East Pass Christian

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East Pass Christian

East End of the Pass

From: "Miss Jamie" <miss_jamie@hotmail.com>

To: Dan@PassChristian.Net

Hi Dan,

I sent this email out to our friends and family after our trip home to PC on September 6th, Tuesday.

My husband and I have only been married for five months, and we had moved to Pass Christian just four months ago. We lived at 140 Kittiwake Drive.

If you'd like to use this email, please go ahead. I have photos but I am on dial-up and can't send them until we get to a wi-fi area.

***

Andrew and I left Panama City Beach, where we evacuated to and are staying currently, as of 7 AM on Tuesday September 6th. We brought our dogs (Dottie and BB) with us. Every gas station had a $20 maximum along the Florida coast that we stopped at. We went to Mobile to drop off the dogs at a kennel since I was worried about them walking on broken glass and refuse in Mississippi.

Mobile had a LOT of wind damage in the downtown area, lots of damage to destroyed roofs, signs down. When we got to the kennel, I walked in, saw it, and walked right back out and announced "the dogs are coming with us".

It looked like the pond in there, just chain link kennels with dogs barking at each other through the fences. No thanks. My dogs are neurotic enough from all of this, they'd lose their minds completely if we left them there. They are good in the car anyway, they just sleep. (We kept them in the truck everywhere we went, and only let them out to go in non flooded, completely cleared areas).

So we got back on Interstate 10 and drove in. It took a very long time because one side of one of the I 10 bridges was damaged so four lanes, with two ways of traffic were combined onto one bridge.

We stopped at the highway 57/I10 junction in Moss Point and we were really nervous. We had heard so much about the looting and madness we were very wary. But they actually had diesel (and regular gas too) with a $50 max. Everyone was really calm, and friendly. mississippians acting like normal Mississippians.

We continued on I -10 to Pass Christian. The further we got, the fewer billboards and trees were left standing. When we left last week, all the trees were lush and green and thick. Now it looked like winter. Dead

stripped barren trees lining the road.

We saw a lot of damaged buildings along the way. We got off on Menge-Exit. Menge was completely clear and it was like something out of a nightmare that kept getting worse the further we drove. Some houses standing, some piles of rubble. I have never seen giant oaks and other trees ripped from the ground by their roots, overturned on their side, roots displayed, and I mean a 30 foot in diameter root ball, torn from the ground leaving a giant crater, with grass pulled up in a solid chunk like astro turf. Thousands and thousands of trees torn from the ground.

There were cops and national guardsmen EVERYwhere. They were doing a great job of keeping things ordered.

We got to a check point that was north of North Street (not even close to the beach yet), and there was a cop. He asked where we were from, we showed our ID and he hesitated. Then he said "Pass Christian is closed" and said we had to turn back. I could see he hesitated though and I wasn't ready to give up yet. So we tracked across Pineville to Espy where we found ANOTHER police checkpoint and this time a new cop came up to the window. When he asked where we were from, Dottie leaned out and licked him on the hand and was trying to lick him on the face. MAN, I am glad those dogs came with us, because he said, "Well, we are allowing residents in from 7 PM to 8 PM, you have one hour and then the curfew begins". So Dottie bought our way in. I would bet two young adults in a truck full of supplies with two little friendly dogs probably looked harmless.

This was 5:00pm, and we still had two hours so we drove to Gulfport. We came down Hwy 49, and the closer we got to the beach, the more horrifying it became. Just about everything in downtown Gulfport was gutted, buildings, churches. The road crews had bulldozed the streets -- so all the streets were clear, and the streets appeared as lines, like carved snow banks in North Dakota, -- only lined with rubble and refuse, broken chairs, mattresses, chunks of ceiling, broken toys all in 6-foot-high piles. Horrifying. Horrifying! I can't even

describe it. I have no words that could describe it. I knew it would be destroyed but my mind couldn't picture it.

