University of Mississippi - Ole Miss Yearbook (Oxford, MS)

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Beau Rivage Resort and Casino • Biloxi, Miss. Student Life 29

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It was a disaster that very simply was not supposed to happen. In late August of 2005, reports flooding the national media that a hurricane, which hit Miami as a Category 1, was growing in Gulf of Mexico. Destination: the Gulf Coast areas of Mississippi. Meteorologists and media members warned that this hurricane, a category five with wind speeds upwards of 150 mph. The Coast had seen hurricanes, as had New Orleans. Hurricanes had hit in a far less sobering fashion than Katrina would, and many allusions to the swallowing of New Orleans by the sea fell on deaf ears. Surely this storm would fall and turn in the same way that others had. Residents of New Orleans had been warned before of a massive storm that would flood their city, breaking the levees and swallowing a city famous for its rich culture and musical heritage. On Sunday, the music of New Orleans ceased, at least temporarily, as Hurricane Katrina would make her entrance in the history of the Deep South. What would become the costliest natural disaster in the history of the country facilitated the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the Gulf Coast, many of whom would never return. The hurricane pounded the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana, completely decimating the area. Mobile homes, historic buildings and casinos alike were all wiped from the earth. Still an incredibly potent storm, the hurricane swept up the state of Mississippi leaving a path of destruction that stretched as far as Northeast Mississippi. In coming weeks, fear gripped the country with images of rushing waters, dead bodies, dangerous looting, and motherless children danced across television sets. The destruction left was too real. The storm left more than 1,300 dead. In a matter of days, thousands of people were homeless. The storm knocked out electricity and cell phone towers, and many areas would not regain power for months. Like the seeds of a dandelion carried by a cool southern breeze, Katrina lifted a scattering of Gulf Coast residents throughout the country. Many evacuees were forced to settle with friends and family further inland in their home state, others found themselves in nearby cities where they had no ties or connections, while others were forced to relocate as far as the country ' s other coastlines. As Mississippi ' s coastal cities were scrambling to clear the highways to allow aide to enter the hardest hit a reas of the hurricane, the central and northern counties suddenly had their own dilemma: How could they assist the open hands of the refugees who arrived at the doorstep? The capitol of Jackson suddenly doubled in size. Even as far north as Oxford, near 4,000 came to the city ' s makeshift Katrina Resource Center at the Old Wal-Mart. Displaced students from across the coastal region registered at neighboring universities, including Ole Miss. As the rubble was sifted through, as the Mississippi highways were cleared and the mounds of twisted metal and stone removed, it would become clear that a save for a wounded state would not just be found in the removal of Katrina ' s destructive evidence. Picking up the pieces of the lives of thousands of Mississippians; those who lost their family, their job, their home, their will take much were than a bulldozer, a backhoe or neatly stacked pile of dollar bills. Every Mississippian knows someone who in some way was affected by the hazardous winds that descended upon the Gulf Coast in late August of 2005, the winds that sent an already economically deficient state into a further stage of disrepair. Lives will be rebuilt just as the brick and mortar are placed on the foundations of the flashy new Mississippi casinos. The state will assuredly feel the ripples of Katrina ' s wake for years to come, and uncertainty will surround the reparations of the nation ' s poorest, yet most generous, state. However, one thing is certain. The future of the badly beaten magnolia state will be built upon the bright faces of Mississippi ' s young generation, who are charged with the responsibility to return its home state to what it once was. 28 Student Life

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