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 I launched
from a sandy beach at low tide and picked my way through an obstacle
course of refrigerators, washing machines, furniture and parts
of houses. A nasty grinding sound brought me to a halt as my hull
ran up on a submerged pile of twisted steel girders that I had
not seen beneath the murky water. I pushed off, thankful I had
not been traveling fast enough to do any damage. Stopping on a
sandy spit near the mouth of Davis Bayou, I found the beach and
marsh there littered with household goods, pieces of furniture,
children’s toys and all manner of plastic items that had
floated from houses on the receding flood.I made a two-mile crossing to the southeast end of Deer Island, and saw that the pine forest that covers much of the island was greatly reduced. As many as a third of the trees on the end of the island were down, and, as on the mainland, man-made objects littered the beaches, the marshes and even the branches of the trees as high as 20 feet above the ground. I tried to imagine this island completely underwater as I picked my way along the beach. What happened to the wildlife that thrived here? The island had populations of alligators, otters, raccoons, rabbits, rattlesnakes and cottonmouths, to name just a few. Tracks in the sand confirmed that the island’s raccoons had survived, probably by climbing trees or swimming, and shorebirds such as gulls and herons were abundant as I walked the beach. The dense undergrowth of palmettos that previously made the interior of the island inaccessible had been swept clean, but the geography of the island itself had changed little. The beaches, though reduced in some areas, were still there and the island had not been cut in two as had Dauphin Island, a barrier island off the coast of Alabama. As I paddled west along the north side of Deer Island, it was obvious that just across the harbor it was the man-made structures that suffered the most damage from this hurricane. “Casino Row,” the most heavily developed section of Biloxi’s coast, had sustained millions of dollars’ worth of damage. Though littered and thinned out by the fury of the wind, the forests of Deer Island would recover as they always had after such events. And on the mainland, some people would rebuild; others, especially those who had lost everything, would never return. I returned for a second look at the area around Biloxi and Deer Island with my paddling partner Travis Easley. We thought we would take advantage of a quiet Sunday morning when there was less debris removal going on, so we drove down to Highway 90 to a beach near the demolished Biloxi Yacht Club. People were walking on the beach, so we drove around a barricade and parked beside the highway and began to unload our boats. A police officer drove up to inform us that the beach here was off limits to parking and that the fine for going around the barricade was $500. He let us off with a warning, but we had to leave immediately. Along with the risk of exorbitant fines for parking, leaving an unattended vehicle for any length of time was risky, especially a pick-up truck that could be used for work. Trucks were being stolen throughout the area, even from relief workers who simply went inside a restaurant to eat lunch. Though I wanted to paddle out to Horn or Ship Island to see what effect Katrina had there, leaving the truck for a multi-day camping trip was out of the question. The places where I would normally have parked—my brother’s house and those of other friends—were all gone. Travis and I decided on an alternate route—a tour of Bernard Bayou and the Industrial Seaway—a loop trip off of Back Bay in Biloxi. We found a place we could park near a public boat ramp and set out paddling on a 10-mile loop that began in an area of expensive waterfront homes. Even though this bayou is miles inland from the mouth of Back Bay, Hurricane Katrina reached all these houses, and many of those that had not been leveled had been gutted. The natural features of the landscape, however, were completely unchanged. Marsh grasses and pine trees that predominate the undeveloped areas appeared just as they did before the storm, showing their resilience in the face of such powerful forces.  We paddled the bayou to its confluence with the Industrial Seaway, a man-made
channel connecting Back Bay and the sound with docks in Gulfport. This deep,
straight ditch with its high banks and surrounding trees is the area where many
Gulf Coast boaters take their vessels for refuge in the threat of a hurricane.
Commercial fishing boats and yachts alike are anchored in the canal and tied
off to surrounding trees.Although many survived Katrina’s surge in the seaway, all around us were those that did not. Steel-hulled shrimp boats were tossed upon the banks. Sailboats and motor yachts were on their sides or sunk. Many of the boaters here, especially shrimp-boat captains, stayed aboard in the storm trying to save their boats. Coast Guard divers were still finding bodies in sunken vessels weeks later. Travis and I paddled on past these now-derelict ships, wondering how some of the bigger ones would ever be removed from where they came to rest. Katrina cut a wide swath of destruction through this area far beyond what these brief personal observations can describe. The storm surge, in varying degrees, destroyed homes and businesses from Alabama to Louisiana, as far inland as the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Hurricane-force winds even reached Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson, leaving millions of trees down and rendering navigable streams and hiking trails impassable. Though most of the barrier islands are wilderness areas remaining in a natural state, the few structures that were there, such as the ranger station on Horn Island and park service facilities on West Ship Island, were wiped off the map. Only Ft. Massachusetts, built in the mid-1800s, with its massive brick and concrete walls, remains standing on West Ship Island. Farther out in the Gulf, Louisiana’s Chandeleur Island was reduced in landmass by as much as 50 percent. The northernmost tip of this island is now more than three miles shorter. The gap between East and West Ship Island, which was one island before it was cut in two in 1969 by Hurricane Camille, is now wider. Unimaginable debris from the mainland litters all the islands. A month after the hurricane, a pilot flying over Horn Island spotted a coffin floating in the waves. A Coast Guard vessel picked it up, finding it occupied but unable to identify where it came from.  Some of the smaller communities on the Mississippi coast, such as Waveland, were
completely obliterated. The historic Bay St. Louis waterfront was destroyed,
and kayakers lost Da Beach House, a funky little coffee shop and kayak rental
business run by Todd and Colleen Read, active promoters of kayaking in the area.
The Gulf Islands National Seashore headquarters in Ocean Springs sustained extensive
damage, and its facilities are closed until further notice.The list of places damaged or destroyed by this hurricane goes on and on. The impact on the residents who survived has yet to be determined. As of late March, the toll of those who did not survive Katrina was close to 1,600. More than 1,500 people remain unaccounted for. Rebuilding will take years, assuming another devastating hurricane does not strike this coast again before it’s completed. It remains to be seen which direction the rebuilding will take. Most of the historic houses, ancient live oaks and other obstacles to high-rise beachfront developments have been wiped away, leaving a clean slate for developers who’ve had their sights set on Mississippi’s waterfront property. For the foreseeable future, the offshore islands remain the best part of this coast and are still accessible to adventurous kayakers. But there is much work to be done. Just cleaning up the debris in the developed areas will take many more months. Storms of this magnitude have a natural cleansing effect on the barrier islands and wild rivers like the Pascagoula. Old downed trees, areas of thickets and natural accumulations of leaves and other natural forest debris have been cleansed and swept away. This is a natural process similar to fires in mountain regions, and the islands and the rivers will in some ways be better for it. The sight of man-made materials that have been scattered by Katrina may, however, be off-putting to those seeking a wilderness experience. Cleaning up the natural areas like the islands is not a high priority in light of the human suffering in the area. Most of the wilderness will recover in time, but some of the wounds left by Katrina will never heal. Scott B. Williams has been sea kayaking on the Gulf Coast and inland rivers of the region for 20 years. He is the author of Exploring Coastal Mississippi: A Guide to the Marine Waters and Islands and On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean and is coauthor with Ernest Herndon of Paddling the Pascagoula: The Last Wild River. Scott may be reached via his website at: www.scottbwilliams.com |
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