New Normal

This house is in Pearlington, MS. This is now a typical scene in Mississippi coastal towns. Many, many houses are sitting abandoned in this condition. It is overwhelming to think how much still needs to be done just to take care of storm clean up and meet basic necessities. At the same time it is heartening to see the sheer number of volunteers still showing up.

One group I met were high school students from Syracuse, NY on a civil rights tour of the South. They came to Pearlington for a service project as part of their trip. They learned important things that day like "Never open a refrigerator that's been sitting in a destroyed house for ten months." Some of them were also very excited about getting a close up look at some alligators.

Thumbs up to the teachers who put this together and the students who poured their hearts into the job.

Waveland

Monday evening I rode down the beachfront with a group of volunteers from North Carolina. I took this picture in Waveland. You can't really get the effect from the picture, but we were fascinated with this house because it was the only thing left standing for miles and because you could see from it just how high the storm surge had been. There had clearly been water in that third floor.

Also, we all agreed that we would have stopped to look at this house even before the storm.