Imagine your town flattened overnight. No power. No water. Families trapped in rubble. For days, you wait for help that never seems to arrive.
The first thing that hit me in Gulfport, Mississippi, wasn’t the sight. It was the smell. Raw sewage from flooded treatment plants. Rotting seafood from capsized shrimp boats.
Diesel and gasoline spilled across the water. All mixed together in water so thick with debris it didn’t move like water anymore.
One of my shipmates handed me a jar of Vicks VapoRub. “Put it in your nose,” he said. “It’ll help.” It didn’t help enough.
A World Washed Away
What I saw looked like a scene out of an apocalyptic film. Whole neighborhoods gone. Homes ripped from their foundations and carried into the bayou.
Those that remained were filled with mud several feet high. I went building to building on search-and-rescue, marking walls with spray paint — an “X” and a number telling the world how many people, alive or dead, had been found inside.
It was devastating. It was lawlessness. And at times, it felt like we were the only ones left.
