Guard helping Gulf Coast in slow march back
By Staff Sgt. Thomas Kielbasa
November 17, 2005
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (Army News Service, Nov. 17, 2005) — The turtle crawled slowly across the road, each methodical step over the warm pavement bringing it closer to St. Louis Bay on the other side of the street.
Behind it was only wreckage – the shattered remains of bay-front homes torn apart by Hurricane Katrina months ago – and the way forward was across two lanes of semi-deserted road. Occasionally a pickup truck or car would speed by the dun-colored turtle during its mid-morning march to the water; each time the turtle would freeze, duck its head inside its shell, and wait until the road was quiet again.
Like the turtle’s slow march across North Beach Boulevard, the people living in the ruins of this Gulf Coast community are slowly recovering from the ravages of the 2005 hurricane season.
Across town that same morning, Nov. 7, the next generation of Bay St. Louis was starting back to school. More than 1,200 area students returned to their schools which had been closed since late August due to extensive hurricane damage.
60 portable classrooms set up
With the help of several agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the students returned to classes in more than 60 portable classroom units placed on school property.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kim Stasny explained the hurricane recovery in her school district was a slow process, but without the assistance of outside agencies, they would be far from ready to let students back into classes.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency noted that Hurricane Katrina caused damage to 303 schools in the Gulf Coast region of the state.
During a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the reopening of North Bay Elementary, Stasny singled out members of the Florida Air National Guard’s 202nd RED HORSE unit for their work with repairing the schools.
“It was a tremendous effort on their part, and I really mean this, because we wouldn’t have had this site here today if it wasn’t for them clearing this site,” Stasny said.
Engineer base camp helped town recover
Members of the 202nd RED HORSE and the Florida Army National Guard’s 269th Engineer Company helped establish a 500-person base camp for relief efforts in Bay St. Louis, prepared sites for the portable school buildings, operated lift stations for sewers throughout the city, maintained air conditioning systems and helped remove hurricane debris.
More than 20,000 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen were deployed to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief operations in the Gulf Coast region.
Senior Master Sgt. Jeff Lindsey, one of the three remaining RED HORSE Airmen on duty in Mississippi on Nov. 7, explained that he has seen a gradual change in the area since he was deployed to Bay St. Louis on Sept. 3.
“You see people smiling now and some businesses are starting to open back up,” Lindsey said. “In the past two months you’ve seen more people coming back. This was great this morning to see the kids coming back. We haven’t seen too many kids around here.”
The 17-year-veteran of the Florida National Guard agreed with some area residents that the recovery process would be slow.
“There’s going to be damage here for years to come, but it’s starting to get back to normal,” Lindsey said.
(Editor’s note: Staff Sgt. Thomas Kielbasa serves with the Florida National Guard Public Affairs.)
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