Today’s ride started with a 41-mile ride on the Longleaf Trace, a multi-use trail in southern Mississippi. It used to be a railroad route, so it has gentle curves and gentle climbs and descents as it passes through the forests and farmlands of southern Mississippi.

I had been noticing a lot of trees down in the forest in the last couple of days. I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was normal for the forests around here or if I was seeing the effects of Katrina.

I arrived at the Hattiesburg end of the trace about 11 AM. Pat was there waiting for me. We went in to the Information Center to get some directions through Hattiesburg. After a lengthy chat with the manager, we came away with our directions and a better sense for the damage that Katrina caused in the area. He said the trees down in the forest were more than likely caused by Katrina. He said along the Trace, they lost about nearly 50% of the trees. Wow. And I thought what I was seeing was already a dense forest!

The manager told us his personal experiences. He said they were without electricity for two weeks, without cable TV for two months, and without a telephone for three months. He seemed to want to make the point that while there some trouble spots in the recovery after Katrina, for the most part, recovery efforts took place quickly and efficiently.

My new friend Robby that I met a couple days ago emailed me again and gave me some additional perspective on Katrina and it’s impact on the resources in the area. You see, he’s a forester and this year he’s president of the Mississippi Forestry Association. He tells me that in one afternoon, Mississippi lost more trees than they normally harvest in an entire year. Tree damage in the state has been estimated at $2.4 billion.

Robby shares some of his personal experiences too. He told me his family lives in Brandon, Mississippi which is near Jackson and is almost 200 miles from the coast. He says

We had trees down in our yard and two of our adjacent neighbors had trees on their homes…. Don’t get me wrong, we had it good.

…there is a 50,000 watt am radio station out of New Orleans that I have listened to since I was a boy - WWL 870. I ran my generator every 3 or 4 hours for 30 minutes or so for 4 or 5 days to keep my freezer and refrigerator going. This meant getting up in the middle of the night. So while I was running the generator, I would listen to WWL. They would have people
call in who were trapped in their attics, stuck on their roofs, invalid and couldn’t get out. The people could get through on their cell phones to WWL but not 911. WWL air personalities would talk to the folks and broadcast whatever info they could, but that was about all they could do. It was disheartening but fascinating.

Here’s a photo of a church on the outskirts of Petal, Mississippi (just east of Hattiesburg). We didn’t see much obvious evidence of Katrina in Prentiss this morning, but in Hattiesburg, there was clear evidence. I saw quite a few houses with blue plastic over the existing roofs. Also, I hate to say it, but as I rode through downtown Hattiesburg, there was a very slight smell that just didn’t seem right.

Highway 42 headed east out of Hattiesburg was very busy and had no shoulder. I think it was probably the most dangerous stretch of road that I’ve cycled on during the tour. Fortunately, I’ve been carrying a handheld GPS with me each day. It was a bit cumbersome, but I found an alternate road to Richton and then figured out how to define a new route along that road. I had to backtrack half a mile to get onto the new route and then even the new route put me back on Highway 42 for the last 10 miles of the ride, but it did give me 8 miles on the “Old Richton Road” that had very light traffic.

So, chalk one up for having a GPS along with us.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 7:40 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.