Nine Years after Katrina

Several months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, we drove along the Mississippi coast, surveying the damage: Moss Point, Pascagoula, Gauthier, Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Waveland.



Nine years later, we drove down the same coastal highway. We saw many signs of hope and restoration: new homes (some built on stilt pilings), public buildings restored.



But we were surprised also by the gaping holes. For example, all that remains of the historic 1895 Brielmaier House, which once served as the Biloxi tourist center, is a plaque that reminds people where the house once stood. That scene is repeated in town after town.






In some places the coast felt like a graveyard of abandoned foundations.





We stopped in Bay St. Louis to remember the selfless service of a small Presbyterian Church that turned its facility into a disaster-response center, where hundreds of church groups came from all over the country to help the people of Bay St. Louis. When we visited the church nine years ago, we heard stories of God's miraculous provision to the people served as well as the people serving.



We also traveled to the New Orleans area and visited the many parishes and neighborhoods where, for three years, volunteer teams sent by Northwest Medical Teams helped families tear out water-damaged sheet rock and floors.

We drove through neighborhoods where the storm surge had breached canal walls and flooded homes with 17 feet of water, which did not recede for a month. We drove through the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the poorest areas of New Orleans, where many houses still stand untouched since the hurricane.







Some houses still had the X-code on the front. This code, sprayed on the house by the initial search-and-rescue team, communicated several pieces of important information:

--The top number indicated the date of the initial search.
--The information on the left indicated which agency did the search-and-rescue.
--The number on the bottom indicated the number of casualties found in the house.
--The information on the right could indicate a variety of things, including hazards found in the house.



As a boy, Alex, our New Orleans response director, had lived in the lower ninth ward in a house that his father had built. We drove by the vacant lot where it had stood before it had been destroyed by the hurricane.nine years ago.

We also stopped in front of several houses that our teams had helped to restore.



We saw other houses being built on stilt pilings.



Over a three-year period Medical Teams sent hundreds of volunteer teams to bring hope by cleaning out and rebuilding damaged houses. Other teams worked with churches to train counselors who helped people needing restoration from trauma and despair. One of these churches trained several thousand counselors who continue to touch the lives of countless people today.

Nine years later, the impact of Hurricane Katrina remains evident. It's clear that more needs to be done. But, it's also clear that our volunteer teams truly made a huge difference. 

They not only restored homes, they also restored hearts. That impact continues to be felt even today -- nine years later..