Moonwind
Well-known member
Greetings from (almost) Ground Zero. I just read thru the Katrina thread and decided to start a new one so it would be seen rather than lost on page 10. I hope everyone does see it, because I'm pretty well discouraged by what I was reading.
First to SDog - Everyone seems to have gotten pretty wrapped up on the other thread in their petty little political discussion and seemed to miss the fact that your family lost everything. I want to be the first to say I am so sorry! I wish you and yours the best and I am glad they got out.
Next to those who have loved ones down on the coast - I hope you hear from them soon or hear something about them soon. Phones down there are spotty at best, so don't give up hope!
Now, to what REALLY was going on down here - not the good old sensationalized news. The things that are not being show because they won't bring in the ratings like seeing the Superdome, but things just as bad - things that are happening to poor blacks, poor whites, middle-class blacks, middle-class whites, and upper class blacks and whites ... these things that you aren't seeing on CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews. Why?? Because the good old ratings wouldn't be as good showing the reality of the ENTIRE GULF COAST! Most of what I was reading on that thread tonight (which, by the way, was the first time I've been on line in almost a week because of the Hurricane) is half-knowledge that all of you outside the area have been getting from extreme bias news people. How many of you have heard the names Pascagoula, Moss Point, Gautier (Mississippi) - huh?? How many times was CNN or MSNBC broadcasting from there? What about DiamondHead? Anyone know of any news stations that reported from there? New Orleans received 90% of the coverage of this disaster - but was only 25% of the areas hit! Why? Because of RATINGS!
As some of you know my husband and I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in Pascagoula - one of the names none of you have heard much about on the news. At this moment we still do not know if we have a home to go back to. We have spent the past 6 days in middle hell - better than most, but **** city compared to many. We left on Saturday night before the storm. We went to a small town in central Mississippi to ride it out, a place we had been many times before. Prentiss has a small motel that we have gone to for other storms and thought we'd be OK. Well, when the storm hit, the eye hit Mississippi. It came right up to Prentiss (and beyond). We were getting 100+ MPH wind there. We lost power early Monday morning. Trees blocked all ways out for two days - so from Monday until Wednesday we were in a motel room which was soaked as water leaked in under the door and dropped from the ceiling, with no power in 90+ degree heat. But at least we had a roof over our heads, which is more than I can say for most of Mississippi from the Coast up to 150 miles inland! How much reporting has there been on that? How many people outside of the area know that Poplarville Mississippi and Picayune Mississippi NO LONGER EXIST! How many have heard about the bodies that are being pulled from wreckage in Kiln and Soucier? In the 10s, 20s, and 30s from small towns in Mississippi that have populations of 3000? We had a battery TV with us, but we didn't have any idea what was going on in our town, if we even had a town, because the news reported almost NOTHING but New Orleans .. oh, and how fascinating it was to see the casino barge on the north side of 90 in Biloxi and Gulfport. Would it have killed the ratings to hear once every few hours about someplace else? I guess so, since we never once heard what had happend to Northrup-Grumman Ship Systems, the BIGGEST PRIVATE INDUSTRY IN ALL OF MISSISSIPPI! Did any of you out there hear anything about the Shipyard ... if it was still there or not? Probably not since Ingalls Shipyard didn't include looting.
So, anyway, we finally get out of Prentiss - thanks to the city police, sheriffs, and county workers (as well as a lot of Prentiss citizens) getting out and cutting up the trees so that people could move out. Only one problem. We could only go one of two directions, both of which had suffered storm damage and without knowing if there was any gas available. But we couldn't stay where we were - the town was running low on food, no ice, no water and the motel was getting worse and worse by the hour. But even then, we were the lucky ones in many ways. We had taken food and water with us so we had more than many locals had. We decided to go toward Vicksburg, MS and across into Louisiana because there is a Northrop-Grumman branch up there where we hoped we could get news of our home town and find a place to stay with power and water. We made it to the NG plant, but they had no more news about our area than we did, so we still didn't know if Pascagoula still existed. We were lucky enough to find a motel room (not an easy thing to do with 300,000 other displaced persons looking for a place to stay) almost at the Arkansas boarder. Thursday night, for the first time since Sunday we had a hot meal, a hot shower, and a cool room - one with a real working TV. We thought for sure we would finally hear something about our home town, but guess what ... nada. According to all the news we heard, Mississippi ends at Biloxi - it goes neither east nor north - the entire state of Mississippi seems to start at the Louisiana state line and end in Biloxi. Do any of you remember any mention of Jackson County? Hmmmm, I wonder why that name doesn't ring a bell. Maybe because it was seldom if ever mentioned? We stayed at that motel until this morning. We finally had gotten some place that had a working phone so we were able to call some friends outside of Birmingham and ask for a place to stay. Today we drove all the way back across the state of Mississippi, once again seeing the damage up as far as Jackson which may have been mentioned on TV since it is the capital, but I can't swear to it. We made it to our friend's house about 6:00 pm. But we had to wait for a while at her friend's house because our friend had to drive to Mississippi today to get her mother who was also displaced by the storm. So, we finally got a place to "live" almost one week after we locked up our home and left. Which, by the way, we still don't know anything about - if it still stands, half-stands, quarter-stands, or no stands. Why? Because there is still almost no phone service down there ... and no one on the news has BOTHERED TO REPORT ABOUT AN ENTIRE AREA!
