We have a camp in Bay St. Louis (just south of Kiln, north of Waveland). It was originally built by my grandfather before hurricane Camille. It made it through Camille, but didn’t fair as well through Katrina. My younger brother Andrew had fixed the camp up nicely and was living there at the time.
I found this satellite picture of the area on the NOAA website.
North is actually to the right in the picture. Our camp is on a corner lot and is kinda obstructed by trees. Of note is our neighbor’s trailer that blew into the bayou, and a boat in the middle of the road.
Here is our neighbor’s trailer. It should be in the lot with the fence in the foreground. Instead it ended up across the bayou half on a dock and half in someone’s yard.
This is where the trailer should have been. Mud is everywhere.
Here is our camp as seen from the driveway (there is the trailer in the background). Tall pines fell and caught the stairs and balcony. Somehow the roof got ripped open and lots of stuff got sucked out in the wind.
Panning left, several tall pines fell across the bayou.
What is left of the balcony. Andrew did had it nicely screened in.
The balcony.
The main room inside.
Back outside, more tall pines fell over the bayou.
The mailbox out front, at one time filled with mud.
Leaving the dead-end of our road, this neighbor had built a steel-grate ramp to park his vehicled on during floods. I think Andrew told me the water still got too high and his vehicles and boats floated away.
Leaving, we see the boat in the road from the satellite picture.
Around that boat and looking further down, another boat in the street. We take a left here to get out.
After taking a left and looking behind us, a house has somehow ended up in the middle of the road. Andrew said they had to cut it in half to clear the road for traffic.
The camp is structurally unsound, and we are now deciding what we will do. I would like to rebuild (and insure), as the camp has been around for as long as I’ve been alive. Now that I have my own kids, I want them to be able to have fun there and memories just like I have. A nice corner lot with it’s own boat ramp is a great getaway.
Once I secured my own place and made sure everyone was okay, the next day I was determined to check on my parents. They live in Picayune, which is about an hour south of me (about 20 miles from the coast) going toward New Orleans.
Here are some before pictures that my younger brother Andrew took. 
The front yard of my parent’s house.
The back yard.
We had phone service for awhile and I was able to talk to my mom and younger brother during the storm. Since they were south of us, Katrina hit them first. Although earlier I kept telling them to come to Hattiesburg, they decided to stick it out in Picayune. The last call I got from them they were very upset, trees were falling everywhere and it was very scary. Andrew took these two movies with his picture camera of the storm in progress (no sound).
Immediately after the storm passed, Andrew went outside and snapped these pics.
From their driveway, this is looking further down Inside Rd.
Looking down the driveway.
The front yard.
Looking back down Inside Rd toward Paul’s Pastry Shop. The road is completely blocked by downed trees. Most of the power poles are also down.
Another shot of the front yard as seen from the driveway.
This very large pine fell right toward the carport but missed it. It was huge, and luckily fell so that cars could drive under it to get in and out.
Panning right, a pic of the back corner of the back yard.
The back yard.
The woods behind the house.
I arrived the next day and brought my generator to charge their freezer/fridge. Normally we can get to Picayune in about an hour. This trip took us over 3 hours. The traffic was terrible, everyone was trying to get back home. It was mostly one lane. In the northbound lane there were vehicles every hundred yards or so that had run out of gas trying to evacuate. The traffic was very stop-and-go. The lanes were only cleared for emergency vehicles, so sometimes the trees were only cut up a little. When trees would stick out too far, it would force you onto the shoulder to get around them. After the fifth or sixth 18-wheeler would go around the tree, the shoulder would sink way in. Every 18-wheeler after that would have to go REAL slow or the trailer would tip over. Some people were literally walking and making better time than we were. Luckily, we were just going to Picayune. Many people were going even further south (or trying to).
Once at my parents house, I got my chainsaw out and helped Andrew clear the road so people could get in and out.
Here are the pictures I took of my parent’s house.
This is a panoramic view from the top of the carport.
Another panoramic of the front yard.
The back yard as seen from the roof.
Panning right, more back yard. Andrew is smoking some meat for supper.
The other corner of the back yard. A tree fell right onto both sheds (each of my parents have their own shed).
