SLIDELL, La. (ABP) — Katrina has passed on to the north. Communications are out in Covington, La. Slidell, La., is a mess. And virtually nothing's left of Pass Christian, Miss.
Such stories have been repeated all over the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina made landfall Aug. 29 the most destructive storm in American history.
The maelstrom of wind and water has killed coastal residents numbering at least in the hundreds and set off a still-growing urban catastrophe from which New Orleans may never recover.
But it was also a disaster of personal stories — costing Ginger Adams her home and family heirlooms, making Chris Wallace ponder how he would rebuild his life in Slidell and imposing a logistical nightmare on Dempsey Haymon as he began to figure out how he was going to take care of all the people he had been called to Covington to feed.
Pass Christian (pronounced “Chris-CHAN”) was once a gracious Southern community of beachfront mansions, crepe myrtles and antebellum bed-and-breakfast inns.
But by Sept. 1, as far as the eye could see along the beach and for at least six blocks inland, the city of Pass Christian was virtually bereft of man-made structures. The town now seems inhabited solely by the massive, denuded live oaks that had survived both the Civil War and the other major hurricane for which it served as the bull's-eye — 1969's Camille.
Adams lost her rented home, located half a block from the beach on Pass Christian's Henderson Point, to the massive storm surge and howling winds. Although she had only been a resident for two years, her roots go deep in the area. The house was located just behind one that had belonged to her great-grandfather. Her parents were in another historic town, just across the now-obliterated U.S. 90 bridge from Henderson Point.
“My parents have — well, had — a house in Bay St. Louis that has been in our family for 150 years,” Adams said, after picking through what was left of her belongings.
Adams returned to Pass Christian Sept. 1 from Florida, where she had evacuated during the storm. She managed to salvage little more than an antique pitcher and a box of family-heirloom jewelry. She showed a reporter a metal pin from it, token of a Mardi Gras ball she attended as a young debutante in New Orleans. “That has to be from 25 years ago,” she said.
It weathered the storm, but little else of Pass Christian's historical artifacts did. “All these houses that have survived Camille and Betsy [in 1965], and the [19]47 hurricane are gone,” she said. “These are houses that had been here a long time.”
Meanwhile, Haymon led a team of Louisiana Baptist disaster-relief volunteers operating a mobile kitchen in Covington, a rapidly growing area across Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans.
They were there to cook meals for residents of less-historic homes — as well as other workers. The Louisiana team joined several similar ones from Oklahoma, Nevada and other states in a staging area at Covington's First Baptist Church.
But Haymon, in the midst of cooking a stew for Red Cross workers to deliver to local households, said he was having difficulty communicating with other volunteers scheduled to arrive.
“Communication is such a problem,” he said at midday Sept. 1. “I haven't talked to anyone [at Louisiana Baptist Convention headquarters] in Alexandria since I got here.”
Mobile phone service and electric power are virtually nonexistent in Covington and other areas near the heart of the massive hurricane's path. Haymon, of Hornbeck, La., said he was waiting on a refrigeration truck to complete his kitchen, making it possible for him to serve all kinds of meals.
“Half of my crew hasn't arrived,” he said.
Katrina took grand mansions and humble residences alike.
About 30 miles to east of there, in Slidell, Wallace stood outside his uncle's modest home on Walnut Street and helped him air out soaked clothing, rugs and linens.
Although the house is, by his estimation, more than six miles from the Lake Ponchartrain waterfront, the historic storm surge flooded it with two feet of water.
Wallace hasn't even seen his newly purchased mobile home yet. There were still too many trees blocking his street Sept. 1 for him to get a look.
“I'm afraid I'll have to start over,” he said.
His uncle, Vincent Santilla, is fortunate enough to have federally subsidized flood insurance. “We're just going to try to clean up,” Santilla said.
That may be difficult in the near term, as a massive oak tree still leaned against the home's roof, and he was sure that the hole it made would leak the rain that was starting to fall.
Still, Wallace and Santilla were thankful that they and their families escaped alive, after a harrowing 14-hour evacuation Aug. 28. They went northwest to Winfield, La. — a town that should have been about a four-hour drive.
Wallace also was glad not to be among the thousands of people trapped in New Orleans, across the lake to Slidell's southwest.
“It's chaos over there,” he said.
Back in Pass Christian, Mitch Kegley pointed to his three-story home far from the beachfront, and several blocks from St. Louis Bay. It survived the storm, but the surge still got up to the second floor, destroying many of his possessions. Although he had evacuated to Mobile, he returned Sept. 1 — at his children's behest — to look for their pets.
“The cats were alive,” he said, amazed. He found one in the house, and the other on a nearby building. Kegley surmised that one had been washed out of the house, but tried to swim back.
“Before they left, our kids said their prayers — and they both prayed for their cats,” he noted. When a reporter said maybe the youngsters' prayers had been effective, Kegley smiled and agreed. “Yes, their prayers were answered,” he said.