We managed to get onto Highway 90. There was a checkpoint again, and Dottie, once more, leaned out and licked that guy as well and he let us go ahead. The only part of the four lane highway that was left was the land side of the lanes. The beach side of the lanes were completely torn up covered in sand. It was like driving on the beach only we knew the road was under there somewhere. It was like bombs were set and had destroyed the roads. Giant patches of concrete torn to bits. I was crying. We did not seen any beach homes to the east of the Hwy 49 junction on Hwy 90 standing. Only empty slabs, crumbled piles of buildings, and some structures left standing had the Orange X's. One had an Orange X on it and there was a pink bouquet of fresh roses laid there. I cried and cried.

I had never seen such destruction. More beautiful oaks ripped from the ground, with root balls so huge that they TOWERED over our truck.. The trees left standing looked like a vulgar attempt at a Christmas tree strewn with clothing. Any standing trees on Hwy 90 had things hanging from the limbs.

We needed to head back to Pass Christian so we drove back, and by that time it was 6:45pm. The checkpoints were gone, so we drove the rest of the way down Espy Ave. There were downed power lines and destruction with sporadic patches of housing left standing (telling me that many tornados came through). At Espy and Hwy 90, we turned left where we could see the Gulf.

Pirates Cove - gone, leveled. Giant pink mansion made of stone: Gone, leveled. Nothing left but a few pink stones. Condos gone, only one structure on piers left, gutted, emptied. Ghost house, paint blasted off.

we drove half a block more.

Andrew said, "Here's our lot!"

I said, "Where?" and then it felt like I had ice in my stomach. I had been looking right at it. My eyes started burning and my hands were shaking. Imagine coming home and not recognizing your lot. Kittiwake and Least Tern were built up on hills --- and all that was left were those hills.

We pulled up onto Kittiwake about 10 feet but not any further to avoid blowing out our tires.

I found my little Toyota immediately and cried and cried and was talking to it like a lunatic, saying, "Oh, my poor little car. You were so dependable". It was inside our garage when we left, and now it is across the street --- bashed around a tree. Its bumpers ripped clean off, no windows and crumpled like tinfoil. The inside was gutted like a crumpled can. The entire car by shear force of water --- it took that to do my poor little car in.

We walked up to our lot. All that was left was the ground floor tile of a two story house uselessly guarded by the posts from our chain link fence. Everything else was gone, and the surge washed everything SO FAR inland and sucked it back out so far to see that all we could find of ours was an inventory of one spoon, one

broken kitchen cup, a tape measure (none of which we took). Keep in mind these were not anywhere near our lot but on other people's lots. From our lot, we spotted Andrew's car, which had moved half a block away (it too had been left inside our garage) and then I really lost it. Andrew was so proud of that car, a bright red 1997 Dodge GTS Viper. We walked to it. Tree branches had punctured straight through it. It looked like it had been picked up by a giant dinosaur whose claws ripped straight through it, gutting it, twisting it, as if but a hand towel. The engine was torn apart, the hood ripped off -- bashed into pieces. Oh, I cried, he worked so

hard for that car and was soooo proud of it. I cried and cried.

Not a single house stood in our neighborhood, not even a frame, everyone of them was leveled. We walked around and walked back to our lot. We stood on our lot and I while standing on the kitchen tile, I closed my eyes and tilted my head back --- and recalled that I was supposed to see my light fixture, and a textured ceiling --- and I was supposed to smell something cooking in the crock pot; but then I opened my eyes and saw the sky over my head --- faintly smelling open sewers. We could hear other residents a ways off, and I could hear someone weeping but couldn't see who.

We looked out at the Gulf. Before all this, we would often go sit on the beach after dinner and inhale the gulf air and turn and look at our house and say, "Isn't this beautiful. Isn't this wonderful!" That was the life we had

always wanted.

The Gulf had HUNDREDS of trees and tree limbs poking out of it. All of these scenes occurred between 7pm and 8pm and ironically there was a beautiful sunset. I looked at the Gulf and how beautiful the sky was and couldn't stop crying. I loved it there so much.

There was but one tree left standing in the median dividing the two lanes of Hwy 90. All of its limbs had broken off. It was a giant twisted gnarled 25-foot-stump that had a huge black cloth tangled in its broken limbs, tattered and waving slowly. So much destruction. I felt so small.

Jamie and Andrew and "Dottie"

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