Destruction in Biloxi shocked first-time observer

By Rafael Sanchez
After Katrina Newswire

BILOXI — "You just don't understand how bad it really was until you see it for yourself," said Alix Peterson, a 21-year-old senior at USM.

Peterson has seen firsthand the awesome power of Hurricane Katrina. She has seen a washed-out skeleton and clean slab of concrete where her home used to stand. She has seen everything that she remembers around her washed out into the Gulf. She has seen sights that others will not view in a lifetime.

But she remains optimistic in the face of it all.

"It could be worse," said Peterson, who will graduate in May with a degree in psychology. "There are homeless people who would think your FEMA trailer is a beachside condominium."

I am a friend and fellow student of Alix's at USM. My home in Hattiesburg is still standing even after two enormous pine trees crashed through my roof and made new skylights for the kitchen and master bedroom.

After the storm Alix and I rode down to Biloxi .

The drive from Hattiesburg to the coast is a straight shot down Highway 49. The sides of the road are riddled with gigantic tree stumps, blown-over street signs, felled trees and countless other signs of the worst natural disaster in American history. As we neared Biloxi , Alix reminded me once again to prepare myself for what I was about to witness.

"This is beautiful Biloxi ," exclaimed Alix in a most sarcastic tone as she turned her 1993 black Honda Civic onto Beach Boulevard . "Now do you see?" she said. My jaw fell open as I viewed the destruction yet to be cleaned up, a job that will take several years.

It was deeply depressing. Rolling alongside the beach there is little more to see than debris of every kind, and a small glimmer of hope in the eyes of those still trying to put back together the pieces of their lives and homes.

We grew quiet as we approached a main strip of the beach where Sharkhead's hot pink, three-story souvenir shop used to be, along with all the multi-million dollar casinos strewn about the Gulf Coast shoreline. Casinos that were in water from their birth now lay eight blocks away on land where a neighborhood of homes once stood.

"Look!" shouted Alix. "The Treasure Bay Casino is turned completely around and they had to cover up the nude mermaid because children might see it." The beach that was never the cleanest now looked to be the dirtiest ever. On a sign running alongside Beach Boulevard someone had spray painted "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." How true, I thought.

Not a yard of sand lay clean and free of some form trash.

"Here we are. 128 St. John Ave. This is my house," Alix muttered painfully. We got out of the car and walked up to rubble with FEMA trailers to the left and right. Alix greeted her mother and her friend Margaret as they walked out of the trailer with a morning cup of coffee. We exchanged greetings just as I got a phone call saying my car in Hattiesburg was about to be towed because the alarm had been going off at my apartment complex since 6 a.m. and the police were going to tow it. Alix began chatting with her mother as I got on my phone and walked down to the beach to call my roommates.

A bathroom sink, a toilet and an array of almost anything imaginable now lay in the sand. Alix met me out by one of the pipelines on the beach surrounded in trash as far as the eye could see.

"This is horrible isn't it," said Alix as she walked up from behind. I could never have imagined damage this extensive. Where we now stood had recently been covered by a surge of water carrying cars, homes, people and anything within its massive grasp. Alix snapped a picture on the beach as we walked back toward her FEMA trailers to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch with her mother and Margaret.

I didn't feel like eating. "I'm sorry," I said to Alix's mom, "I'm just not hungry." Food had no appeal after what I just seen on the beach. The three finished their lunch and Alix gave me a tour of what was once her home.

"The walls are gutted clean through," retorted Alix. Maggie, Alix's elderly cat, somehow survived the whole ordeal. She had actually been inside of the house when the surge hit and washed everything away, including her.

"We found her two blocks away in someone's garage," Alix said. Around the trailers Alix's mother has made a walkway using various stones and other fitting rocks and bricks that had washed their way over into the yard from who knows where.

"Guess we can go now," Alix said with a sigh. And with that we said our goodbyes to her mother and Margaret and headed back toward Hattiesburg . We made idle conversation on the drive back, but I think we were both more focused on our thoughts about the horrific carnage we had witnessed that day.

"No one thought it could ever get any worse than Hurricane Camille," Alix said.


Rafael Sanchez is a senior journalism major at the University of Southern Mississippi. The After Katrina Newswire is a project of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism at USM (www.usm.edu/afterkatrina). This story can be reprinted with this credit included.