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Hey everybody, figured I'd start a new post about my experience with Hurricane Katrina.

I'll star by saying that I've never seen anything like this. The wind started blowing Sunday night, and got stronger Monday morning. By 8AM Monday morning, wind speeds were about 45MPH. The reason I know this is because we've got a wind gauge. It was really interesting to watch. I must admit that, at the time, I wasn't extremelly worried about the hurricane.

By 12PM, sustained winds had picked up to over 65MPH. Trees were starting to bend a good bit. Around 12:30PM we got a call from a neighbor that one of her chicken houses had been blown away and that someone was inside the rubble. Just before getting in the truck, I checked the gauge again, and it was jumping between 70-85MPH. Me, my dad, and another guy staying with us got in my truck and drove the 3 miles to the neighbor's chicken houses.

It was pretty rough. We had to drive around two trees to get there. We ended up being the first ones to arrive, so we got our and started looking. The wind was deafening. One of the trusses had made a rough tunnel that went into a crawlspace in what used to be the attick. My dad crawled in and found the lady huddled next to one of the feeders. Thankfully, she only had cuts and bruises. By this time there were several people there trying to move debris and such.

On our way back to the house, I could tell that the wind had picked up more. We had to use the CC to pull three trees out of the road just to get back home. I had to yank on two of them to move them (one was almost 3 feet thick). I checked the wind gauge when we got back to the house and it was showing around 90MPH. This was around 2PM.

We just huddled in the hallway for the next little while. I went out to check the wind periodically. By 3PM the gauge was steady at 103-109MPH, with a few gusts around 110-120. Shingles were flying, and the church my dad pastors looked like it was about to loose it's steeple, but it held.

After a gust of wind literally blew my into the side of the house, I went back inside and didn't check again until things calmed down around 4:30PM. At first we thought we were in the eye, but then I remembered that the eye wasn't headed for us. The winds died down instantly to 20-30MPH, with a few gusts here and there. And that was it for the winds. It never picked back up. The rain continued until Tuesday morning though. We immediately went to check on my house, which is not as secure/strong as my parent's house. To give an indication as to how bad things had gotten, it took us four hours to drive 5 miles. We had to move trees, drive through ditches and creeks, and sometimes wait for someone with a chainsaw to come along.

Turns out my house made it just fine, as did may parent's house and the chuch. No structural damage, just shingles, although several trees fell close. While the roads were blocked, and thousands of trees were down, I think our area was spared from loss of life. Hattiesburg (50mi south) was his very hard, and I haven't heard from several friends and coworkers that didn't make it out of the coast before Katrina hit. I went with a relief team taking water and ice to Wiggins (a little south of H'burg), and the devastation was unreal. It looked like a warzone. Debris was everywhere. Many houses were gone--only foundations left. Wednesday and Thursday I went with some of our company volunteers to gulfport to setup/repair generators at our Cell Towers, most of which are now being converted to non-linewire, so as to bypass Bellsouth's crippled fibre system.

I can't begin to describe it. We had to wade through water and debris to get to one cellsite, and you could see dead animals, clothing, keepsakes, and other stuff just floating around. There were picture frames, notebooks....just about everything you'd find in someone's house was floating around in the midst of garbage. Three of our network engineers were the first ones to get into the equipment building, which had been messed up pretty bad. They found a woman's body in the building. Apparently she had gotten in and tried to wait out the storm, but the storm surge flooded the building. This, along with everything else almost turned us all around to head back home. It made me literally sick. We did see bodies floating in the debris. Alot of them. It was horrifying. After two days down there, we came back.

Now I'm at my office in Magee. Trying to clean up and get things in order. Our building was hit, but we have power and network connectivity.

I don't know if I'll be going back to the coast. I don't know if I can handle seeing that again. It infuriates me to see the politicians on TV congradulating each other on passing rescue bills, and blamaing every because the rescue efforts aren't making alot of progress. They need to come down here and see things for themselves and really understand what those people are facing. Dead friends and family. Destroyed homes. No jobs to go back to. Literally everything they have is gone.

