Saxman Views Katrina Damage

My buddy Chris Saxman who is now a local politician in Virginia just went down and viewed some of the Hurricane Katrina damage in Mississippi. He emailed out this account of what he saw (this is only part of his message, but it is a good overview):

"Today I flew down to Gulfport, MS to survey the damage of Hurricane Katrina. A group of about a dozen people from the Shenandoah Valley wanted to adopt a particular area in our relief efforts. For whatever reason, we chose Long Beach, MS and we toured that town with their Mayor Skellie. While many images are being shown nightly on the television, sadly they do not come close to capturing the utter and total devastation that was inflicted by this storm. When they say a 35 foot flood wall hit the beach, one imagines a lot of water. When one sees the leveling of city block after city block, one is left with a sense of complete shock. Churches gone. Houses gone. KMarts, Taco Bells, McDonalds gone. Six story hotels gone. Entire apartment complexes gone. Condominiums gone. Not knocked over or roof damaged due to falling limbs. These things are no longer there period. Debris piled up over the roads to where the streets are really half tunnels. The military has cut off access to the residents of Long Beach south of the railroad tracks which is coincidentally where the surge stopped. Hurricane Camille stopped about 1/3 mile short of this storm."

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