'Our tsunami,'
Mississippi hurricane survivors say
Reuters, Biloxi, Mississippi
"It was like our tsunami," Vincent Creel, a spokesman for the Mississippi Gulf Coast city of Biloxi, said on Tuesday.Many people were probably trapped in their homes by the ferocious wall of water. "From the destruction I've seen, I think there'll be some people we never find," Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway said after viewing the destruction by helicopter. Biloxi, a waterfront city of about 50,000 people, was a seafood-industry hub and sleepy summer resort for southerners early last century. A casino as big as a football field had floated offshore before the storm. Katrina dragged it 100 yards over a seafront street and set it to rest in a parking lot. Mary Mahoney's restaurant building on the seafront dates back to 1737. Bob Mahoney stayed inside until his faced was lashed with flying glass, forcing him to a hospital. "I was up in the window when it hit and it was like being popped by five linebackers at the same time," Mahoney said.
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Jesus Diaz looks over the concrete slab that used to be his apartment in Biloxi, Mississippi. Approximately 100 people are feared dead and estimates put the property loss at nearly $30 billion as Hurricane Katrina could become the costliest storm in US history. PHOTO: AFP |