If anyone wants to help, you can donate stuff to the Red Cross or Salvation Army. Gas, Ice, Water, and foodstuffs are needed desparetly! If anyone is willing, rescue volunteers are in short supply. Money is always welcome, but right now there are no places to buy anything. All goos are being shipped in from other states/parts of the country.

Anyways, just wanted to let everyone know that we're ok, and that there is a serious need on the coast. If you can, please pass the word along.

--Walt

We are all glad you made it through!

We have trucks being loaded here now and I just returned from taking a load to the collection site.. It is leaving this evening, headed your way.

Am thankful you and yours made it through walt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing Walt its hard at times to even watch it on TV and see that we cant even help our own people in a timely manner but have troops all over the world helping everyone else its desturbing.

Thank God you and your family are ok. Also, I have to agree with what has been said here about how this country seems to be so darned good at helping everyone else in the world and yet we can't seem to do anything about ourselves. Sad, really.

Been prayin for you & your family, Walt. Very glad to hear from you.

Rusty wrote:Thank God you and your family are ok.

Ditto!

Let's hope the response to this disaster is organized and prompt. We have to understand in circumstances like these communication is usually poor, and it takes time for resources to meet demand. Many times the misinformation, due to this , creates more of a problem.

I have been involved in a few large scale operations, and while it may seem that there is little help in the beginning, there usually comes a time where the flow of equipment and personnel overwhelm the situation.
I hope this holds true in this instance.

I'm sure that you were exposed to many horrific situations. Be sure to talk them over with whom ever you are comfortable. It helps.

Rusty wrote:Thank God you and your family are ok. Also, I have to agree with what has been said here about how this country seems to be so darned good at helping everyone else in the world and yet we can't seem to do anything about ourselves. Sad, really.

Personally, I don't think the Military should be an issue. What I mean is that there are enough people in the US that finding help/volunteers shouldn't be a problem. And people are starting to pour in to help, but it's taking time. While I do support President Bush, I don't have alot of faith in the Federal Government, or the MS state government, and I think we've come to depend on the government as a crutch. With 300 million people in the US, help shouldn't be too hard to find.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. I just heard from my father-in-law who works for the local power company, he said that it'll be four to six weeks before we get power at home.

I will keep touch from work.

--Walt

Just from watching CNN I can imagine what you have gone through. I'm glad you and yours made it through well and glad you checked in to ease everyones mind.

It really gives you a new perspective seeing things firsthand....

One of our guys that I know on another crew collapsed while we were down there and had to be taken to a hospital. He's ok, but they never would tell anyone what happened. I found out a few minutes ago that he stumbled over a little child's body floating in the water.

It hurts to think about loosing my little girl. I don't know what I'd do. When it comes down to it, most of the stuff people are complaining about on the news doesn't matter. We're all so blessed to be safe and dry. I almost hate to think about people down there that will probably never see their children, mothers, fathers, etc... again because of the number of deaths.

Mrs Hoff (a RN specializing in trauma) and I have talked this over. Can you point us to an insider where we can do our jobs and not pick up trash or answer phones? We'd like to help but, we are on a budget ourselves. I hope this does not sound silly but, I figure that "certified" homeless can pick up after themselves.

Reed, to be honest with ya, I think the best way is to just come in and start working, but I think I know of someone I can contact. I'll check and get back to ya.

Mrs. Hoff signed up yesterday. ER RN. I signed up today. We'll see what happens.

Cool. If you need a place to stay, let me know. We're probably 120-140 miles from Gulfport.

Sounds good, thank you. A coworker's wife is already down there and she is an ER RN as well. He talked to her last night. First she drove north to fly out of cincy but, they then they had her drive down there. Yesterday they stayed in a gym and played basketball and frisbee waiting to be assigned somewhere.

People needing help but, it's the old hurry up and wait routine.

Yea, it is sad. Like I said, I've heard that the best thing to do is just head in yourself and you'll find things to do. That's what we were told the other day.