The Katrina Tour
Travel the 75-mile length of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and inland into South Mississippi’s pineywoods communities and you will understand why great minds like Ben Franklin, Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill and others tell us repeatedly that out of adversity comes opportunity and strength.
Hurricane Katrina is a huge reminder of that.
The Biloxi Lighthouse shines, a defiant symbol among defiant symbols of Katrina recovery. Repairs on the 1848 cast- iron tower, now a proud image on all Mississippi license tags, will be completed this year.
Meanwhile, the lighthouse is stabilized and is one of the many post-Katrina wonders that causes the national media and tourism gurus to take note. That comeback spirit is everywhere, in every town, for every visitor to see.
Not to be overlooked is the Friendship Oak of Long Beach. Its 500-year-old limbs stood strong although the buildings of the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast surrounding it were washed through.
Part of what you will see in an exploratory drive of this post-Katrina region is the future, and that’s what surrounds this historic ancient Live oak. USM will restore the vintage 1920s buildings and bring to this beachfront campus a new emphasis on film and art.
Renewal also comes to “The Old VA,” a veteran’s hospital donated to Gulfport after the storm. This pristine beachfront property will become a resort for visitors and locals. When you drive by the sadly battered historic Spanish Mission buildings, it helps to know that.
Awakening the future
Interpreting what you see is no easy task for locals, who lost treasured landmarks, so imagine what it is like for those unfamiliar with the architecture and heritage of a region finding itself in fast-forward mode. For a community carving opportunity out of adversity, the future is also now.
On that note, eagles nest at the newly opened Audubon Nature Center in Moss Point. Children play again at the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center in Gulfport. Pass Christian, which miraculously still boasts gorgeous homes on the east end of Scenic Drive, will raise a pole at West Beach Boulevard and Barkley Drive to show Katrina’s high water mark at 34.9 feet.
Construction of the innovative Frank Gehry-designed museum to American art potter George E. Ohr continues, and the picturesque Old Biloxi Cemetery also in that city looks as it did before Katrina toppled historic monuments. On Biloxi Town Green, a Katrina memorial is the first to be completed in the region.