MISSISSIPPI'S INVISIBLE COAST

[HeeBGBz]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/13402585.htm

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Never mind that, if taken alone, the destruction in Mississippi would represent the single greatest natural disaster in 229 years of American history. The telling of Katrina by national media has created the illusion of the hurricane's impact on our Coast as something of a footnote.

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The depth of the suffering and the height of the courage of South Mississippians is an incredible story that the American people must know. But, in the shadows of the New Orleans story, the Mississippi Coast has become invisible and forgotten to most Americans.

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The second reason that the coverage matters is in the realm of politics. If the American people and their elected representatives do not truly know the scope of the destruction here, and if they are not shown the ongoing conditions afflicting so many, then there are consequences which are playing out even this week in Washington, where Congress will act, or not act, to relieve the incredible pain that has reduced the condition of so many American citizens to Third World status or worse.

If the people do not know, they cannot care.

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We would like to invite our news colleagues from across the nation to come and view the Coast with us. It is impossible to comprehend this disaster from afar. A television can display only a single screen of the damage. When you have driven mile after mind-numbing mile and viewed the complete nothingness where cities and homes and businesses once stood, only then will you begin to understand what has happened here.

[uppityperson]

1. I encourage anyone who can to go witness it

If I were an unemployed 20-35ish healthy person, I'd pack up my car and go camp and help whatever wherever. You cannot know how it is, what it is like, no matter how many pictures and videos and stories you've seen. You just cannot. I consider myself a fairly level headed reasoning person and I was totally overwhelmed when I saw it, and that was a couple months ago. I am headed back this spring and am figuring I'll be appalled in another way when I see how it still is. You just cannot imagine, unless you have been in another huge disaster, and even then, the scope, going on and on and on and on and on. It is nuts. Peace and understanding and call your congressional reps, even if they are on vacation.

[HeeBGBz]

2. I'm heading back in the spring also.

Armed with laptop and camera.

Haven't made much more plans than that. I aim to find some work in the vast rebuild to keep me afloat while I photograph everything and blog it back.

Plus, I really miss my kids.

[uppityperson]

3. I missed it, do you have a blog link?

plus just another kick for the barebones DUers on tonight.

[HeeBGBz]

4. Not yet. I started one last year when I first got the idea

Of traveling, writing and photography. The program I was using had some flaws that I couldn't figure out. Plus I had problems on how to get it out there in the public. No one ever read it.

I will try to find a suitable format soon to get started.