OT: Me and Hurricane Katrina

(Cough!...gag!...spew!) Is this thing on?... Well for those of you who
don't know or remember, I live in Hattiesburg MS a quick 90 minute drive
north of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Looking at a map you can see we are on
the highway that Katrina took when she came to visit a few weeks ago. Seems
like only yesterday... mainly because my hometown STILL looks like a bomb
went off! You can't imagine the damage this little storm caused. The
television reports don't do it justice and distorted what was happening down
here. Not all of us degenerated into madness like New Orleans, but we
suffered similar levels of damage. Yes, my house got damaged; no it was not
totaled. Two of my neighbors got much worse.
My next door neighbor had a tree fall through her roof. It also smashed
her less-than-one-year-old central air conditioner like a beer can. Her
neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. And that is
how the most damage occurred in town. Trees just destroyed homes and
businesses like crazy. Power poles were either broken in half like
toothpicks or pulled out of the ground like Goliath picked them up and set
them down. My house got a lot of shingle damage and got a ton of water in
the front room. We have a bay window that protrudes from the back of the
house and luckily that is where the most damage occurred on the roof. The
water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature over our dining
room table soaking the carpet underneath, but it was isolated there.
During the storm, we made the decision to cover the hole after my wife
ran out and saw where the damage was. I grabbed an old army tarp that the
previous owner had left and that I could never quite part with. I ran
outside and got a ladder and then had to take my t-shirt off because it was
so soaked it was too heavy for me to move in. I climbed up on the ladder
and started trying to lift the now soaked tarp while my wife stayed on the
ground pushing it up to me and handing me nails. I managed to nail three
nails (I had roofing nails from last year when I built my music building)
before I had to give up and go inside. The tarp had a metal grommet with an
old knotted rope on it and the wind blew it so that the grommet hit me in
the head and the rope whipped the back of my neck. On top of that, the wind
was blowing so hard that the rain felt like I was being sand blasted. It
was like standing in a car wash. When we got inside my ears hurt. I was
afraid Dawn and I were going to suffer permanent hearing damage. My 5 year
old daughter was hysterical convinced that mommy and daddy were going to
die. We calmed her down and it took two more times out in this hell to get
that tarp up. I lost my favorite hat and found it on the other side of the
house the next morning. Every tree we had was damaged in some significant
way and the mess was substantial. A fifteen foot pine branch broken off in
the pointed shape of a spear, was driven 18 inches into the ground. So deep
in fact that I couldn't pull it out. I kept thinking if that had jammed
into my chest while I was out there or worse yet my wife's. Thankfully none
of the trees hit the house or the music building. My construction work
actually survived unscratched. My house was a mess. Our power went out
mid-day on Monday and was not restored until Thursday. Jesus, it was hot!
The hurricane cooled everything off for about 12 hours and then the heat
came back with a vengeance. We had no water for two days and all our food
was ruined.
We neighbors all gathered together at one man's house who had a
generator and with an antenna we could get local news as the station had
switched to generator power the night before. It was hard to fathom what
had happened. The local news couldn't tell us much and ended up just
spreading rumors because any info was better than nothing. They got better
after a couple of days. I managed to find two generators and bought them
after standing in a hellacious line only to discover I couldn't get gas. I
actually waited in line for seven hours at a gas station only to get turned
away empty handed. You would think that would have bothered me, but I was
shaded and there was a breeze blowing and I had a book so it wasn't that
bad.
The scariest part for us was when my daughter got heat exhaustion. She
was lethargic all day and when we were waiting in line for gas she started
throwing up. By some miracle the gas station had power and I negotiated
with the owner to let me get her inside in the A/C and drink apple juice and
eat beef jerky. Otherwise, I don't know what we would do. I was in line
with a doctor when getting the generator the day before and he told me that
anyone with heat exhaustion or a heart attack or any such thing was toast.
There was absolutely nothing anyone could do. We have two hospitals in town
and they were in desperate shape. It is amazing how important water and
power are. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky. Because we live behind
Lowe's and Wal-Mart, our power was on soon after theirs'. The east side of
town still doesn't have phone service and many of those people went without
power for a couple of weeks. Many people had to literally be carved out of
their house by the local chainsaw gangs because their trees had blocked them
in. They were trapped in their own house.
Gas was rationed and we were under curfew for two weeks. All this
happened right in the middle of my busy band season compounding my
difficulty. The farther north I go the more of a disconnect I notice.
People just don't get it. They are sympathetic, but don't understand why we
aren't back to normal like they are. I am sure that disconnect is felt by
people farther south regarding us. One family of New Orleans musicians put
on a show for the Red Cross in the same Wal-Mart parking lot they had been
living in (in an RV) for two weeks. They were prepared to stay two more
