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Can you tell us about everything that's going on down there? How it looks, the devastation and things like that?

Rinonno! A fellow southern Mississippian! I am super glad your house wasn't damaged. Did you live far off the beach, or near the Back Bay or Keesler?

When i was in Gulfport, the closest I got to Biloxi was the mall. It was pretty bad looking there.



The news channels are all being pretty good with their reporting actually. I mean, they're hyping a LOT, but generally it's pretty accurate.

I think the President's initial reaction was poorly done and slow, but if he actually implements some of the things in his plans, then that might would help, such as the "Incentive Zones" for work and tax breaks for hurricane victims.

But I think there is much more that could and should be done to make sure things like this don't happen again anywhere.

And Soleq, thanks for the compliment on the pics. There were MANY more places I wanted to go to and snap some photos, but the National Guard has blockades set up everywhere practically. But I will be having to make another trip to Gulfport within the next week or so to salvage through my things. I will take some more pics then. Maybe I will be able to get to some different areas.

But yeh, photos definitely bring a sense of reality to the devestation.

Same.

Found two more photos...

This is a shopping center that was right next to the McDonald's I posted a pic of in my other post:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/badloki/Picture1056.jpg
There USED to be a Cajun's Fried Chicken restaurant in front of that shopping center, but as you can see, it's NOT THERE anymore. And there used to be stores under that roof that's still standing, but they were all gutted out by the storm, so only the roof remains.

A wider shot of the McDonald's:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/badloki/Picture1054.jpg


These places were both about 60 yards or so off the beach. This is one of the only points I was allowed to get to that was near the beach. I was actually surprised to find that it wasn't blocked off. I wanted to drive closer, but there was debris everywhere, so I didn't go any farther or my car might have gotten messed up.

Maybe by the time I make my next trip, they'll have stuff more cleaned up and I will be able to get access into more places to take photos.

As an ex-McDonald's employee, I can agree. Ironically though, on the otherside of this destroyed McDonald's building there is actually a statue of Ronald McDonald sitting on a bench waving that is STILL STANDING! People have actually started signing the thing because it survived the storm in tact. I wanted so bad to get a pic of it, but I would've had to have gone on foot to do it, and there was just WAY too much debris everywhere.

If it's more cleaned up by my next trip, I'm gonna try and get a pic of the statue. My brother has seen it (as he still lives there in town), and there was a pic of it in the local newspaper. That statue (and the McDonald's) was actually under about 20 foot of gulf water during the storm surge or the hurricane.

Off topic, but this is what we teachers call a "teachable moment." However, instead of teaching, this is more of a "humorous moment." The discussion thus far reminds me of a joke:

Imagine that you're a photojournalist for the Associated Press (largest photojournalism organization worldwide). You're there in Louisiana covering the hurricaine. Just then, you see no one other than Pres. Bu-s**t (oops, did I really say that?) being carried away by surge waters. Being a photojournalist you're sole mission in life is to "get the shot," but you can't ignore the importance of human life. Now, you're being faced with the most challenging professional decision you'll ever have to make in your life: do you shoot with color film, or stick with black and white?

And then upload the photo to Photoshop to add a humerous mustache.

For show. twisted