Hurricane Recovery

(Cute shirt the hospital gave SJ as a gift...3-6 months, though :o) Waaaaay too big, obviously! I think it's super cute that there's a baby dragon, since the 81st's mascot is a big huge dragon...awww!)

If you're anything like me, you hear Hurricane Katrina and you think New Orleans. It wasn't till I came down here that I realized just how bad that storm was...for the entire Gulf Coast. Biloxi, apparently, was hit really bad. The base is about five or six blocks from the beach and ended up almost completely under water after the surge came through. There wasn't a building on base left untouched.

One of our nurses explained to us a little bit how the hospital was effected by hurricane Katrina. Before Katrina, the Keesler Medical Group was a huge training facility. They were the biggest and most advanced hospital in the area. But after the hit they took after Katrina, they are still trying to recover. For example, Keesler's NICU used to have up to 20 babies from all over the Gulf Coast. They were the main emergency NICU hospital. But hospitals had to find other places to send patients after the storm. Now Keesler doesn't even have a NICU.

Rebuilding after such a devastating storm takes a long time. When we got down here, it was right before the fifth anniversary of Katrina. I read an article from the Keesler News saying that, as a base, they feel like they're finally just now getting back on their feet. I know it's been an even slower recovery for the city of Biloxi.