Re: Me and Hurricane Katrina

Sorry about what you've been through, Matt, but glad to hear everyone is OK.

CM

"Matt" <porterdINVALID@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5NGdnepZJZQSxKbeRVn-jw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> (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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