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I had a weird sensation today as I walked through the devastated neighborhoods in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, about an hour northeast of New Orleans along the Gulf Coast. I was looking at the foundations of what were once beachfront mansions. In these kill zones my brain was reading things as though they were in black and white. Partly, the storm surge did scour the land and the sun had bleached anything that remained. But partly it seemed like a psychological defense mechanism, as though what I was seeing were somehow not really real. The only color that consistently busted through were American and confederate flags nailed to trees, as though survival and what I regard as a dubious determination to rebuild in a hurricane zone were somehow patriotic. Devastated Neighborhood To my left on the beach were the ripped remains of an aluminum fishing boat. Directly in front of me, the skeleton of what was once a dock. All around: ruins; splintered lumber torn from homes now lying in piles 10 feet high—just the way the receding waters had left them. Strange vestiges of lives: a baby crib, still fairly intact, was planted in the sand to my right. Whose baby slept there, I wondered? Did the family escape the storm? Is the baby all right? Questions like this haunt me still, after witnessing the artifacts that once were private and now are strewn all over the ruined land. I even saw a hefty dresser about 20 feet up in an old oak tree. Imagine the force of that watery surge that left a dresser high up in the branches and absolutely leveled the home that I imagine it came from. All that’s left of that house is its foundation. Military helicopters buzzed low overhead, while the National Guards patrolled the streets and manned roadblocks to keep looters away. They helped confirm the sense I had that this was a war zone. In a way, it is. Nature won. Sierra magazine senior writer Marilyn Snell was in Louisiana a week after hurricane Rita hit the western part of the state. She bought her tickets months ago--and got much more than she bargained for: a closeup look at hurricane havoc and what she calls "the hieroglyphics of tragedy." Her articles based on this journey will appear in the January/February and March/April issues of Sierra. Back to Notes from the Gulf main page. Have your own story from the Gulf Coast? Contact us. Photos: Marilyn Snell/Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club