Stiles' Relief Mission

Dumbest. Sentence. Evar.

It's all thumbs up, though!

Good on those guys.

UPDATE!!

I haven't heard from Stiles yet today, but Idjiit posted a photo link in my journal and updated his journal as well.

Go read his journal!!

REAL UPDATE!!

I just heard from Stiles ... he and Idjiit are in Pass Christian, MS which Stiles said was "like ground zero".

The town suffered a 30 foot storm surge that pretty much devastated everything up to five miles inland. Homes literally lifted up and thrown on top of gas stations. Other homes simply shattered like matchsticks.

They are distributing what they have to people in need and then picking up medical suppiles to take back to Biloxi. They are down to about 600 pounds of clothing. All the rest has been distributed.

He promised to call me later ... and when he does, I'll update.

Hey guys - thanks for the thread. We're currently at a Comfort Inn near the AL/GA border and are on our way home. Needless to say, after 3 days of sleeping in Walmart parking lots, being able to take a hot shower and sleep in a real bed in a room with AC has been great.

There's really no way to convey what we've seen. As a photographer I feel utterly inept. I really don't have a single image I'm really happy with. It sounds very cliche, but it's true - you have no idea what's going on unless you've seen it. Both Stiles and I wish we had a video camera, since that might actually be a bit better.

We were in Pass Christian on Friday, and the destruction is just mind boggling. There's virtually nothing left standing from the coast until about 6 blocks in. Just foundations and debris - some of the presumably "hurricane proof" buildings are just concrete skeletons. People have stopped labeling the properties with addresses because there's really no way to know where one property ends and the other begins. Even the cemetery has be annhilated - headstones scattered throughout, in some cases it appears that some of the coffins have been exhumed. The CNN crew we run into seems similarly in shock from the total devastation.

I will be working on a day-by-day account of the trip later, but I want to say a few things right off the bat:

* If you are someone who persistently calls for the eradication of Religion or bash on "Christians" for all their supposed evils: Shut the fuck up, organize millions of dollars, tons of supplies and scores of people to get down here and help. The Gulf Coast would be lost without the support of the Christian (and Muslim) organizations and their volunteers. We have seen volunteers from as far as Maine and Hawaii, here with their churches - and reportedly they've come from even further than that. On this trip we saw we did not see a single secular organization (besides FEMA, Red Cross, etc.) helping out, with the exception of...
* Corporate America. God Bless Walmart. Please don't forget that it was Walmart that had their trucks ready to go into New Orleans the day after the storm (who of course were turned away). It is Walmart who allows releif workers to camp out in their parking lots every night - no questions asked. Walmart becomes the hub of activity for all this stuff. The pattern is repeated over - even down to the small business level with a Cheesburger Restaurant crew shipping their employees into Pass Christian to just make hamburgers for the town and workers.
* The destruction starts in Alabama and stretches into Louisiana. New Orleans needs help, and what happened to it is a (largely human-caused) catastrophe. But please please PLEASE do not forget that Mississippi largely bore the brunt of Katrina. Keep this in mind if you'll be making donations or volunteering. Both are needed up and down the coast although New Orleans seems to be getting the lion's share of attention.
* Rebuilding the Gulf will take years. They will need volunteers for years. Don't let this disaster fade from memory - if you can't volunteer now, that's okay. Make plans to volunteer three months from now, 6 months from now. They need volunteers for just about anything you can imagine - so use your imagination and do something. Personally, while what we did helped people, I'm already planning another trip to try to do more.

From Biloxi, MS.



This house made it out relatively in tact, but it gives you an idea of what sort of storm surge we're talking about. Some scoffed at the Mississippi official who said "This is our Tsunami", but after being here and seeing that the mud and destruction starts at the coastline and stretches 6 miles inland to the Interstate, I can now understand the statement.

All my thanks go out to Stiles and the folks that helped him collect and organize the supplies. This is his trip, I was just lucky enough to go along and do my small part. He really is a fantastic guy, and this trip just underlined that fact - even if he doesn't drink his coffee black.

awesome job guys!

I'm heading down on wednesday to work with Pasado animal rescue at the Lamar Dixon expo center near Baton Rouge. I'll be taking my camera and my boss's camcorder. I will probably find time to drive into New Orleans to get some shots.

P.S. did you guys get a chance to go into Waveland? that's where my great aunt and uncle's house used to be before it was destroyed.

what you guys did is nothing short of amazing and outstanding.
It gives me some hope for what's going on over there.

thank you.

You people are awesome. And all the people like you.

I wish I could have gone with you.

You two have a safe trip back.

We did. Things were pretty messed up there, although definitely not the worst hit (although we were inland a bit, the coast was most likely much much worse). We spent more time in Bay St. Louis though. There's a lot of very organized relief in Waveland, so they're doing better than others. The new Carolina med center (forget what it's called) is out there. I've got some photos from there as well.

[Edited on Sep 18, 2005 by Idjiit]

Well, keep in mind that this is a huge area we're talking about. I know relief was turned away from New Orleans, but the same is not necessarily true of the other areas effected. The problem is that in NO, relief couldn't get in and people weren't being let out so it turned into a really horrific situation. In coastal Mississippi the devastation is more total, but a lot of the people had already gotten out and couldn't more easily get out if they hadn't already.

Here's a couple shots from Waveland. I didn't get a lot since at this point the "well, that's not so bad" syndrome was kicking in since we thought Bay St. Louis was as bad as it was gonna get (unfortunately we were very, very wrong).

This highway was a real mess, cars everywhere. It's hard to say whether they were abandoned, or what. But this is basically what it looked like on every highway from the beach to the interstate (about 5 miles in):



This photo illustrates one of the fundamental problems with this kind of event - anything that gets touched by this water gets thrown away. Not only does this mean that people lose everything, but it also means all this stuff has to go somewhere. Burned, dumped, whatever. Seeing this family photo is what is inspiring my next trip. I will be writing a grant soon to put together a tour of the coast to shoot family photos for the survivors, including frames, etc.

It's awesome of you to say this, really. I agree and I applaud.

You guys are really heros for doing this.

Thanks for the sentiment, but I don't feel like a hero. At most, I felt like a concerned tourist. The real heros are the first responders and everyone else who was dealt this disaster in full force and did what needed to be done. Please reserve your praise for those who really deserve it.

wow, I didn't realize there were houses still standing. my family's place was right on the beach so it was obliterated, I'm sure. they just went back to look, but cell phone reception is so bad that we haven't heard anything about it yet.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/obliterated.town.ap/index.html

Yeah, again - those photos were from the highway, so I'm not surprised it got much worse.

Still working on images, but here's my half assed attempt at a panoramic down on Casino Row in Biloxi, MS:

http://www.swiftbennett.com/images/gulf/273_Casino_Panoramic_Biloxi_MS_reduced_compressed.jpg

If you weren't aware - these Casinos are usually parked on cement piers in the Gulf. Every single one of them was picked up and pushed onshore, usually destroying everything in it's path. We saw one parked on top of a Holiday Inn. Luckily this one narrowly missed St. Michael's Catholic Church on the right - an absolutely gorgeous church which thankfully has weathered the storm well. It's been gutted, and the first 10 feet or so of stained glass is gone, but the structure looks like it's salvagable.

Holy Crap.

Here's another from further down the road:

http://www.swiftbennett.com/images/gulf/069_070_merged_Biloxi_MS_reduced.jpg

The tricky thing here is that this isn't really the hardest hit areas. You can't really photograph the hardest hit areas because there's simply nothing to take photos of.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with that. I'd love to be able to assist some way