Salem Katrina Team Report from Gautier for November 8

Our friend and team member Rick writes today's first entry:

Arrival Sunday November 6th:

It was a beautiful sun drenched Sunday morning as my small jet made the hop from Houston's George Bush airport to the Biloxi/Gulfport airport. The first thing I noticed as the plane descended into the approach pattern was how every house and building and rooftop seemed to be using the same style blue shingles, or blue tile. I saw it on nearly every building as far as I could see. It made for a very impressive sight. The architectural zoning codes in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the rigid building codes in Austin, Texas came to mind as I pondered how the people of the gulf coast were liable to accept such rules. Then it dawned on me. It wasn't shingles I was seeing on every rooftop. It wasn't tile. It was blue tarp. Huge sections of it. Miles of it. Stretched on every roof in every direction you could see from the airplane. To cover the holes in the roof or the blown off shingles. Welcome to the gulf coast, post-Katrina.

I didn't have to go far to have my first up-close view of the damage. Several areas of the airport were closed or blocked off, the swollen and moldy wallboard still leaning against the trusses and frames, waiting for someone to remove them.

Wes was there in his RV to pick me up. hadn't been to the campsite yet, and he and I were just amazed at the amount of wreckage and litter lying by the side of the road. Twisted metal signs that normally announced a fast food joint or some other business either lay in heaps in parking lots or stood in the sky as a testament to the fury and power of what they had witnessed. Refrigerators and stoves and all manner of appliances lay in piles of trash and litter next to the road where they had been removed from homes and left awaiting pickup. The visible litter and amount of disarray increased the closer we came to the waterfront. First Presbyterian of Gautier is a full mile from the water, but the storm surge had sent 3 feet of water into the buildings, covered the highway the church sits on, and wrecked the drive-in motel across the highway.

We arrived just in time for services, with Joan having spotted the way for us. Wayne and Mary had spotted us in front of them and followed us in, so we all arrived at about the same time.

When the storm flooded the sanctuary the church had just replaced the pews and the carpet. Those things have since been replaced, and the sheetrock has been donated and replaced and painted. The sanctuary was overflowing with members and guests, with members refusing to be seated if a guest was standing (it was hard for this Texas boy to accept that a lady in the congregation INSISTED I have her seat, I politely refused more than once, she wouldn't have it, I acquiesced).

Must go now, more to follow.

Thanks, Rick! Very well written and a wonderful testimony. Back here at our base camp, we watched the FEMA contractor remove (finally) our mountain of trash behind the church. Rugs, televisions, organs, refrigerators, toys, pews and every kind of litter imaginable was bulldozed into a 60' by 20' by 5' high pile, then loaded into trucks for hauling off. It took four semi trailer loads today and they still haven't finished. The mold stinks even more now that its been moved about. Tomorrow should finish the job. And this is one single building among thousands which are being gutted.