Entries from September 2005 ↓

A glossary of helpful terms — and pronunciations — for the next News-Sentinel staffer coming to The Sun Herald:

Bay St. Louis town, S Miss., pop. 8,000, across bay of same name from Pass Christian. Heavily damaged by Katrina

Beauvoir /bo-VWAH/ French, “beautiful view.” The retirement estate of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. See www.beauvoir.org.

Biloxi /beh-LUK-see/ named after the Biloxis, an Indian tribe. City, S Miss., pop. 50,000, east of Gulfport. Note the pronunciation; there is no “ox” sound in “Biloxi.” Official website: www.biloxi.ms.us

D’Iberville /DIE-burr-vill/ named after French settler Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d’Iberville. City, S Miss., pop. 8,000, due north of Biloxi. Official website: www.cityofdiberville.org. Read its history.

DuBuys Road /di-BEEZ/ named for early settler Peter DuBuys. Street address of The Sun Herald.

Gautier /go-SHAY/ or /GO-shay/ city, S Miss., pop. 30,000, about 10 miles east of Biloxi, past Ocean Springs

Gulfport city, S Miss., pop. 70,000, second largest city in Miss. after the capital city of Jackson. Official website: www.ci.gulfport.ms.us

Honey /HUNN-eh/ term of affection; what waitresses are likely to call you

Kangaroo A popular chain of gas/convenience stores. Official website: www.thepantry.com

Keesler Air Force Base /KEE-sler/ located in the middle of Biloxi; home of the 81st Training Wing. Official website: www.keesler.af.mil

Kiln /kill/, freq. called The Kiln /THE kill/ small unincorporated area NW of Gulfport

Long Beach city, S Miss., pop. 17,000, just west of Gulfport. Official website: www.cityoflongbeachms.com

Ocean Springs town, S Miss., pop. 17,000, east of Biloxi across Biloxi Bay.

Pass Christian /PASS kris-tchi-ANN/ town, S Miss., pop. 6,500, just west of Long Beach. Heavily damaged by Katrina

Pass Road The “old” main road from Gulfport through most of Biloxi. Orig. called Pass Christian Road

Saucier /so-SHURE/ or /SO-shure/ town, S Miss., pop. 1,300, about 15 miles N of Gulfport

Sun Herald newspaper for Gulfport-Biloxi area, circ. 50,000. Official website: www.sunherald.com

Sweetheart /SWEET-art/ term of affection; what hotel housekeepers are likely to call you

Tegarden Road note spelling

Waffle House Ubiquitous 24-hour diner featuring breakfast foods at every interstate offramp. Official website: www.wafflehouse.com

Waveland town, S Miss., just west of Bay St. Louis. Heavily damaged by Katrina

See a map of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

There is one industry that people here are saying must be rebuilt, and must be rebuilt on land instead of on the water:

The casinos.

And there is one industry that the state legislature may or may not allow to build on land, because of pressure from conservative Christians:

The casinos.

The Sun Herald stakes its claim on the side of the casinos today with a huge, front-page editorial: “Mississippi must decide its future.”

The members of the Mississippi Legislature have a choice to make. They can either enable tens of thousands of their fellow Mississippians to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, or they can turn the worst natural disaster in the history of this nation into potentially the worst economic disaster in the history of this state.

Read the accompanying front-page story: “House panel OKs onshore casinos.”

I’ll be leaving Southern Mississippi tomorrow, and unlike so many people here, I’m going home to an actual house.

The stores are open, the curfew is lifted, the restaurants are bustling, and in this one sense, things are getting back to normal.

But so many people are still without places to live, and still unsure what they will do next.

Among those helping is the American Red Cross. It has set up one of the largest kitchens in the South: It’s outside, in a parking lot.

This truck delivers 600 to 700 lunches a day. And it is one of 15 trucks. I’ll do the math … umm … that’s more than 10,000 lunches every day.

The need is enormous, and of course The Red Cross is asking for donations and volunteers.

