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MRE's (meals ready to eat) aren't half bad. The main complaint I've found so far is that there aren't enough vegetarian ones. So few stores are open for business between Biloxi, Mississippi and the bayous of Louisiana that this faux food is welcome. On the interstate between Gulfport and New Orleans, more than a month after Katrina blazed through, thick metal road signs still lay twisted along the roadside. If you don't know where you're going it's hard to figure out what to do. Blue tarps cover ripped roofs (and those residents are the lucky ones…at least their homes still stand). Trees--huge pines--have either been snapped in half and felled or they were sprayed with so much salt water—more than a mile inland from the beach—that they are rust colored and dying. Some will come back I'm told but right now the area looks like beetle kill has invaded the South. Makeshift landfill My trip took me into southern Louisiana, Terrebonne Parish to be exact. Terrebonne means "good earth" but what I saw there was earth turned upside down: black bayou muck everywhere—burying cars, fouling home interiors, destroying shops. Where there should have been roads and sidewalks in quaint bayou towns, there was only brown and stinking water a week after Rita ripped though the area. One woman in Chauvin could only respond "it don't pay to cry" when I asked her how she was holding up. But it was clear that that is exactly what she wanted to do. Her home had not been destroyed but her disabled father's had. No one I met had insurance. When the storm surges hit, water powered up the bayous and deluged whatever was in the way. Shrimp boats were tossed and smashed aground. People's homes and livelihoods gone in a flash. One small-town-Louisiana Baptist preacher told me that "Katrina" means "to purge" in Latin and that all this mayhem was caused by too much sinning, especially in New Orleans. "What does the world over call that place?" he asked. "Sin City." I just tried to look up Katrina in my Oxford English Dictionary but it's not listed. I highly doubt the preacher's definition but in any event it's painfully clear that the devastation was at least exacerbated not by sinning but by a lack of stewardship of the wetlands. They've been drained, channeled, dredged, or otherwise violated to within an inch of their existence. The road from Dulac to Chauvin is actually scary to drive because it feels too vulnerable to the waters and spongy land on both sides. 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