Evacuee story from Long Beach MS.

The night before the storm, we sat watching and waiting on the storm and power outages that we coastians tend to get occasionally.
I sat there mentally strengthening myself for the typical evacuation, followed by a day or 2 of no power. I was talking on ICQ to some friends and readying myself and stood sure that we would ride it out at home, as our place was stucco and block and had stood Camille in 69 and prolly many before and after her wrath.
Well, as Katrina drew closer the evac orders were more and more stern and I watched as the storm got bigger and badder, yet still was only going to graze us. My friend called and said that his girlfriends dad had demanded that we come up to the country to ride it with them. I declined the offer, believing that we'd be fine, yet changed my mind when the storm drew closer, fearing the damage we'd sustain from the massive trees that grew in our yard. I called back and my friend had decided to pull his invite, but I told him I was coming up there and if it was a problem I'd just make him the first pre-storm casualty..
We left a couple of hours before the deadline to get out, driving the 20 or so miles north into the boonies in 50 -60 mph winds, trees and stuff beginning to fly thru the air.
That night we waited on the storm sitting out on the porch as we watched the winds increase and the proverbial s--t hit the fan.

Another friend called after the winds had kicked up to about 120 or so and I talked to him briefly, assured that everything was gonna be just hunky friggin dory.

Several hourd later, the storm tore us up out there too, killing power and we watched trees snapping and dropping around us until things slacked off many hours later.

The old man whose house we were at headed outside with the wind still cranking about 70 and started gathering up pieces of his roof...mainly the crown molding from the roof and told me to grab a ladder. In the killer winds, the old man, who is 72 years old, and I climbed up on the roof and patched it as we were being blown like there's no tomorrow and pelted with horizontal rain. I was blown off the roof twice, but we got the thing patched and stopped the flood in the kitchen.

Several hours later, the storm was over to our knowledge and the country folks were out starting to clear trees and stuff off roads to make travel easier, or rather possible at all.

The old man and I rode to Gulfport to find his son that was MIA. We got to his neighborhood and the sheer devestation there and the whole route to the area simply floored me. That was when the tears began.
We found people wandering the streets wading water and looking terribly lost and confused and tried to get info from them, but the shock had set in and everyone was quite numbed.
We got to the old man's son's house after hiking several miles thru fallen trees and power lines and passed many bodies on the roads in ditches and some in trees and scattered body parts littering the area too. The house was totalled, mud and water filling every room, and no signs of life anywhere. The old man nearly lost his mind right there but said we were going to prowl around and hunt other places. As we headed back to his truck we came upon a house that had been simply shifted off it's foundation and moved about 50 feet down the road. That's when the stench hit...that unforgettable smell of death.
There was an old man and few other people trying to get in the shifted house so we stopped to assist them in any way we could. They were looking for the lil old ladies that lived in the house... and after a half hour or so I was able to squeeze thru a busted window and pull one out...but she had apparently drowned in the flood waters. We helped get her body out and in a decent spot to await the coroner and crews collecting the dead and headed for the truck.
That night we slept in the heat...roughly 98 degrees with 100% humidity and zero circulation of air. The old guy had a gas grill and pulled out a roast and sliced it to grill meat to eat with the crackers we had. The gas ran out before cooking was complete, and as I tore into my slice of meat, blood ran out the side of my mouth. I ignored it and chewed it the best I could, as that was the first food I had had in the two days we had been out there, and I was starving. We hadn't had time to eat before evacuating the day before.
Shortly before the sun began its decent, my wife and I and our cats loaded up and tried to get back home to survey damages at our house. We made the 20 mile or so trip in a matter of a couple of hours, winding off the road to avoid the trees and poles and power lines and general debris.

Upon getting back to Long Beach, we noticed that every crossing over the railroad tracks was guarded by police. I stopped to ask if we could go check our house and was informed that the police had no say, that the entire coast was under martial law and total control of the US military. Choppers and military transports roared through the sky and down what roads were passable, so we rode around a while looking at what was once the most glorious place on the planet to live....now in total devestation!
We drove along railroad street east and west just along the tracks and looked south down the roads... where you would normally see the waters of the gulf of mexico at the ends, now all that could be seen was rubble...in some places 30 feet high.

