A year ago
I know there will be lots and lots of blog posts about Katrina. I was tempted not to do one. But as I’ve come across a few I’ve about decided I can’t skip it.
Having grown up on my beloved Mississippi Gulf coast (Gulfport, to be exact) I have great heartache for what that place and the people have endured. I don’t plan on writing about Bush, or FEMA, or anything of that nature. I just ache for what once was and what will not be again. I ache for the people I know who still live there and have lost much, I ache for all those I don’t know that also lost much, for those who have lost family, and house, and home.
I am grateful for so many of the memories I have from there. I always hoped to take my children back there some day and show them the places I loved and where I grew. I know that there is always change and that there will always be change, but this, this is almost too much when I think about it.
So for a before and after photoblog, if you will please permit.
Let me start with the church in which I grew up attending - First Presbyterian Church, PCA -located on Highway 90 right across from the beach.
After:
yet another angle:
and a little extra found in the Fellowship Hall:
Gulfport Yacht Club (across the street from FPC), where I learned to sail and loved to race and spent most of my summer days.
the club house before:
The Front:
The Back:
After:
This photo is a great one to show. First the angle from which this photo was taken is from the Gulf side looking inward toward land. The round container looking things in the back left of the picture is what is left of the Gulfport Marine Life Aquarium. It wasn’t huge like what is in New Orleans, but it was a great place to go. They had shows with seals and dolphins and an ocean petting zoo. The yacht club is the obvious sparse docks and structure and pool area closer to the foreground of the picture.
Clickety the pic for a bigger view.
Here are some links to more before and after shots of places I frequented growing up:
- The Blow Fly Inn
- MarineLife
- Gulfport Yacht Club
- S.S. Camille
- Beauvoir - the retirement home of President Jefferson Davis
This is a link to some video footage of the area. If you click on the Gulfport Damage Scene 2 link, the perspective will be from right in front of FPC Gulfport.
One of my childhood homes was a little pink house on Tide Street in Waveland. So many wonderful memories. I heard that it is no longer there.
My grandparents did not evacuate New Orleans until after the storm. They were hosted by a lovely couple from First Pres Baton Rouge, when they did leave the city. They were among the early returners to N.O.
Such a beautiful church. I hope they have the funds to restore it.