Katrina, that bitch...

(The picture on the left was stolen from USA Today. The Bay St. Louis area was where the largest recorded surge hit at 22 feet. The cursor I inserted just to the right is where Mom's house is. You can find the entire map here at USA Today. Click map to make it bigger.)


Katrina, that bitch...at least, that's how Mom refers to her. Mom and Jim's house sits near a bay on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. They bought it in April of 2005, looking for someplace to stay for half of the year. We visited her in April by flying into New Orleans, which is about 60 miles west of where Mom lives. She's in a little division called Diamond Head right off of I-10, just across from the bay where Katrina hit shore. The town of Bay St. Louis is said to be 100% gone. Not too far from Mom, a few miles. They're in Bismarck right now taking their time headed south. Not much to hurry home to, much less a home.

Mom's preference right now is to get back, find nothing but the concrete slab on the ground, have the insurance pay off the mortgage and turn around and start somewhere else. Of course, no matter where you go, you run into the chance of something like this happening again. Florida? Too many old people and more hurrincanes. Arizona? There's already one giant meteor crater there, who's to say another one won't strike? The pacific northwest? Volcanoes. How about Montana? Earthquakes here and here (Google Satellite map of Hebgen Lake Earthquake).

Here's what the house used to look like:

Bay St. Louis is behind the house, across I-10 and only a mile or two away. With all the reports of the surge hitting up to five miles inland, don't think there'll be much left whenever they're allowed back in.

Oh yeah, they were just down there the 14th through the 20th getting some new furniture for the bedroom. Great timing for the looters...