We drove further and I saw several roads that had boxcars from trains sitting across the roads and atop homes... further down, I thought my eyes had failed me when I saw a barge, probably weighing a million pounds, resting atop an entire block of homes.
The smell of death and rotten flesh permeated the air, and I later learned that 40 tons of chicken had scattered across a few miles of Gulfport, mixing with the smell of death and natural gas leaks, and later learned that 1 million pounds of shrimp had been spilled too. The stench burned through everything, stinging my eyes that still poured tears as they had for a couple of days.

I saw a friend I had lived next door to a year or so ago in some apartments and stopped to check on him. He told his tale of stepping out of his apartment into water chin deep and watching his car float away. He had been forced to swim to the nearest main road fom his apartment and then a few blocks north to the tracks and higher ground. Within 15 minutes of his evacuation, the apartments were crushed by the surge, killing 19 other folks that had stayed there. His wife and kids had evacuated the day before and were safe up north, so we made sure he had a place to stay and moved on, running across many other friends that had lost everything too, and were camping in yards along the roadway. I tried to cross the tracks and walk the block or 2 to my house and was drawn on by Nat'l Guardsmen with M16s, so I got my lil butt back out the way. The area south of the tracks was totally off limits as they did body search and search and rescue missions. It seems there were hundreds of dead expected to be found in my neighborhood
We wound up camping in Steves parents yard that night and ate 3 generic ritz crackers and a swallow of water each that night... supplies were pretty well gone. The next day my friend called his parents house and said they had gotten a generator and food etc delivered that night up in the country where we began.
We headed back that way, and had a delicious meal of potted meat and stale crackers again, but got to watch the news on the lil emergency tv. No gas, no food, no water, no ice anywhere within 150 miles. The generator was running low on gas, so they headed out to go find some...in Florida. They drove north thru Ms, cut across Ala into Fla, then back. Before leaving, they tried to talk me out of my credit card and all cash to pitch in. I had refused, not planning on being there long and needing everything I had. They returned the next day with 2 bags of crackers and about 25 gallons of gas...which they claimed had cost 900 bux...I didn't believe them.

Later in the day the old man gave me 2 gallons of gas, bringing our tank up to a quarter... with only 500 miles to go to here.
I paid the old man 20 bucks for the 2 gallons of gas because he was going to have to be without due to his sacrifice, and we loaded up our cats and crackers and headed north.

We got as far as roughly 40 miles South of Jackson Ms and saw a gas line...hot damn...we'll have gas and food and get to run the AC! right? well I called a friend with my one signal I could get on my cell and filled him in...4 hours later we learned that not only was there no gas, but there was no plan on getting any for a few days or weeks, and the power was still out. We bought a hot gatorade and split it to wash down a cracker or 2 and pulled out heading north, just hoping to get to somewhere safe before we ran out...I had an 1/8th of a tank now, having wasted an 8th to get this far.

Well about 20 miles down the road we found a station, roughly 20 miles south of Jackson and we got in line...which was at least 2 miles long. A few hours later we got way up close, as the line was gone...there was no power or gas.
I pulled to the side in a parking lot and set up a spot to camp, close to bushes so we could at least potty in private and we began our wait, during which time I got hold of some good friends who had been trying to get me help. A couple of guys pulled in the lot to drop off a generator to somebody and we talked and they gave us 4 bottled waters before they left... water that probably saved my cat's lives, as they were dehydrated and getting very sick. The gas wait ended after 15 hours and finally after what seemed like eternity, we had gas and could run the AC.
About 9 or 10 hours later we managed to get here in Missouri and still have no clue whats left of our house if anything.

When we left hastily, we grabbed 2 changes of clothes each and the clothes we had on and the cats and their food and litter box... that's what we currently know we own, until we can find out more about our house.
I called the police at home and they still have zero say or knowledge of anything, as the military still controls the city. From what we can gather from news and friends that are still down there or evaced elsewhere, we have about a 3% chance of having anything left.


As for now, we are in standby mode trying to decide where we go from here... FEMA isn't doing s--it for us, Red Cross has blown us off and every other aid program directs us to them. It seems that New Orleans is the only people worth helping...even though they are the ones that had to loot and steal 94 pairs of tennis shoes and big screen tvs to survive.
I just know I want to go home. We had a lil stray cat that I let in the house before we left to keep him from dying in the storm and I'm afraid he might not have made it. Again, I don't know, as we can't get info on our house.