weeks, but were considering just moving to Hattiesburg as "everyone has been
so nice to us". Hattiesburg has grown by fifteen thousand people overnight.
A massive population explosion for our community. The schools were bursting
at the seams before the hurricane, now I don't know how they are managing
the inflow of new students. Even rural communities have refugees moving in.
I spoke to one client last night from a very rural area. She went
nineteen days without power and almost as long with a boil water notice as
none of the water was safe to drink. Cable TV and internet for most people
is still out. It will be October or November before they are restored. I
am lucky. I have mine.
The relief efforts are almost a bigger pain in the ass than the storm
was. By the time I find out where the relief is, they close it and move it
to a new location. I missed the free food stamps all together. Shame.
That would have helped us a lot. I am literally scared to open my credit
card bill. Everyone took either cash or credit card if they had power.
That card bill is thick and my cash is getting thin! At least I still have
a job.
Today our insurance adjustor finally showed up and lo and behold... he
was alright. He said I need a new roof and a new carpet. Woohoo! Now if
he will make the check enough to actually cover the work needed... We are
pretty distrusting of the insurance companies down here now. They were
trying to low ball people right and left. My mom is only getting half a
roof and nothing for the big water mark on her ceiling. That is a bunch of
crap! Her neighbor up the street is only getting a quarter of a roof. WTF?
How do you match that with the original? All adjustors are not equal it
appears. They finally cleaned some of the rubbish on our street. Limbs and
branches and leaves, etc. which have been sitting for a month. It rained
for the first time yesterday. So we have a fire ban throughout the county.
This stuff is just sitting there waiting for some idiot to throw his
cigarette *** into a pile and make us look like a California forest fire.
Ah well, things are getting better at least.
Finally, here are some things I learned from this experience.
1. You need water, food, shelter, and some plan for sewage even if it's
just a shovel and some lye. Extra toilet paper ready to go. Store up stuff
that can keep without being cool.
2. You don't NEED ice unless you have medicine that requires it. You just
need to change your work habits. Work in the morning, sleep in the noon,
work in the late afternoon, go to bed at dark. Not fun, but it works.
Water drinks the same with or without. Beer is a BAD idea. It just
exaggerates people's anger and makes them do stupid things to each other.
3. Flashlights, batteries, and gasoline are staples of life believe it or
not. Have plenty.
4. Guns and ammo are not really much help.
5. Know your neighbors and make good friends with them. It is very hard to
make it alone. It is much easier to make it with each other.
6. Support National Public Radio. The idea that the private sector can
take care of it all is just pure horse***! The ONLY radio we could get for
over a week was NPR and they gave news and messages 24/7. We would have
been in worse shape without them because every other station was flattened
and had no back up provision. Also, support your local TV station. That
was the only way we could see what happened around town and around the
state. It is a bigger deal than I would have previously believed.
7. Have a landline phone that does not require electric power. We had one
cordless that plugged into the wall and one old fashioned 1970's push button
phone. The cordless was useless, the other allowed us to find family and
make sure they were okay and vice versa. Lots of people had phone service,
but no working phone. I know one lady who didn't know if her son was dead
or alive for over a week until he drove up to her driveway. He had no way
to contact her.
8. Satellite TV is better than cable. I had my satellite up and running
pretty quickly. Some people in town STILL don't have cable. Comcast was
not allowed to even work on their lines until after the electric company got
all their grids up and running. Heck, Comcast didn't even have power for
over a week and a half. No power, no service.
9. Buy good insurance and know what it says. Cheaper is not always better,
better is not always cheaper. Find out who pays out the most money with the
least fuss the quickest. It matters. It really really matters. Get flood
insurance whether you think you need it or not. Remember all those burning
warehouses in New Orleans? I wonder how many of those "accidental" fires
didn't have flood insurance and would have been a total loss had they not
had an "accidental" fire.
10. Have a reliable vehicle. If all else fails or things are not looking
good. GET OUT!!! My best friend is in the National Guard and was on the
coast before the hurricane. He said the dead bodies were lying around like
driftwood. Men, women, and children killed by the storm and many washed out
to sea. They should have left. Some could, some couldn't. I would rather
be one who can.
The only reason we stayed was because nobody evacuates from Hattiesburg.
Everyone evacuates TO Hattiesburg. We had no idea of what was coming. Even
Camille veterans were stunned. We were IMO also victims of the "little boy
who cried wolf" syndrome. We were told by the media that every hurricane
that came are direction was the big one and all of them petered out, hit
elsewhere, or weren't that big a deal. When the big one really came, we
just didn't believe it. We do now. I prepared for Rita like it was my last
day on earth. All we got was a little rain. I don't care. I'll do it
again.
Anyway, I thought some of you might like a first person story about what is
going on.

Matt Porter
(By the way, my drums are fine. Gigs are a little scarce right now, but
that will come back I am sure.)


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