Words in Katrina's wake

  • Published
  • By Army Capt. Steve Alvarez
  • American Forces Press Service
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (AFPN) --  I'm a professional communicator. My job in the military is to find the right words to express things the right way. This is the first time in my career -- in my life -- that I have ever been at a loss for words.

No words can describe the sense of hopelessness that engulfs you upon entering this region -- how tiny you feel in the wake of the immense power that wipes one home from the earth, yet allows a small tree to hold its ground 20 feet away.

I had seen this type of devastation in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. I helped my hometown of Miami rebuild after what was then the worst natural disaster in U. S. history.

Having seen Andrew's devastation firsthand, I can say this is far worse. Andrew was a shotgun shell fired at a paper target. Katrina is an atom bomb fired at the same target.

As I drove south on Interstate 65 from Montgomery, Ala., traces of Katrina began to appear. A little more than 20 miles away from Mobile, Ala., twisted billboards lay on the roadside; poles that once held hotel signs high above the highway now were bare; and plywood bald spots dotted rooftops where shingles once protected residents from the elements.

Riding with National Guardsmen in Humvees toward Pascagoula, Miss., people on the street waved as they passed us in cars with watermarks halfway up the doors. They honked their horns and gave the soldiers thumbs up.

For a moment, the presence of military personnel keeping order and bringing hope to a region reminded me of my year in Iraq. As we drove, we passed guardsmen maintaining order at gas stations, soldiers working at relief stations in the sweltering heat, and engineers clearing the way for disaster workers to repair the many broken cities of the Gulf Coast.

But this was not a war-torn foreign land. This surreal, nightmarish, hellhole was my country, not someone else's. This was my backyard.

As a Floridian, hurricanes are a part of life. I grew up thinking that potential disasters were a price you paid and a risk you took for living in the South, what I consider the most beautiful part of our nation. Property was replaceable; that's what insurance is for. What matters after the storm is that you are alive.

As I walk through this chaotic oblivion, my view has changed. When the ceiling of a home that once bounced a child's laughter off its walls is ripped off and tossed a mile away, things change. When the mirror that a daughter primped in front of as she prepared for prom is shattered into a jagged jigsaw puzzle, perspectives change. And when the wall that measured a son's growth is now dust, thickening murky floodwaters, your opinion sways.

No words can accurately describe conditions here. There is no eloquent way to package this, no way to couch it into a talking point, into a theme, into a message. The word "catastrophe" doesn't even rate what Katrina has done here. We need to find a new word for this level of devastation, coin something to capture this horror.

There are fish from the Gulf of Mexico swimming in storm water runoff ponds and gullies on the side of the road. Inland leaves on bushes and shrubbery are wind-burned on one side from Katrina's vicious saltwater-laden winds. Near the coast, trees are leafless. They are brown, vein-like objects littered, like soiled garland, with torn and tattered clothing.

Cars now float in pools. Boats now sit on highways. There are few houses standing. Most are piles of lumber and mortar almost empty of the signs of human existence. Katrina somehow selectively removed personal affects from the homes, stealing the privacy of the victims and scattering pieces of their lives throughout the coast.

No insurance money in the world can replace the property lost. People's memories have no monetary value. And when taken away, their loss makes people feel vulnerable.

Hurricane Katrina is no more, but like all violent acts she has left an indelible scar on victim and relief worker alike. I am not a victim of Katrina, but I still feel the intensity of fear and immensity of loneliness that survivors here feel.

Yet, as relief workers of all ethnicities, professions and socio-economic groups from across the country converge onto this wide swath of despair, the human spirit remains undaunted. Utility workers frantically work to repair power grids; doctors and nurses care for broken masses of humanity; construction workers remove storm debris and clear roads; aid workers feed the hungry; and police and military authorities strive to keep order.

Despite their shock, loss and sorrow, the region's residents display their strength and resilience.

In a waterfront development in Pascagoula, in what is left of the front steps of a home, the residents erected a flagpole and placed a small sign at the foot of the pole. The sign includes their address and the family's name, but at the bottom of the sign, in small letters is what I'll take with me from this disaster.

It reads: "No retreat. We'll be back. No surrender."