May 30, 2007 at 08:46:27 Waveland, the Hurricane and the Rainbow by Mac McKinney     Page 3 of 3 page(s) www.opednews.com

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What Arjay described last December I could largely confirm as I turned off Highway 90 onto Waveland Avenue and various cross streets, meandering due south for five minutes to reach the white beaches of Waveland. On Coleman Avenue you drive past the makeshift City Hall and the blasted old civic center building, past the local bar and grill, past the graveyard of the old City Hall and down onto Beach Boulevard, where Sunday sunbathers played amidst all the incongruities of shattered piers and abandoned beachfront properties.

Driving and walking up and down Beach Boulevard for several hours, I tried to capture as well as I could on camera the good, the bad and the ugly of the situation, the random new construction and repairs, the brave efforts of Saint Clare Catholic Church to hang tough; the vast vistas of naked slabs and skeletal foundations where beautiful houses once stood, now peppered with For Sale signs; the devastated houses still not torn down; the gnarled and dying trees all over the landscape, intermeshed with lush green growth that threatens to consume the area, returning Waveland to its primordial state.

All this is captured in my photo album, "Waveland, Mississippi, Katrina Ground Zero", which you are invited to look at by clicking on: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=q749j48.wiqlts8&Uy=sn9zm4&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=72230643685_45790564312

As I headed back toward Highway 90, I stopped here and there along the streets further inland, where the damage was more random and less overwhelming. The farther inland you went, the less you saw empty slabs and foundations and the more you saw houses left standing, though damaged, some dramatically, some insignificantly, some already repaired by hustling homeowners who could afford it or get loans. Yet For Sale signs are still prevalent, for without a strong local economy, many families simply can't pay the mortgages and have to vacate.

The Bridge Reopened

Once you get back up to Route 90 and start heading east, you are actually driving through the larger Bay St. Louis business section, which looks pretty cleaned up and back to normal along the Highway at least, although its beachside is almost as equally devastated as Waveland's. But money talks, and those businesses with the capital have been able to rebuild and reopen along the main strip. And the local economy just got a big boost from a significant event on May 17, the partial opening of the new Bay St. Louis Bridge, the original one having been largely shredded by Katrina. The new bridge will be taller and stronger than the old one. As Lisa Doyle of Construction News reported in her Nov 6, 2006 article:

"Granite Archer Western, a joint venture of Granite Construction Company, Watsonville, California; and Archer Western Contractors, Atlanta, Georgia, was awarded the $266.8-million replacement contract for the Bay St. Louis Bridge in January. HNTB is the design engineering firm.

"The project includes removal of the damaged structure and the building of a new 30-foot-high structure, with an 85-foot-high center that will allow for marine navigation and eliminate the need for a drawbridge structure in the center span. The new 2-mile-long bridge will have four 12-foot travel lanes, a 12-foot pedestrian/bicycle lane on the south side, an 8-foot inside shoulder, and a 10-foot outside shoulder. Two lanes will be complete by May 16th and completion is scheduled for November 2007."  (http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl083105waveland.11adc324.html )

Thousands of people attended the pomp and ceremony on May 17, celebrating what was really a construction marvel along the coast. MDOT, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, was able to work closely with the Federal Highway Commission (not FEMA) to get funding and Congressional support for the reconstruction efforts in record time. MDOT did a terrific job overseeing the contractors and demanding, according to TV reports I saw, that only residential Mississippi workers, not low-paid and exploited foreign workers or out-of-state imports, were employed. The latter is the preferred Bush/FEMA method, what is known as Halliburtonization, and which has only added to the misery of the Gulf Coast in a number of cities.

The bridge reopening is a major example of how government can and should work in rebuilding the coast. Hopefully other areas will take this lesson to heart. Furthermore, the reopening restores the transportation infrastructure between Bay St. Louis and badly grieving Pass Christian, allowing both cities to now prosper from the increased traffic, tourism, and business coming from east and west along Highway 90.

Middle section of the new Bay St. Louis Bridge, with 2 lanes open now.

Sunset Along the Riviera of the South

I drove across this spanking new bridge at a roaring 35 miles an hour, all they would allow at this point, stopping briefly at Pass Christian to take shots of the bridge. It is obvious that this city also suffered tremendous damage from Katrina, but it was sunset now and getting too dark to take more than several photos.

So I headed east along US 90, taking a leisurely drive through Pass Christian, Long Beach, Gulfport and Biloxi, white beaches and shattered piers all along the south side of the highway, green foliage, trees, empty lots and tomb-like slabs along the north side, much like Waveland. Most of the great mansions and business edifices are wiped out, some under repair, and some new construction in progress or recently completed. Again, those with the capital are rebuilding, those with none are fading away, if not gone already. This is nowhere more evident than in Biloxi, the city of Casinos and the seemingly immortal Mad Potter, but that is my next article's focus point.

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http://mosquito-blog.blogspot.com/

Student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and advocate for peace, justice and the unity of humankind, not through force, but through self-realization and mutual respect.

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