My Cousin, Greg Ansley, just returned from 10 days with the Red Cross in Mississippi. His report gives a direct sense of some of the infrastructure failure that will take a long time to rebuild, as well as the emergence of creativity that shows up in situations like this.
This is such an interesting study of systemic change — it reveals the normally “invisible” systems we depend on for modern life, it mobilizes our desire to help each other as fellow human beings, and it highlights how some of the ways we provide help are less than helpful, given the circumstances.
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Email from Greg Ansley 9/15/05
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I’m back home.
I spent 10 days in the Gulfport/Biloxi area. Did not even go any farther west than Hancock county.
To give you an idea of how bad things are from a roads and bridges perspective, New Orleans is “very far away” from Gulfport at this point. Toward the east, the east bound bridge for I-10 about 30 miles west of Mobile is out after being hit be a run away tug and 3 barges and this was not even over a a navigable channel!
Still no potable water in the 3 coastal MS counties. Power, cell and landline telephones have been gradually improving. When I got there, you where lucky to get a call out on the 10th try, by the time I left it was only one are two tries to get through. A dusk to dawn curfew is still in effect.
BSL [Bay St. Louis] and all of coastal Hancock county are severely damaged (major understatement). Waveland is just gone. There are no functioning county government buildings in Hancock county. The Hancock county sherif’s department is using 20 rented pickup trucks since all of their vehicles were destroyed.
The Pass Christian mayor quit because “there is no longer a town to be mayor of” and the police chief is AWOL of to help his own family.
Harrison county is in better shape since in still has a functioning local government. However they too, have a long road to recovery. The sewage plant is at 1/3 capacity and will have to be rebuilt since the storm surge undercut the large circular cement processing tanks, and they have all been cracked. This alone is a multi-year project.
Everything south of the CSX railroad tracks is decimated and is an exclusion zone, only rescue/recovery workers are being allowed in. Residents can get a 24 hr pass into the area with proof of address.
The Red Cross, Salvation Army and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief are making and amazing effort, but they are completely overwhelmed. In Biloxi alone, one kitchen is producing 16,000 meals a day and as I was leaving they were trying to setup a “super” kitchen to produce 50,000 meals a day just to try to feed everyone.
For the 16,000 meal kitchen they were going through 2000 gallons of water (trucked in), and 16 tractor trailer loads of food per day.
If anyone is still thinking about trying to help out, the best method is a monetary donation to the disaster charity of your choice. It is much more efficient to have items delivered in bulk, palletized and ready for distribution vs. a truck load of “stuff” that has to be sorted be hand and then repacked and distributed. There just isn’t the manpower available for that kind of operation.
The running joke about the local officials is that next time we won’t let the feds “help”, just send in the military, and leave the bureaucrats behind!
For my part, if I never have to eat another MRE (Meal Ready to Eat aka military rations) or use another port-a-potty (or worse) again it will be to soon! You would also be amazed how good a shower you can make out of a perforated beer can duct taped to the end of a hose, even if the water is undrinkable!
Please remind all you come into contact with, that just because the news media is not covering the disaster as much, the crisis continues for those in the effected region, and they will be needing help for many months to come. Also remind them that even though the Red Cross has collected almost $500 million, that is still less that $500 per person affected by the storm.
Greg
