I live in Jackson, Mississippi about 300 miles north of Gulfport and New Orleans. Whenever storms hit the coast, the effects we feel here in Jackson are minimal. This is no longer true.
Monday morning we reported to work as usual; an hour later we were all dismissed. There have been so many times we have been told to take precautions and be careful because the 'storm could reach inland as far as Jackson'. Yea right! I watched the wind torment trees outside my third floor apartment for an hour. I sat at my computer playing dominoes and listening to music. It was rainy and windy and they let me off work for this, cool.
At 12:03PM my cable and roadrunner went out. No big deal, I have DSL and plenty of DVDs.
At 12.05PM my lights went out.
Still it was nothing major, I'm sure the lights will come back on shortly, I guess I'll take a nap. Two hours turned into twelve as the lights stayed off and boredom set in. Thank God the phones still work. In the midst of disaster people find the oddest things to discuss. It helps to distract from the impending doom that's about to overtake them.
Trees start blowing a little harder, unexpected but still ntohing big.
Tuesday morning, as the cool air left over from continuous running of the AC seeped out and the sun came up, we ventured outside. I expected to see water and a few broken limbs because this was Jackson and we never got weather that bad here.
What I saw were trees twelve feet high and three feet wide toppled over in the middle of major roads. Metal street signs bent completely back or broken from their posts completely. The only thing that broke my shock was the ding of low fuel in my car. It never dawned on the genuis I pretend to be that without power you can not run gas pumps. As many people search for water, ice, milk and bread, I search for gas. As we come to an area of town that has power and gas stations (simultaneously), we head to Pilot, the truck stop that has twelve tanks of fuel and over 200 cars waiting. We sat in line over three hours waiting for gas. Where we would have paid $2.45 before, gas was now $2.75 and this was for regular. We watch as people march back and forth wit fuel tanks, some taking advantage of those who have limited options selling 5 gallon jugs of gas for twenty dollars.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
Miss Dew! Glad to see you back in print, and especially with a strong and timely report from the affected area. Obviously New Orleans has gotten the worst of this, but this goes out a long ways. How far is Jackson from New Orleans, anyway?
2 - Al Barger
I can also understand a bit of sensitivity here on some of the racial issues. There's been quite a bit of varied political and social foolishness from various sides shoehorned into this terrible situation. I will note, however, that such foolishness comes not just from one side of the political aisle, as per this Blogcritics post.
Also, please do not hold Bill O'Reilly's nonsense against President Bush. He's certainly no spokesman for the administration.
I note that you answered my previous question about distance in the first sentence of your column. My only defense is that I was so excited to see you back that I read too quickly.
3 - Joanie
I'm glad you're safe and wish you continued safety.
Thank you for providing us a look into your experiences.
4 - Natalie Davis
Dew! So glad to see your prose again, though sad to hear of your trials. Please stay safe and stay in touch. BC is a sadder, colder, lonelier place without your presence.
5 - Cerulean
Very well-written. It could be professional. You should publish that in a newpaper or magazine.
6 - D L Ennis
Happy that you are well!
D L
7 - Dew
Thank you all for the well wishes. Things here are improving. Power is being restored faster and further south working its way to the coast. I have no idea how they will begin to tackle the problem there or in New Orleans. News of Mobile, Alabama has been scarce but they were just as devastated. The mayor of Jackson is working with the city council to get evacuees enrolled in area schools hopefully there are efforts such as these going on in all relief areas.
8 - Lynn Hoover
Shame on Carnival Cruise. What a bunch of hipocrates. I just heard they were going to offer the HOLIDAY ship to shelter the homeless- meanwhile they just marooned me and my wife and all the other HOLIDAY passengers in Tampa refusing to return us to mobile where we shipped out from on thier cruise and now they are offering to "shelter" the homeless? They didn't even shelter thier own cruise clients and FORCED everyone off of thir ship in Tampa instead of Mobile where we shipped out from! I am so mad at this hipocrisy! They boarded up all the windows on the cruise during the hurricane. They were too cheap to stay in port in cozemel so forced all of us to float around in the gulf instead of staying ported in cozemel. Then, instead of returning us to Mobile where we shipped out of they forced us all out of the boat in Tampa NO REFUND! And many of us are still trying to get our cars which are still in mobile! What a joke. SHAME ON CARNIVAL.
9 - DrPat
Thanks for also raising the point that it is not only New Orleans that is devastated. This disaster hit three states, not just the Big Easy...
10 - Natalie Davis
Five, actually: Georgia and Kentucky saw damage too, though not on the same scale as the others.
11 - Phillip Winn
Wow, great story, Dew!