photos by cole coonce
I left New Orleans early Sunday. All Flights were cancelled, rental cars were non-existent and it was a 20 hour bus ride to Houston 300 miles away (the nearest airport) Sunday morning to Monday morning. The exodus was replete with a stinking backed-up toilet and an air conditioner whose condensation leaked into my lap for the duration... the first 10 miles took six hours... the bus driver bailed on the interstates and took parish highways through swamps, plantation country and sugar cane fields, which allowed for a lengthy meditation on the duality of the South as well as the imminent devastation.... anyway, I finally caught a plane out of George Bush last night...
And, of course, I got off light.So: Also documented is the Natchez Trace in Jackson, Mississippi, where I spent a couple of days last week cycling with my sister and my mom's neighbor, who -- come to find out -- is a DEA agent. Yes, Missisippi: My family got hit pretty hard by Katrina in Jackson and near Hattiesburg.... torn up fences and power lines, uprooted 150 foot pine trees, etc... My good ol Uncle Ed and Aunt Dot cannot get out of their house because of the prodigious amount of debris... but at least they lived... still, they are pretty demoralized and their plight makes me rather sad and feeling somewhat guilty about being back in Los Angeles and not back their helping them sift through the damage...
Even though none of these were shot in the storm itself, I still make no apologies for the blurriness of any of these photos. With the camera in hand, I rarely get off the bike, nor stop the vehicle. Except for the stuff in the French Quarter, these pics are all about motion... as was the situation in Mississippi and Louisiana itself.
Keep in mind that a lot of this stuff is now underwater and is teeming with sewage, water moccasins and dysentery.
80 people are dead in Gulfport, Mississippi alone. Trust me: that is a very conservative count. My mom told me the winds of Biblical proportion beat up her house ALL day Monday. Jackson is 180 miles north of the coast. There is more damage than is really fathomable along all those small towns from the coast, up the delta and into hill country. I cannot confirm this yet, but there is a rumor that Richton, Mississippi (where my Uncle Ed is the local doctor) is basically g-o-n-e. So: the only difference between this and the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia not too long ago is that the American peoples of the Gulf Coast were given 48 to 72 hours notice that the shit was going to hit the fan. We'll see how much difference that notice will make in the final casualty count. -- Cole Coonce
LOS ANGELES, CA-- 9-01-2005... Attached is a post-Katrina note from my high school chum, Bo Fingers (also of Braindead Soundmachine)...
Bo lives in Birmingham and had to bail out of his house a couple of days because he was w/o power... (keep in mind B'ham is 340 miles from New Orleans...)
In this note, Bo talks about "Gary" and "Amy"...
Gary is Bo's brother, who has (had?) a house near Slidell as well as rental properties in Biloxi... now kaput...
Amy is my high school sweetheart, who now lives in Gulfport, and who bought me the copy of A Confederacy of Dunces* ten years ago that I just lent to my friend Connie for her research into her trip into New Orleans.... I have no idea what is up with Amy... I am, of course, hoping for the best...
So here are the latest reports: uprooted tree removal in Jackson, MS is going to take months and maybe years, and the town is on the verge of lawlessness... Meridian, Mississippi (home of the John Tottenham's mecca, the Jimmy Rodgers Museum) is trashed ... Meridian is in the center of the state, on the same axis as Jackson... there are no cable news cameras pointed there (Meridian), but logic dictates that anything between Biloxi and Meridian is pretty much toothpicks...
Both land and cell phones are dicey and usually non-existent, except after midnight... we (My Mom and I) are trying to figure out if Richton, Ms. has any power, as that is my Uncle Ed's hometown and he is on dialysis...
Ten days ago, after my visit in Jackon, I rendevouzed w/ Bo in Meridian so we could drive down 1-59 to New Orleans together, talk about women, re-hash road stories and listen to the Fall (okay, the last part was my idea...) En route, we stopped at Gary's bitchin new house in Slidell, and then motored over Lake Ponchatrain as the sun set...
I-59 was basically the same path that Katrina followed a week after Bo's and mine impromptu road trip.... y'know, yer having a good time, you blink and something is gone, maybe forever...
CC * The definitive book on New Orleans
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: re: for your bus ride entertainment
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 12:33:18 EDT
From: Botronics@***.com
To: cc@kerosenebomb.com
Isn't the New O's / Gulf Coast a nightmare.....When I called you, I was on my way to a motel because I had not seen any teevee coverage of this since my power went out Monday. Think of the refugee's in this case not knowing, although from the bridge view, I'm sure they can figure out this is not good. I need to call Amy & ck her deal out.
Gary lost apt's a block off the beach in Biloxi that he just purchased no more than 6 months ago, his boat is fucked & they found out trees are in their hm. I haven't even talked with him since yesterday at 10am. They were on their way with Russ's chain saws to drive back down to his house. If he can even get there. It's a mess.