More back yard.
More back yard, looking towards the woods (what is left of it).
Panning left, more back yard looking toward the woods.
The back corner of the back yard.
A view of the front yard as seen from the carport.
The pine tree closest to the carport as seen from the carport.
Before the storm, Andrew painted this on the boards covering the den windows. Looks like it worked, 30+ pine trees down and not a one hit the house!
Destruction? Time for a picture! Here we are getting ready to take a pic by the big pine we had to drive under to get to the carport.
Another angle of us getting ready for a pic, looking down the pine toward the carport.
The fam under the big pine. My father, my grandmother, my wife with Keighly in front of her while she holds Emily, my Mom holding Ian, my younger brother Andrew, and myself. Check out that computer-man-tan (255-255-255)!
After this we headed home. We weren’t sure of the passability of the roads so we didn’t want to wait to late. I believe we left about 6ish when it was still light. The northbound lane of 59 was barely drivable, lots of debris in the road. At the south Poplarville exit, the rest of 59 was closed, so we were forced to exit. At the top of the exit, no one knew what to do. There were 18-wheelers and cars and trucks everywhere all wondering what to do. I had remembered when we were coming down that for several exits traffic was traveling in both lanes in the southbound lane. I finally asked someone who just came off the southbound ramp if both lanes were open and they said it was. I hopped back in strappy and led my crew back north in the right hand (left hand?) side of the southbound lane. Things went pretty good for awhile until we hit an area that was blocked by highway patrol and 18-wheelers. Not sure what the problem was, but we certainly weren’t getting through. We turned around and took the next median to cross over back to the northbound side of 59. We just happened to be following three 4-wheel-drive trucks that were weaving around trees and really driving in the median and shoulder. That was OK with me, I was in strappy, but Janet and the kids were behind me in the van. I was worried that they would get stuck, we were really doing some off-road driving for awhile there. Eventually, we made it back home about 10:30 I believe. Once home, Janet was absolutely sick. Terribly car sick. She came in and collapsed. I got the kids in, started the generator and let it run for awhile to run some fans and charge the fridge and freezer, then went to bed about midnight.
-Matthew
So sorry for the delay in posting. We were out of power for over a week. Once cell service came back, I could use my Treo 650 cell phone to surf the web, but it was tricky. The text entry window only allows so much (hence the truncated text in the previous post), plus if you hit a wrong key everything is erased. After several tries to post, something would always go wrong. Even after I figured out how to use my notebook computer with my Treo as a phone modem, the blogger posting software suddenly didn’t work.
Now that I have electricity and cable modem back, I’ve been constantly working on clearing the yards of debris and trees. Three weeks after Katrina and I’m still clearing.
Thank you so much to all who have called/written/emailed/posted!
Here are pics of my houses. It may not mean much to you, but if you know my land you’ll see exactly what happened here. This isn’t the ultra-destruction you’ll see on the news, for that you might want to check here or here. This is just what happened to me and my family.
Lets see. Katrina hit us in the morning. I had just walked the property to check on everything, and right after walking in the door I heard a crash. I knew immediately it was a tree that had fell. I grabbed the camera (of course!) and walked out to see this:
The tall pine from the little house yard fell into the front of the middle house. This was something, that pine tree was the tallest and biggest tree we had. I was very surprised that it snapped.
I immediately notified everyone that we would be riding the rest of the storm out at Laser Mania, a laser tag arena right around the corner. It is owned by a friend of mine and is basically a former theater in the middle of a huge parking lot (nothing to fall on it). 
The pine tree caught the edge of the middle house porch. One limb came through the porch roof. Later, we would find that another limb punctured the roof in the bedroom to the left.
I looked down the tree and was very happy to see the tree fell right between the open drive-through gates! No fence damage!
Our view of the storm for the next five or six hours. We entertained the kids by playing board games and we munched on boiled peanuts. Immediately after arriving the power went out.
Our view of Katrina was limted to the Laser Mania parking lot. Lots of wind and rain. The wind was so heavy it was sucking the doors open. I had to use my belt to tie the doors together. From this view we didn’t see the extreme events, but the two swinging signs under the Premier sign did blow off. Plus, the Laser Mania sign ended up being destroyed.
