Silent nights on the Gulf Coast (NYT/IHT)

[Up2Late]

(John Grisham is the author, most recently, of "The Broker.")

Silent nights on the Gulf Coast

John Grisham The New York Times

MONDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2005
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia In the harrowing days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the shellshocked and homeless survivors strung up tents and tarps wherever they could find standing shelter, anything to hide from the sun. Now, four months later, many of the tents remain: in the front lawns of once fine houses now gutted and unlivable, in small clearings between mountains of rubble, beside camping trailers too cramped for entire families, on concrete slabs wiped clean by the storm surge, even in the living rooms of houses with few walls but intact roofs.

The sun is no longer the problem: instead, the most desperate of the hurricane's victims have stuffed tents of every imaginable make and model with Salvation Army blankets and mattresses to try to stay dry and warm. There is the dismal feeling that some of these tents may not be so temporary. One tent city built by the army, dubbed "the Village," sits in the center of Pass Christian, a small town 30 miles, or 50 kilometers, west of Biloxi, at ground zero for Hurricane Katrina.

The Village is a gloomy grid of 70 tents, 10 numbered rows of seven each, housing about 150 people - old, young, black, white, poor, middle-class, some so ill that their tents are marked "Oxygen in Use." After four months, some of the shock of loss has worn off, and the people go quietly about the daily challenges of securing a warm, private shower, washing whatever clothing they have left, and hoping that their children do not fall ill.

They are grateful for the dry bed and the free food. Everyone knows someone who is worse off, or dead. With tens of thousands of Mississippians displaced and living with families or friends around the country, the residents of the Village at least have their children with them and they are close to home. This year, the great Christmas wish in the Village was to finally get a trailer from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

<http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/26/opinion/edgrisham.php>
(more at link above)

[roguevalley]

1. This cannot be allowed to continue. This is three to four states FULL

of people. WTF?!