November 2005 Archives

Three months after Hurricane Katrina, doctors are still struggling for the supplies they need to take care of people trying to rebuild. Dr. Kitchings was my family doctor, and my parents still drive down to see him.

The teaser trailer for Superman Returns is up. By the way, so is a special charity mini-episode of Doctor Who. [via scarlettina] I am encouraged for the future of both.

Last week, a visitor to the site posted a link to a gallery of photos he took when his church group travelled down to Mississippi to do some volunteer relief work. I can still only take small doses of these pictures at a time; it's hard to look at the debris fields and wrecked houses around my longtime home. Just the same: Thank you, Gary, not just for the pictures, but for all the good work you've been doing for hurricane survivors in Mississippi.

I didn't want to post the latest news until I understood what was going on... My parents have added their address to the list of homes to be bulldozed, at no cost to them, possibly as early as next week. This is a relief, as they have been worried that they'd have to pay for demolition, which could have earen most of their already-disappointing insurance settlement. Mom & Dad are making what should be their last salvage trip today, though they still have plenty of stuff to fetch from their (untouched) mini warehouse on the coast.

Since I haven't posted anything from my parents lately, here's an update from the weekend:

For over a month after Sept. 20, when we registered with FEMA, we stayed close to the phone, waiting for a call to schedule an inspection. They called this past week with a recorded message saying the devastation in our area was so severe that no inspection is necessary. We still don't know if the remains of the house will be cleared by them as debris or if that will be our responsibility. The area opened for a few days, but we were late learning of it, so had only part of a day to hunt for more possessions, then they closed the area again. We don't know when it will be opened again or how we will find out about it, as Long Beach puts almost nothing in the newspaper, although we continue to look at it online daily.

We have filed an application for an SBA housing loan, but we understand that will be even slower than FEMA. And that too says that an inspection will be required! We have settled with the insurance company for the total of our flood insurance and a tiny bit of wind coverage, as uprooted trees took out the patio and some of the fence and there are a few water stains on the ceilings. And Maurice's pickup was totaled, so we got nearly the Blue Book quote on that. Soon after he found a very similar truck, just newer and a prettier color, at a good price, so he bought that. Now we don't need to borrow a truck every time we need to go back to the Coast. We aren't investing in furniture, etc., until we have decided where we are going to settle.

Please don't think we are whining. Every day we talk about how much luckier we are than so many. We did have some flood insurance where so many had none. We are comfortable here, have privacy and space to spread out. And we are truly surprised at what we have been able to salvage. We are far enough away from the devastation that we don't have to look at it every day. That must be stressful and depressing. You are no doubt seeing reports of all the FEMA trailers delivered to Miss. They are poorly built travel trailers, designed to be lived in for less than two years. Where utilities are available they are placed on the damaged property, but are poorly installed and in some cases they have been left locked, so the people are still living in tents. And it is getting cold, even here in Mississippi. Others are crowded together in public parks.

Soon we are going to start looking for where we want to make our permanent home, but we do not plan to make that decision quickly. We plan to stay there for a long time. For now, we plan to meet our son in Memphis for Thanksgiving and then go to his place in St. Louis for Christmas. In the meantime, we are trying to do some normal things. I went to Hattiesburg on Oct. 19th for a quilt guild meeting and plan to present their program in Nov. as scheduled. Yesterday I sewed the binding on a new quilt and am ready to finish the handwork. I picked it up from the shop where it was quilted a couple days before we evacuated (and took it and a number of other quilts with us)--now that shop is gone.

I think that yesterday, they got some good news about demolition, at least, but I want to make sure I understand what's going on before I post anything about that.