Social Stratification in the Deep South

This morning we went to the Hancock County Library.  The people who talked to us while we were there were so generous and a joy to be around.  It was amazing to see the huge hearts they had for each other and for the community they love so much.  The library served as the central location for educating people about what to do in the days after the storm.  It housed the National Guard and was one of the only buildings with functioning restrooms and air conditioning, if not the only.  The women and men who run the library system for the county were willing to make great sacrifices of time and effort to help those in their communities who were left without anything.  The amazing thing about this is that those providing the assistance were left without anything as well.  I’m really excited to get to talk with them more tomorrow and to hear the stories of so many in their communities who have experienced such devastating loss.

After lunch, we took a tour of Bay Saint Louis, Waveland, and the small communities in the area.  Words cannot describe the heartbreaking loss we saw.  I thought that the devastation was bad in New Orleans when I was there over spring break.  The most extreme locations there cannot begin to compare to what we saw in the communities today.  These people literally lost everything.  In most areas, especially those homes right on the water, nothing was left but the foundation of the house or the lot where a house once stood.  Two images really stick in my mind.  At the bank in Waveland (I think), all that remained was the vault.  The building which this was enclosed within was completely gone.  Another image gave a visual representation to what was seen the day of the storm.  At Prima’s house, their boat was lifted up over the trees (because that’s how high the water went) and landed in the middle of a wooded area.  When you look at the scene now, the boat still sitting in the same spot, it’s confusing as to how it got there.  The trees around it aren’t broken down, so the only answer is that the water carried it there and when the water went down, the boat landed.  These trees were huge.  It finally gave me a means for conceptualizing what 30 to 40 foot water would look like.

I think the most shocking thing is that it has been two years and so much looks like the storm happened a few months ago.  Much debris has been removed, but most of the homes we saw have not begun reconstruction efforts.  This speaks volumes to the amount of effort required to rebuild an entire community.  It also shows just how severe the devastation was.

As I sat back and thought about it this afternoon, I wondered about the ways in which a natural disaster like this can perpetuate inequality.  It seems to me that many of those with community connections and some monetary means have been able to move or rebuild.  While my heart breaks for all those affected by the hurricane in any way, I go to pieces when I think about those who literally have nothing.  Their homes were all they had in this world and now those are gone, along with all the memories that the walls held inside.  Many people got very small insurance payoffs.  What do those without accrued wealth or volunteers to come help them do to get a new home?  Who is there to help them?  Do they know the resources available to them?  Do they know who to ask for help?  Just some questions to ponder when thinking about the storm…hopefully some of them will get answered tomorrow.