Thinking About Katrina

As we've all been reminded over the past few days, it was five years ago that Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. As some of you know, I was fortunate to have been involved in a small way with the clean up efforts in Ocean Springs, Mississippi; across the bay from Biloxi. The pictures I've included are some "before and after" shots of a home in Ocean Springs that belonged to the Lawler family.

I was at Bristol Motor Speedway with one of my brothers the Friday before Katrina hit. I'd been able to visit with a friend I hadn't seen in a few years. That was a great night of racing. The weather was perfect. 2005 had been a great year for me professionally and personally. I distinctly remember standing in the infield of that track after the race, looking up into the emptying grandstands and thinking of how great life was. How odd that within hours thousands of lives would be disrupted beyond anything we or they could have imagined.

Years ago I had a job that allowed me to visit the Gulf Coast. I always enjoyed trips to that area whether it was to Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans or elsewhere. By Wednesday after Katrina, I was online and on the phone trying to find people and places that could use help. That's when I was introduced to Ocean Springs, on the eastern side of Biloxi Bay.

My first trip down there was with Kevin Smith a few weeks later. We took my Expedition loaded with supplies and hauled a U-Haul trailer. We had no idea what we'd get into. The fact that it was the same weekend Hurricane Rita hit made us even more anxious about what we'd find and what we were getting into. What we found were people working together. We never once heard the irate complaining that was reported on from New Orleans.

I could write page after page of everything I saw, heard and did. I guess the biggest thing that stands out to me now is the same thing that stood out five years ago. Both then and now, if you watched the coverage on television, you'd think that New Orleans and only New Orleans was affected by Katrina. The Mississippi Gulf Coast was hit just as hard if not harder yet that area never got the media attention. It's frustrating but understandable.

See all they did in Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Bay St. Louis, Waveland and the other small towns up and down Highway 90 was work hard to rebuild. They didn't scream long and hard about how they'd been forgotten. You never saw the mayor (or former mayor) complaining because the federal government didn't do enough to help them. You never saw the people in those areas with their hands out waiting for everything to be done for them.

Black and white, rich and poor, they just went to work rebuilding their lives. I know it. I saw it. Neighbors and strangers, locals and visiting help all working together to rebuild neighborhoods one house at a time. I'll help you and you help me was the attitude. It was nice to see then and nice to think about now.

I hope to return to the area sometime. I wish I could've gone back before now. I'd like to see some of those neighborhoods after five years. There was plenty of work still to do after my last trip. Something tells me that with the lack of media coverage, it's gotten done. I guess that's not worth reporting on.