Janet kept a vigilant watch of the news, which kept her pretty nervous the whole time. You can see we had candles going (although we didn’t need them, it was daytime). Being a video assist operator comes in handy, I had this little battery operated 5″ color LCD that gave us immediate news feedback on the hurricane. It was actually surreal, we could watch the meteorologist show us the real-time radar then look out the front doors to see it happen live.
After spending most of the day at Laser Mania, I headed back to the houses to check their status. All seemed mostly OK, but there was lots of debris. I went back and got everyone and we came back home. My neighbor and I cleared the street so traffic could pass. The next morning it was time to assess the damage. Here is the front of the middle house where the tall pine fell. It pulled down the power/cable/phone lines and destroyed a wheel-chair ramp (we called it the ‘bridge’).
The pine also hit Virginia’s mom’s Jeep. Although the damage looks minimal, it busted the radiator so it wasn’t drivable.
To the right of the middle house is the little house driveway. Here, you can’t even see the house or driveway because of a tree grove that fell.
Panning to the right, we see the rest of the grove that has been blown over.
Back to the left of the middle house is my house. There were several limbs like you see here in the way of my house and the road. My neighbor and I cleared them.
Panning back to the left, a popcorn tree (I think) blew over blocking entrance to my yard.
Interestingly enough, we have a pecan tree that grows out of the middle of our house (the house was gradually added on and built around it). Several limbs broke off and hit the house.
The tree pushed against the roof and buckled it. I think being against the roof kept the tree from falling alltogether.
A shot of some of the limbs that fell on the roof.
My yard as seen from the back toward the street. Limbs everywhere. You can see it knocked the conduit/gooseneck over on my meter box, but it didn’t break any cables.
Another more direct shot of the limbs on my roof.
On the far side of my yard a hollow tree fell onto the fence and over the ditch. Racoons lived in the tree. I’m glad it fell over, racoons are such a nuisance. They are loud and get into everything. Plus they are mean. The building in the far background is Hattiesburg High School. The building in the near background is the former Y, now the Recreational Center.
In the back of my yard a large limb fell onto the fence (hard to tell scale unless you’ve been here).
Looking right, we see the limbs from the pecan tree in the back yard of the middle house.
Looking toward the back of the back yard of the middle house, more limbs.
A tighter shot of the pecan limbs behind the middle house. Keighly poses.
More pecan limbs in the back of the middle house yard. This particularly large one fell on the fence and mashed it. That’s the little house.
The same pecan limb as seen from the roof of the little house.
From the middle house looking back, lots of limbs plus a small clump of crepe mrytles down.
The downed grove by the street of the little house. Those two sweet gum trees hit the fence and gate that the tall pine missed.
Here we see the mashed gate. The trees hit the side of the middle house, but weren’t long enough to do any damage.
What’s left of the tall pine. It’s a massive tree. This stump is nine or ten feet in the air, and a good 30-32″ where it broke.
Looking back toward the little house, a whole pecan tree fell. It fell back toward the little house, but mostly missed it and didn’t do any major damage.
Destruction? Time for a picture! Ian, myself, and Keighly.
The root system of the pecan tree. This will serve as extreme joy to the kids and dogs as a natural/dangerous playmound.
Keighly and Ian try out the mound. Wahoo, it’s dangerous!
The pecan tree closer to the little house had a limb fall and hit the truck left there by Joe and Lynn (Little, no less). I think it dented in the bed a little, but they didn’t seem to mind.
An overview of the little house yard from the roof of the little house.
That’s about it for my own destruction. I have other pics I will post of my parents house in Picayune and our camp in Waveland/Bay St. Louis. Stay tuned. It’s hard to find time to post when I am STILL cleaning up my yards. Plus, about a third to a half of my income came directly or indirectly from the casinos on the coast, which are now no longer there. Time to find (paying)work.
-Matthew
We are safe. I was extremely fortunate to purchase the generator and chainsaw. We have had no power or phone since monday, and only got running water yesterday (but you can’t drink it).
