Yobachi Boswell returns to Katrina two years on and finds 'hope juxtapose to some despairing scenes, and simmering anger'.

Perspective of an outsider

I’ve always considered the Mississippi Coast my home away from home. I didn’t grow up there, but my family is from the Coast, and I spent many a summer there tip-toeing through the hot beach sand to get to the water, braving the heat of insufficiently air-conditioned homes, and sucking down succulent crayfish and crabs.

That’s why with the onslaught of Katrina bearing down via my television screen two years ago, I took it a little more personally than others not living there; not to mention I had a lot of family in the middle of it. Seeing the sturdy 1.6 mile Biloxi Bay Bridge, which I had ridden over from Ocean Springs to Biloxi numerous times, lying in the water in tattered pieces is what really brought home the power of the storm for me. Having seen and ridden over it in person and then seeing it humbled in the water; served as a great reference point.

On 30 June, I travelled back to the Gulf Coast, for the first time since Katrina, for my annual family reunion that is held around the 4 July every year. Last year, it was held outside of Mississippi for the first time, hosted by my mom in Montgomery Alabama; so I had not had opportunity to go back until now.

I arrived in Ocean Springs off I-10 a little after noon. It was a straight shot from the interstate to Highway 90, the main thoroughfare running through Ocean Springs (a small costal town of 17,000). Having not been there since before Katrina, I braced as I approached, wondering would things look spectacularly different, or would it all be easily recognisable. I made a left at the Burger King and headed up 90, and all was normal. That’s the same Burger King that had been there at least since when I was in junior high in the early 1990s; when my parents let me roam the area free with cousins and we would walk through the park across 90 to get burgers and fries. Particularly memorable for me, because free reign wasn’t exactly a hallmark of my folks parentage; but vacation, particularly in the laidback, water front atmosphere that the easy summers of the Gulf Coast brings, seems to loosen things up. To this day, I’m always more relaxed just being there, that’s why I always hate to leave; but the threat of a Katrina is why I never stayed.

Apparently though, natives of the region don’t share my concern. There has been no appreciable decline in population in Ocean Springs since Katrina, according to all anecdotal information. I would say that holds true for my family members who live in Moss Point, Ocean Springs and Biloxi. Only one cousin moved away, but then she wasn’t from there. She grew up in Oakland California and Kansas City Kansas.

As I travelled up Highway 90 and back down Government, and through various neighbourhoods for two days. As far as lingering damage goes, I tell you what – I couldn’t tell the damn difference. Maybe it was there and I didn’t see it, but if so that says something that one can go about there way and not notice unless someone went out of their way to show it to them.

I took a ride over to Biloxi with my cousin Joe to go see the rebuilt house of my Uncle Kitten, as we call him. Kitten’s nearing 70, and his home, only blocks removed from those casinos you saw pushed up on shore across Highway 90; sustained major damage though it remained standing. He still lives in a trailer in his own yard while he puts the final touches on the rebuilding; much of which he’s doing himself.

Across the street from his house and all down his street you can see the new fabricated homes waiting for occupancy. There are more remnant signs of destruction here, but it didn’t appear overwhelming at this point. The Highway 90 strip with all the Casino’s was as lit up and bright neon lights as 90 has ever been; and to my understanding they are just about all back up and running.

On 1 July, Joe and I moseyed over to New Orleans; about an hour East of Ocean Springs/Biloxi on I-10. Joe grew up and went to college there. He’s lived elsewhere since, but has been back a couple times since Katrina, including as recently as November 2006.

As we entered the city by first crossing the five mile stretch of bridge connecting Slidell Louisiana to New Orleans over Lake Pontchartrain, the culprit of the Katrina disaster, having spilled over into New Orleans flooding the city after the storm had seemingly passed; we noticed a number of large trees sticking up out of the lake that looked as if the tops had been chopped off. This juxtaposed to brand new multi-story houses on the other side of the levy; behind the trees that had not yet recovered.

Joe was impressed that the city in large had at least cleaned up the piles of debris from the street and that it was looking significantly better since his previous trip seven months earlier. He cautioned though that it is 'not a whole lot of improvement, but improving'. He initially had come down three months after the Katrina in the fall of 2005 'It was dead the first time I went, no street lights; it looked hopeless', Joe told me.

Well, here in the summer of 2007 I found both plenty of hope juxtapose to some despairing scenes, and simmering anger. World famous Canal Street was humming with traffic, and the large grassy medians that line the middle of the city’s major thoroughfares were cast over by well groomed oaks and even imported palm trees.

But just as things look like a normal American city for a spell, you then see a house still bearing the red X mark that rescue workers used to denote that a house had been checked and whether dead bodies had been found there or not.

After making our way through down town we headed east on Claiborne. I’ve seen great urban decay before, but nothing like a standing house with whole front ripped off of it on 'Maine Street'. We headed over the Industrial Canal into the much devastated Lower 9th Ward community. And guess what, it still is devastated. The interior neighbourhoods look like ghost towns. The housing lining the main street aren’t a great deal better. Gutted house after house characterises the area, but with a depressing note - people are living on the same streets where the majority of houses are unlivable. Most of the ones that they’re living in aren’t a great deal better. In the subdivision that you often saw on television, it still looks like what you saw on television - rows and rows of devastated houses. In some cases just the cement slabs where house used to be. At one point I saw a slab with three stairs on the backside. Undoubtedly those steps once led into someone’s backyard.

All the debris is not off the streets here, but most of it. Never mind that though, most houses are gutted and in ill repair. The majority still carry the rescue worker markings. In the midst of this, you’ll see one newly rebuilt home almost ready to come back online - on a block full of other houses that look like they were hit by a bomb. We turned the corner at one point and I thought “wow, that house is nicely rebuilt”. As we got closer we realized it was just a nice new roof. The inside of the house was still bearing the repercussions of being trounced by Lake Pontchartrain.

We also visited higher ground where water damage didn’t do as much devastation, in the Garden District an Uptown. We met up with folks rebuilding on the weekends while living out of state during the week. We also visited the French Quarter and Bourbon Street that evening. I’d been to Bourbon St. before, about 7 years earlier during Essence Festival weekend. It wasn’t the same, but the strip was readily active. Not a stalwart of people, but a pretty steady stream. Then again, this was a Monday night and no festivals were in town (Essence was coming back the following weekend); though my cousin Joe didn’t feel that it was up to par for even a normal pre-storm Monday night.

Things are coming back around in Mississippi and Louisiana, for some anyway, in some places. There are still a lot yearning to go back home who don’t have the means, who’s insurance didn’t pay, and who’s president didn’t follow through on his empty promises in the weeks after the disaster.

According to Mitch Carr of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the Biloxi Bay Bridge will have two lanes open by November of this year, and will be fully functional by Spring of next year; with 6 lanes and dual-use walking and biking paths as well.

* Yobachi Boswell is author of the .

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