Now that I've had that rant, I'd like to say a few general things based on what I read on the other thread, but just discovered this is too long, so I'm going to break it up into two parts.
First to SDog - Everyone seems to have gotten pretty wrapped up on the other thread in their petty little political discussion and seemed to miss the fact that your family lost everything. I want to be the first to say I am so sorry! I wish you and yours the best and I am glad they got out.
Next to those who have loved ones down on the coast - I hope you hear from them soon or hear something about them soon. Phones down there are spotty at best, so don't give up hope!
Now, to what REALLY was going on down here - not the good old sensationalized news. The things that are not being show because they won't bring in the ratings like seeing the Superdome, but things just as bad - things that are happening to poor blacks, poor whites, middle-class blacks, middle-class whites, and upper class blacks and whites ... these things that you aren't seeing on CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews. Why?? Because the good old ratings wouldn't be as good showing the reality of the ENTIRE GULF COAST! Most of what I was reading on that thread tonight (which, by the way, was the first time I've been on line in almost a week because of the Hurricane) is half-knowledge that all of you outside the area have been getting from extreme bias news people. How many of you have heard the names Pascagoula, Moss Point, Gautier (Mississippi) - huh?? How many times was CNN or MSNBC broadcasting from there? What about DiamondHead? Anyone know of any news stations that reported from there? New Orleans received 90% of the coverage of this disaster - but was only 25% of the areas hit! Why? Because of RATINGS!
As some of you know my husband and I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in Pascagoula - one of the names none of you have heard much about on the news. At this moment we still do not know if we have a home to go back to. We have spent the past 6 days in middle hell - better than most, but **** city compared to many. We left on Saturday night before the storm. We went to a small town in central Mississippi to ride it out, a place we had been many times before. Prentiss has a small motel that we have gone to for other storms and thought we'd be OK. Well, when the storm hit, the eye hit Mississippi. It came right up to Prentiss (and beyond). We were getting 100+ MPH wind there. We lost power early Monday morning. Trees blocked all ways out for two days - so from Monday until Wednesday we were in a motel room which was soaked as water leaked in under the door and dropped from the ceiling, with no power in 90+ degree heat. But at least we had a roof over our heads, which is more than I can say for most of Mississippi from the Coast up to 150 miles inland! How much reporting has there been on that? How many people outside of the area know that Poplarville Mississippi and Picayune Mississippi NO LONGER EXIST! How many have heard about the bodies that are being pulled from wreckage in Kiln and Soucier? In the 10s, 20s, and 30s from small towns in Mississippi that have populations of 3000? We had a battery TV with us, but we didn't have any idea what was going on in our town, if we even had a town, because the news reported almost NOTHING but New Orleans .. oh, and how fascinating it was to see the casino barge on the north side of 90 in Biloxi and Gulfport. Would it have killed the ratings to hear once every few hours about someplace else? I guess so, since we never once heard what had happend to Northrup-Grumman Ship Systems, the BIGGEST PRIVATE INDUSTRY IN ALL OF MISSISSIPPI! Did any of you out there hear anything about the Shipyard ... if it was still there or not? Probably not since Ingalls Shipyard didn't include looting.
So, anyway, we finally get out of Prentiss - thanks to the city police, sheriffs, and county workers (as well as a lot of Prentiss citizens) getting out and cutting up the trees so that people could move out. Only one problem. We could only go one of two directions, both of which had suffered storm damage and without knowing if there was any gas available. But we couldn't stay where we were - the town was running low on food, no ice, no water and the motel was getting worse and worse by the hour. But even then, we were the lucky ones in many ways. We had taken food and water with us so we had more than many locals had. We decided to go toward Vicksburg, MS and across into Louisiana because there is a Northrop-Grumman branch up there where we hoped we could get news of our home town and find a place to stay with power and water. We made it to the NG plant, but they had no more news about our area than we did, so we still didn't know if Pascagoula still existed. We were lucky enough to find a motel room (not an easy thing to do with 300,000 other displaced persons looking for a place to stay) almost at the Arkansas boarder. Thursday night, for the first time since Sunday we had a hot meal, a hot shower, and a cool room - one with a real working TV. We thought for sure we would finally hear something about our home town, but guess what ... nada. According to all the news we heard, Mississippi ends at Biloxi - it goes neither east nor north - the entire state of Mississippi seems to start at the Louisiana state line and end in Biloxi. Do any of you remember any mention of Jackson County? Hmmmm, I wonder why that name doesn't ring a bell. Maybe because it was seldom if ever mentioned? We stayed at that motel until this morning. We finally had gotten some place that had a working phone so we were able to call some friends outside of Birmingham and ask for a place to stay. Today we drove all the way back across the state of Mississippi, once again seeing the damage up as far as Jackson which may have been mentioned on TV since it is the capital, but I can't swear to it. We made it to our friend's house about 6:00 pm. But we had to wait for a while at her friend's house because our friend had to drive to Mississippi today to get her mother who was also displaced by the storm. So, we finally got a place to "live" almost one week after we locked up our home and left. Which, by the way, we still don't know anything about - if it still stands, half-stands, quarter-stands, or no stands. Why? Because there is still almost no phone service down there ... and no one on the news has BOTHERED TO REPORT ABOUT AN ENTIRE AREA!
Now that I've had that rant, I'd like to say a few general things based on what I read on the other thread, but just discovered this is too long, so I'm going to break it up into two parts.