It is survival time. Hattiesburg wasn’t hit as hard as the coast or New Orleans. Even so, time to turn swiss family robertson and macguyver yourself a living. I don’t get a lot of the people I see sitting around waiting for who knows what. i’ll take care of myself, thank you very much.
we had lots of trees down, but fortunately none hit the houses enough to cause serious structural damage. let me just give you a readers digest condensed timeline:
– when the storm hit, we immediatly had a large pine tree fall between my fence gates and hit the porch to the middle house. this caused us to go to Laser Mania about a block away. it it a laser tag arena in an old theater that my friend owns. myself, my wife Janet, our three kids Keighly, Ian, and Emily, and my friend Virginia and her mom all quickly went down there and watched the storm though the glass doors.
-for the next 8 hours or so, we watched the environment tear apart. high winds and rain dessimated everything within view. we had a battery tv and was able to keep up with weather updates that way so we would know when katrina had passed. we ate boiled peanuts and snacks and played games to pass the time and keep the kids entertained.
-after awhile of seeing cars go by and checking the weather, I went back to check on the houses. it took me longer than I thought because all roads were covered with trees. my truck couldn’t get back there. I finally jumped out and ran back there. it looked bad, trees were down everywhere and I wasn’t sure if any of them hit the house or not. I heard my dogs bark, so I knew they were ok. I went back to laser mania and we started gathering our things.
– once we got back, I started clearing the road with the help of a neighbor. I got soaking wet, but used my new chainsaw to clear the road. I then got my generator going and we assesed the situation
Hurricane Katrina is on her way.. Normally I don’t worry a whole lot about hurricanes, but this one is very large and powerful.. I live in Hattiesburg, about an hour from the coast of Mississippi.
As of Sunday evening, it is heading right for us..
My parents live about an hour south of me toward New Orleans in Picayune, much closer to the coast than I am.. My younger brother Andrew lives in the Kiln (birthplace of Brett Favre, although he lives in Hattiesburg on the other side of town from me) which is right on the coast.. My older brother Joey and wife Lori live outside of Picayune, but they have already evacuated to Florida. I also have a grandmother who lives in Lumberton, about 20 miles south of me.. Andrew is staying with my parents at their house in Picayune to ride it out. My grandmother is staying at her house. Janet’s parents (who are an hour west of Hattiesburg) are going to McComb to ride it out at a motel. I will ride it out here with my own family and keep touch with everyone else.
To prepare, I purchased water, food, a gas powered chain saw (in case trees fall), and a ge
nerator. Dadgumit, I forgot duct (duck?) tape! Oh well. The generator is big enough for all my houses (three) to use at once, provided they don’t pull too much of a load. I topped off all the vehicle tanks with gas, and also have 15 gals of gas for the generator which should last about three days. I can cook on my grill if I have to, and use the generator for microwave/refrigerator/freezer use..
I’ve completely cleared our yards and put everything in the shed or tied it down.
Lets hope everything goes OK, I’ll take plenty of pics and video (of course!).
-Matthew
We have been hounded for quite some time with a snake that lives under our house.. Well, no more! Janet was walking by the new lawnmower while it was sunning on the cover.. She startled it (and that startled her!) and she came in and told me.. I’ve been trying to kill it now for about a year.. I went out and finally got it out from under the lawnmower, pinned it with the shovel (with help from Janet) and chopped it’s head off with an axe..
It will bother us no more.
(hopefully a movie to come soon)
-Matthew
Testing new software for flash slideshow of random pics (you need Macromedia Flash, obviously):
http://www.trinitifx.com/pics/slideshow_test1.swf
-Matthew
Yesterday was my good friend Philip’s birthday!
I bought him a steak supper at Applebees. He cleaned his plate.
-Matthew
I’ll eventually get this website up the way I want it, but in the meantime here are a couple of interesting links I heard about today.
“Anti-Jihadist gun lubricant” Lubricant with just a hint of bacon, so each shot will guarantee no virgins for the terrorists!
http://www.operation-helmet.org/
A much better helmet liner for our soldiers! Buy some and donate them to our troops!
-Matthew
The Incredibealls! 
