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Reporter's Notebook: Gustav Greets Mississippi
Greetings from D'Iberville, Mississippi just a few miles north of Biloxi. I was hoping to report to you this week from New Orleans, but despite having a hotel room booked, the evacuation routes opened up around 4 a.m. Sunday and all roads into the Big Easy were shut down.
The stories from here on Mississippi's Gulf Coast you'll hear this week won't pack the same punch as my colleauges reports from Louisiana (if the tracking models hold up), but will leave you with a lasting impact.
Just minutes after checking into my hotel room, I met scores of evacuees, mostly homeowners fleeing Gulfport, New Orleans and Slidell, Louisiana.
I met Margaret Lamey, she lost three homes in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina, built a new home this year...and now is again, on the road, fleeing a dangerous and deadly storm.
"It's been a week of crying and tears. I just wonder if I'm going to come home and have anything," she told me while walking her dogs in the parking lot. "I found after Hurricane Katrina just one tennis shoe. I can't go through that again."
I met a mother from a New Orleans suburb, she too lost everything in Katrina and now doesn't know how she'll convince her traumatized daughter to ever return to the family home if Gustav leaves a similar foot print on this area.
A few more notes, I can see Interstate 10 from my reinforced window. The traffic remains heavy on eastbound lanes. The only heavy traffic headed west towards Louisiana are National Guard humvees.
More from Mississippi when the outer bands start picking up...likely very late tonight.
What others are saying
- Re: Bay St. LouisThere isn't much from the city hit so hard three years ago. I can tell you the road to Bay St. Louis (US 90, I believe) was washed out and closed due to high water, essentially cutting off Bay St. Louis and Waveland from the rest of the state. But as for structural damage, all I've heard from the Governor is that a handful of buildings collapsed, mainly the buildings still under construction from Katrina. Best of luck to you.
- Bay St. LouisIf you get any info. on Bay St. Louis, please post. Left there Friday, anxious to find out how it held up.
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