cannot grow, and w/o compassion, our humanity is lost.
You and your family have my prayers. Zoe Hare