Reflections on Hurricane Katrina

It is the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's destruction of the Gulf Coast region—an event that not only changed the lives of tens of thousand of residents—but also transformed the way our nation saw its government, our residents saw one another, and how Max and I live our lives.

I encourage you to follow this link to Anderson Coopers 360º blog and read a posting from a current Waveland, MS resident. Watch the video report. Pray for the people who are not featured in the report, but bear the same weight of this catastrophic event. Featured is the neighborhood we worked in and both pieces tell of a story thats final chapter has yet to be written.

Also, below is an essay I had written upon my return from our second trip to Waveland that is a part of the Mars Hill Bible Church website (the group we worked through). I hope in some small part it will not only memorialize this event, but serve as a reminder that when something like this happens again, each of us can be hands that pick our neighbors up. 

If you are interested in donating to an organization that helps in time of disaster worldwide, check out International Aid. We worked closely with them at FEMA headquarters and believe they are fantastic stewards of donations. 

Link to Anderson Cooper 360º Blog

mudding out

I was part of the first and eleventh Katrina relief trips.  We went to help the residents of Hancock County, Mississippi salvage what remained of their homes and belongings and clean up what had been irreparably ruined.

In my day job, I meet with clients, work at a computer and build concepts and images.  It’s clean.  Neat.  Sterile. 

Not in Hancock County. 

Our most memorable task was “mudding out.”  It was dirty.  Smelly.  Toxic.  Mudding out involves stripping water-damaged houses to the beams, shoveling mud and belongings into wheelbarrows to be dumped at the curb, hauling out all appliances, ripping up carpet and tearing down moldy drywall. 

I remember slipping in mud as I pushed the wheel barrow.

The stench of rotten paint and debris.

Endless trips back and forth to the curbside pile.

Sewage-contaminated water stagnating in the street.

An unbelievably small pile of possessions returned to homeowners at the end of the day.

 

 Statistics say that, as of December 31, 2005, 2.5 million cubic yards of debris had been removed—only 30% of the wreckage caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Chaos is still the norm; there remains a great deal of clean up and rebuilding to be done. 

 As heartbreaking as it was, in the midst of the debris I found a new standard by which to look at my possessions, relationships, success, future . . .   My home and my heart are less about stuff and more about filling those places with the people I love.  For me, the chaos brought clarity.  Mud brought cleansing.

 It’s strange that it happened this way, but I think that’s God’s miracle. 

 I was baptized as a child and as an adult.  Until my trip to Hancock County, I never entirely understood my baptism or what it meant to be the hands and feet of Christ.

 But now I feel like I was baptized by mud.