Tell them it is warm here

I went for a drive today. It was really the first time I have taken any time off on either Mississippi trip during the work day. There is too much that needs to be done. As a short-timer, I feel guilty if I am not maximizing every second of my time here. Indeed, I feel guilty even taking lunch, so lunch is usually water.

But today I was sort of forced to take the afternoon off. As much as I wanted to work, my main job on this trip is to make sure the spring trip works: that we have work and places for everyone to stay.

Therefore, after spending the morning at the Humane Society, we went for a drive. We started out with the hope of making it to Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, Pass Christian, and then Ocean Springs. It was a tad too ambitious. But it does not matter.

I’d seen enough. No, I had seen too much. The destruction for miles is simply beyond comprehension. In most areas the first few blocks in from the coast have vanished. There is almost nothing at all that can be salvaged. Nothing.

There are cars in swimming pools next to nothing but a slab of concrete. No house. No garage, nothing.

I could go on for pages trying to describe the destruction. I had planned on writing about how further inland there are blocks and blocks of damaged homes and buildings. How these areas look like Biloxi did in early October. How there are too few hands and too many problems. But I can’t come close to describing the scene, so why bother. I’ll put up some of the pictures I took, but they are almost as incapable of communicating the enormity of the devastation as are my words.

Instead I will relate a quick story that speaks volumes.

In Long Beach we stopped at a Distribution Center. We were met by a kind elderly woman who is from the Long Beach area but stressed that she was fine, but that others lost everything and that the Distribution Center’s volunteers were overworked. I gave her my now well-practiced pitch that we plan on bringing down a large contingent of volunteers from St. Bonaventure over spring break and was wondering if the Distribution Center could use any of our help for that week. The lady listened intently and then said simply “Tell them it is warm down here.”

What did she mean by that? “Excuse me?” I questioned.

And then with a quiet seriousness that signaled the region’s desperate straits, the grandmotherly immigrant explained “Your school is from near Buffalo. It’s cold there. If you tell your students it is warm here, then more people will come to help. And we need all the help we can get.”