This truck is delivering lunches to volunteers around the area, including those at First Presbyterian Church of Biloxi. And speaking of First Pres:

Darlene, a missionary to Ecuador who is in the States on furlough, has been volunteering at First Pres.

Here, she points out the items on the huge chart the church is using to keep track of the stuff coming in and out and to keep track of the volunteers.

It seems that every time a certain supply runs low, a truck pulls up with those very supplies. Supplies were getting low on Thursday, when this picture was taken. One reason was that Tuesday was an extremely busy day. In eight hours, the church distributed supplies for 686 people.

With grocery stores open, the actual food distribution will not continue for much longer. But there is plenty of other work that needs to be done: Roofing, clean-up, construction, office work, counseling. The church staff has been working very hard, and can use a break, too.

The folks at Mission to North America, the PCA organization that is running the relief operation, say the work on the Gulf Coast will continue as long as three things remain:

• The church continues to sponsor it
• The volunteers keep coming
• The work is here to do

Since there is no chance the work will evaporate anytime soon, and the church is likely to continue housing visiting helpers, the rest is up to volunteers.

Can you help? Can you send money? Can you take the time to come and work? Anyone with the willingness to help can be of help.

You can go to the PCA Relief web page to offer your assistance.

Cartoonist Jimmy Johnson, resident of Mississippi Coast town Pass Christian, speaks eloquently about walking around his town after nightfall.

Read his words here. Plus, read his archived “Arlo and Janis” comics.

P.S. Pass Christian is pronounced /PASS kris-tchi-ANN/.

“How’d ya do?”

Two acquaintances meet each other for the first time at Winn-Dixie. After the standard, “Hi!” and “How ya doing?” the next question has become standard etiquette.

“How’d ya do?”

It’s the universal ice breaker. We all went through Katrina, it says. We all suffered in some way, even if it was just seeing what happened to other parts of your own town.

All that is a given. Now, I should ask about you personally. And Southern manners has come up with the phrase for all of us to use:

“How’d ya do?”

A group of us from The Sun Herald went to a Chinese buffet on Wednesday. Behind us walked in a woman who evidently was some kind of regular customer before the storm.

Within five seconds, the proprietress had asked the customer, “How’d ya do?”

The customer had lost her home. And the proprietress was able to inform her about her efforts to reopen her business.

This morning, an older gentleman in line with me at P.J.’s Coffee in Gulfport turned around and, after a couple of pleasantries, asked, “How’d ya do?”

I told him I wasn’t here, nor did I even live here.

“Well,” he drawled, “that’s good for you.”

“How’d you do?” I asked.

“My house is somewhere in the sound,” he said.

The man was retired and in some way well-off. He had a good amount of money in stocks. But of course, that might be everything he has to live on for the rest of his life.

And now, his house is in the sound. And he’s been trying to get a FEMA trailer delivered to his plot of land, close enough to the beach “you can hit a golf ball into the water from my front yard.” But, he’ll survive, he says.

Everyone wants to talk about what he has had to go through. But no one wants to be so impolite as to just start blabbing about his own difficulties.

So, when you visit, and you start meeting a few residents, remember that they all have a Katrina story. But they won’t tell you what it is unless you ask:

“How’d ya do?”

First thing tomorrow morning, I step into my rental car — a Subaru Outback, a nice ride — and drive to Jackson, Miss., for my flight home.

I also have some things to pack onto this blog before I go. I hope to offer an update of the ministry of First Presbyterian of Biloxi, and a handy glossary for future visitors to Biloxi-Gulfport and The Sun Herald.

In case you don’t know, ScrappleFace is a satirical news site.

And here’s some “news” I missed from last week:

NASA Promotes Hurricane-Free Moon Villages

So, I tottled over to The Sun Herald home page, clicked on the More Photos link, and scrolled through to find … Fort Wayne!

Photo by The Associated Press

Caption: Dave Anderson, left, and Kent Rybolt of Ft. Wayne, Ind., sell Hurricane Katrina T-shirts along a highway in Gulfport. Reaction has been mixed.

And I’m told some residents are actually wearing them.

Read the story, “Free enterprise at work: Katrina T-shirts amid the rubble.”