May 9, 2006 - Thackerville, OK - 2

After leaving Florida, we scooted to MS for the night, where Barb had called a RV park in Pass Christian that said they were operating on a first come, first served basis.  There's a Wal-Mart not too far away that appears to be open judging from their website, that we can stay in if all else fails.

Now remember, we're not in New Orleans.  We're looking at what's left of Long Beach and Pass Christian along Hwy 90, right on the Gulf Coast.  Pictures like this were all over the news--the results of Hurricane Katrina.

There's no place to pull off, so Barb's doing the best she can shooting through the windows.  We're still in the Road Abode, towing the Jeep, and the roads are really rough and full of potholes.  There's also a fair amount of traffic, which is surprising.  That picture in the lower left is of a church.....and we could see chairs arranged under there, along with a podium!  And that McDonalds "Drive-Thru"?

It's a "Drive-Thru" alright.  Most the rubble has been removed from this site, but that's not universal by any means.

On and on it goes.  Some evidence here and there of people re-building, and lots of property for sale.  Could be a beautiful setting, because out my side of the coach was nothing but beach.

Well, we found the Wal-Mart OK.  And we parked.  No worry about blocking anybody, either.  And this nearly a year after Katrina.

These were taken right in front of the coach as we were parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  Beautiful setting.  Those trailers looked like they were being lived in by construction people, and that tent was obviously the home of that homeless guy standing by it.  Lots and lots of homeless people went someplace else though.  And, then, so did we.

These tents were full of clothing and there were people milling about, and lots of cars (the kind that could move) were parked nearby.  We assumed it was some kind of relief station because of the bottled water stacked up.  And once in a while we'd see a structure that looked lived in while being repaired.  The whole place was depressing, and yet encouraging at the same time.  Depressing to see so much destruction, yet encouraging to see determined people working at rebuilding in spite of the obvious.  Reminded me a little of the fire ants I'd kick at while working at Lovers Key.  Come back the next day and they'd be fixing up their mound again.

We could see glimmers of what had been grand estates and beautiful homes.  The stately oaks were damaged, but full of life for the most part.  New construction on old foundations is a sure sign of faith.  Or stupidity.  Not sure which.  Some of these places were hundreds of years old, from what we heard, so maybe the next hurricane will come ashore someplace else like they have been for the past hundred years.  But maybe not.  We're not brave enough to want to put anything important like our home in the path of a hurricane.

Occasionally we'd see one that appeared to have been minimally impacted by the storm, or with what appeared to be just surface damage.  We couldn't tell what the interior looked like, of course.

And then the RV park.  Several obvious FEMA trailers, and no office to be found.  Trying the phone number again yielded an "out of service" recording.  The several people we stopped to talk to knew nothing about visiting RV's.  We decided to move on.  These folks were lucky, they had full hook-ups and a reasonable living environment.

After spending a very restful night in the Wal-Mart in Slidell, LA, we took the Jeep for a ride into New Orleans.  Or is it "New Orleag" now.  And at first glance, things seem fairly normal.

But wait.... the cross on the church steeple seems to be telling us something.  Yeah, there's been some major damage.

This isn't the result of a sanitation worker strike, this is rubbish that has been pulled from houses that were flooded, and just not hauled away yet.

I'll bet that car is a total loss, and Barb's pretty sure that's HUD housing behind that fence.

The harbor master's office looks a little off kilter, but the fishing in Lake Pontchartrain seems to be good.  There's signs of normalcy someplace, anyway.

Yup, the harbor master's office (I'm guessing) has a problem, and we won't be Eating At Joe's any time soon.

The harbor really got trashed.  But as you can see by the cranes, it's being rebuilt.  We drove along the levee and could see where some extensive damage was being repaired.

I keenly remember that "Beware! We shoot looters" picture, but this other one I don't remember.  More reconstruction I guess.

AARRGGHHH!!!  Why does she do that to me????  Of course I wouldn't remember that last picture.  I was busy elsewhere!  Handy thing to find too, as there weren't any other options available in this residential neighborhood.  I suspect (but don't know) that Katrina isn't to blame for all the rubbish we see.

Often we'd see a trailer pulled up and set up in front of a house.  Almost as if the resident was active in repairing their own place.  We'd find places that were empty and no evidence of anybody doing anything, and then next door we'd see what we thought were some ambitious owners scrambling around the best they could fixing their place back up.  We saw this in some humble neighborhoods as well as some upscale neighborhoods.  The economics alone didn't seem to be as much as a determining factor, as just the ambition of the individuals living there.  Total abandonment was more obvious in the poorer sections of town, however.

Enough of destruction!  Let's go to Nacogdoches, TX, and get the coach worked on!