Mississippi was incredible. HIllel International organized three weeks of college Spring Break trips to Gulfport, MS and I attended week #2 with some fellow Tigers. (In fact, MIT, including trip member Amy D, is there this week.) Our week consisted of 130 people, 10 from each school (9 students and 1 staff member). I was one of two grad students on the trip, and the population was about 85% Jewish. We stayed at a makeshift camp on a Presbyterian Church site, which was run by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. We slept in "pods", which were basically plastic tents with cots in them. The pods held either 3 or 10 people, depending on size, and were separated by sex.
We got in four-and-a-half solid days of work on houses (Wednesday afternoon we traveled to New Orleans), with wakeup at 6am and us arriving at the site by around 7:30 (depending on traffic). We would stretch and do some group bonding while waiting for our exact work assignments. Other than a break for an on-site lunch, we would roof or build houses until 4:30pm. Lots of hammering and moving heavy objects. I'm sure you'll all be glad to know that we were putting on architectual shingles, which hold up much better in storms than the standard "3-tab" variety.
As for hurricane destruction, within a half-mile of the coast it was total. Entire neighborhoods just gone. The picture reminded me of the scene in the movie version of A Series of Unfortunate Events where the kids return to their burnt home. I remember thinking at the time that destruction of that magnitude was unrealistic -- I couldn't have been more mistaken. New Orleans sustained a different type of damage. There the water came in through the breached levies, rose to 9 feet and stayed there long enough to leave a water mark. House after house after house on the streets of Lakeview were standing but completely unsuable. Experts estimate will take 8-10 years to return the area to its pre-Katrina form.
I'll be adding more about my trip to Gulfport, MS over this week. Feel free to request elaboration on any of the following topics in the comment section: how to roof, destruction details, New Orleans day trip, staffer bios, other student bios, general debauchery, songs we sang, food, speakers (e.g., FEMA) and how we kept ourselves entertained.
Unedited pics here (a few more to come).
If you're interested, I use XnView for posting my pictures. Creates thumbnails and makes a webpage linking thumbnails to original pics.
Sounds like you had an amazing experience. Very cool! :) -j.