FIRST IMPRESSIONS

After a 21 hour drive, I finally got here yesterday at around 5:00.

This leg of the trip also went pretty quick, maybe because I had Zack and Megan with me.

In total, I drove through 10 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary

land, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Total Mileage: 1321.5 Miles

Avg. Speed: 62.5 mph

Max Speed: 77.4mph

Total Time: 21 hours, 8 minutes

And I want to thank Karen (my GPS) for those statistics

But anyway, onto my first impressions of Pass Christian.

When we first drove in, we came in away from the coast and moved closer. Away from the coast, you wouldn’t even know that a Category 4 Hurricane rolled through. As we got closer to the gulf, and into the city of Pass Christian, the view started to change. We saw driveways leading to bare foundations, concrete stoops

that led to nowhere. Even houses raised 10 feet up on wood posts weren’t spared. While driving

through, I was trying to imagine what the 30 ft. storm surge was like and it’s just unbelievable to think about.

After arriving, we drove straight to our apartment. Zack, Chris and I would be sharing one and Megan, Lindsay and Emily would share the other. The apartments are really nice. They don’t look like anything special from the outside, but they’re really nice inside, with granite countertops, wood floors, and a lot more good stuff. After moving some stuff in, we decided to go and meet Leah, our program coordinator, architect, and Virginia Tech alum. She lives down here with her family now and has rebuilt several houses in town. Her most recent project is rebuilding a church that was completely destroyed by the storm. Leah and her family live in the same development as us in a nice big house, raised 10-15 ft. off the ground. Her dad told us about some stuff about the town, including how outrageous the insurance policies were now. If your house meets the new stringent building code, the insurance is around $6,000/year. If it doesn’t, its significantly higher than that. He told us about a restaurant down by the water, and the insurance would cost them $80,000/year, even though it only cost them about $80,000 to build it.

So after visiting Leah and her family, we decided to go to that restaurant, called Shaggy’s, for dinner. It’s right on the Gulf of Mexico and next to the marina and Yacht Club. The downstairs is a huge open room with a stage and bar, and the upstairs has

the seating for the restaurant and another bar. I’m not a big seafood guy and wasn’t ready to try gumbo or crawfish so I just ordered a pork sandwich. The bar was really nice and has live music on the weekends, so I know where I’m gonna be spending a lot of my time after August 28th (my 21st). After dinner, we were all pretty tired from the drive so we passed out at like 10.

This morning, I woke up at about 7 (I still can’t sleep late because i’m used to getting up that early for work), and explored the town more. I ran a big rectangle around town, stopping occasionally to stare at the destruction. I didn’t notice the night before, but there were a lot more driveways to nowhere and “Katrina Cottages” than I realized.

The town itself is hard to describe. There’s a main road that runs right along the beach. Scenic Drive contains all the mansions that were quickly renovated after the storm. There’s a nice fishing pier, marina and yacht club. I ran past the war memorial park, which is right next the police station, city hall and library. These were all still housed in trailers. A new library is being constructed, but I’m not sure if a new police station or city hall are planned yet. (More info on the old police station on the Pass Christian Wikipedia page).

After exploring, I went back to the apartment. Lindsay has finally arrived, the last member of our group. We all decided to go to Wal-Mart in Bay St. Louis, a city to the west of us, right over the bridge. Construction on the Pass Christian Wal-Mart is still going on, but it should be opening soon. After spending a hefty amount at Wal-Mart, we unpacked, had lunch, and went to see our new studio and check out the beach.

The studio is in this really nice house 1 block away from the beach. It was obviously severely damaged by Katrina, but Leah and her team renovated it and it’s really nice now...muchhhh better than Burchard and Cowgill. After the studio tour, I swam in the gulf for the first time. It was pretty warm and really quiet. The beach was deserted, I suppose because everyone in town works and there’s no more tourists. It would be perfect if there were waves higher than 6 inches

After the beach, we came back home to play cornhole, make dinner and drink a few. Oh and there’s this stray cat who lives under our deck and he always comes around looking for food, but we didn’t want to feed him because he’d never leave us alone, but today we finally decided to feed him. I do actually feel better about myself.