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September 20, 2005
Day 5 - "Searching and Sweltering"
The weather here has been sweltering, especially for this time of year. So we ran by the local Wal-Mart super center to pick up some ice. Even early in the morning, the lines were long. Steve started a conversation with the lady in front of us. She told us the story of her daughter and son in-law. She went with them to try to find their house after Katrina. It was hard to find since many of the land marks had been moved or washed away. They found the plot of land where the house had been, but no house. A roof was lying there and the mother said that they should look underneath to see if they could salvage any of their belongings. Her son in-law said that that was not their roof. They found their roof down the road. The mother said it was at this time she broke down and cried. Her child had lost everything. She said that they were young and would bounce back.
We next went in search of internet access, so that I might be able to upload some pictures to our website and send off a journal entry. Comfort Inn was advertising free Internet access, so we asked if we could use it. They invited us to sit in their lobby while we worked. Steve and I both have laptops, so we were able to catch up on some email as well.
We were then back on the road to Bay St. Louis. All the businesses there had debris piled in front of their stores, waiting for it to be taken away. Some places had homemade signs on them saying they were open or were opening soon. We met with our new FUMA cadet who enrolled this week and came back down to help us. He made several calls to friends that had been affected by the hurricane. One of them agreed to meet with us, so we went to meet with him and his mother. They watched parts of the admissions video and we answered questions. She said she would speak with her husband and let us know.
One of the members of the board of trustees for the FUMA gave us some phone numbers of bankers in the area that might be able to help. I called both and left messages. We then headed back to Picayune.
Posted by thompsod at September 20, 2005 09:32 PM