Where are Cheryl and Dennis?: Tornadoes and Hurricanes

The day started out pretty uneventful. We ate breakfast then went for a walk around the campground. I then washed our towels in our washer and planned to dry them at the campground laundry. Dennis continued to clean the awning. I had noticed earlier that we were under a tornado watch. We saw it was getting darker in the north and west and a check of the weather indicated a line of storms heading our way. By the time we were ready to go to the laundry it was raining so we hopped in the truck. I kept an eye on the weather app and then the tornado warnings started to pop up. They were all west of us but the storms were heading our way. I told Dennis to go back to the camper to get Buddy. We spent the next hour in the campground laundry listening to the radio and watching the weather app. We felt fairly safe as the park buildings are all new and I would suspect built to withstand hurricane force winds. There were several tornado touch downs to the west and north of us including one in a suburb of New Orleans. Thank goodness we only got rain.

After we decided we were in the clear we went back to the camper and had a bite to eat for lunch. The Ground Zero Hurricane Museum was open today so we headed there to check it out. The museum is housed in an old grade school building that is also used as a civic center. The building was severely damaged in the hurricane but has been rebuilt.

The park and area that we are in is the town of Waveland. Or least whats left of it. Hurricane Katrina's eye wall passed over Waveland and Bay St. Louis. Bay St. Louis is the highest point on the coast and although they sustained substantial damage it does not compare to Waveland which was virtually wiped off the map. Katrina's powerful right-front quadrant passed over this area bringing with it a powerful 27-foot storm surge. This storm surge penetrated 6 to 12 miles inland and crossed interstate 10 for several miles. Some homes have been re-built but there is still many empty lots with the remains of what was once a home. Any new homes are required to be built on pillars.

The museum has lots of photos of the destruction. It was pretty sobering. One room is set aside for reading. It has several publications about the storm, the destruction, the miracles and the heroes. I could have spent several hours in there reading.