Pass Christian

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Pass Christian was hit very hard by the hurricane. The storm surge destroyed highway 90 and leveled many of the homes along Scenic Drive. Even as far inland as the railroad tracks, the water was still flowing deep and strong enough to move entire houses as shown above. Water is much denser and heavier than air, so a 10mph flow of water exerts the same pressure as a 270mph wind.

The photo to the right is another good example of how hard Pass Christian was hit by the storm surge. This house, nearly a mile inland, was knocked off its foundation and deposited in the trees over 100 yards away.

Down along Scenic Drive, many of the buildings had their first floor gutted by the wave, but the second floor remained relatively intact. Here's an example of that ...

The beagle shown here lives just north of Marsha's house. I stopped to take a picture of the house, and she came out of the pile of rubble in front, where she had apparently been living in a den of sorts for the last few days. I tried to give her a Triscuit, but she wouldn't come near me so I threw it to her. She grabbed it and ran inside her den, where she quickly buried it. I left the rest of the box for her.

The rest of these are pictures of the damage around Pass Christian, for friends and family who are interested in seeing what has happened to the Pass. Some of you will probably recognize some of these structures — most of these shots are taken in the blocks along Scenic Drive west of the bird sanctuary / memorial park, where I walked until the police found me and made me leave.

Here's one final image of Pass Christian. This is the gas station just south of Granny's street, at the corner of North and Henderson. This house wasn't there before the storm, and we couldn't figure out where it came from. It had apparently floated along with the storm surge and stopped when it crashed into the gas station.

This gas station was the command post for search and rescue teams in the Pass, and they had food, water and other supplies staged on the other side of this house.