mardigras

Earlier this week I rode over to Biloxi with my friend both for him to show me around and also to see if he could retrieve anything from his apartment. He had been upstairs and looked in the window once, but the keyhole was gunked from the storm and he hadn't been in. The apartments on the bottom floor were all gone, you could see all the way through them to the outside, just the support structures left. The upper floors were all stable, my friend's apartment facing the beach had nothing supporting the outer part of his bedroom. His bedroom window was blown in and the force of the storm had ripped out the bedroom door, frame and all, and sent it into the living room. He got someone to break the door open and we stayed away from the unsupported area and saved his pictures, DVDs some clothes, books and other whatnots and he told the guy who opened the door (who was still living in the building) to take anything left he could use. His was the only front apartment that anything was left. The building to the left the whole front was gone from both floors, and a huge house on the other side was completely demolished.

My digital camera conked out a few days after the storm, so I bought a some disposable cameras until it gets back from repair. If you think my pictures are bad, wait until I get the Biloxi developed. I was taking a picture of a damaged building with a huge debris pile in front of it. Everything was surreal and it made it a bit hard to realize exactly where you were... then I realized the "debris pile" was one of the city's classic clubs (that had survived the casino takeover) that I had been in numerous times

We couldn't get along the beach, but he drove us up some side roads where you could get to the blocked beach road with a good shot for pictures. I would have liked to have gotten up to some of the casinos that had been blown from dockside to across the street. They are talking of opening up Hwy 90 soon, so maybe by the time my friend gets back down we can make another trip over and get a few shots of some of the historic landmarks that were blown away.