Email sent, 10/18/05 11:30 PM\r\n\r\nHi Boys & Girls,\r\n\r\nI had a meeting this morning with a Major from the Corps of Engineers. The Major said, “We’re bulldozer people. We just want someone to tell us what to knock down and haul away and what not to.” This bulldozer person was rather more incongruous for the fact that she was five ft. four, blond, very attractive and wearing camo fatigues and combat boots.\r\n Bulldozer people indeed.\r\n\r\nIt seems that this same unit responded to the tsunami which is reasonable considering that they are based in Alaska. Where else would you pick the troops you’re sending to Thailand but Alaska? In any event, one of the civilians with her told me that they had cleaned up\r\nthe whole coast of Thailand in five weeks. Low density. Village, ten\r\nmiles of beach, village, ten miles of beach, etc. He said he would be amazed if the debris here is cleared away in five months. The tsunami only penetrated maybe a thousand yards from the beach. Here it went inland for miles.\r\n\r\nJust for the quantitatively minded here are some numbers garnered from the Hancock County Recovery Update (The local newspaper was under water and so is not presently publishing. This is an 8 ½ X 11 Xeroxed sheet put out every day by the Hancock County Emergency Operations Center.):\r\n\r\nNearly 40,000 cubic yards of debris is being removed every day; crews work 7 days a week. Over 300 trucks are hauling debris in Hancock County; 1.030 million cubic yards have been hauled to date. 2,861 travel trailers have been provided and 2,027 blue roofs have been placed.\r\n\r\nHancock County accounts for less than 20% of the MS Gulf Coast and is mostly rural. Admittedly, Hancock County was pretty much ground zero but I would think that the figures for the whole MS coast must be truly staggering (as if these numbers aren’t).\r\n\r\nMy personal circumstances remain pretty much the same. I have been making inquiries about a place to stay in Gulfport/Biloxi but nothing has surfaced yet. A woman who owned a restaurant on the beach in a 1912 mansion that was completely wiped out offered me her slab with water, power and sewer if I could get a FEMA trailer to put on it. Another woman who works in the Gulfport planning department said that she would expedite the permits if I could get the trailer. Alas, I don’t qualify for a trailer because I’m not an affected resident (some would say that I’m affected but no one would call me a resident of Gulfport).\r\n\r\nI can stay here at the Hancock County Historical Society for about as long as I’m willing to sleep on the floor courtesy of the President for Life (or something like that) Charles Gray. He is from one of the oldest families here and he lost virtually everything, family mansion, a couple million worth of art and antiques. He did however save the 1969 Silver Cloud III Rolls Royce which he inherited from an aunt who married a DuPont. It looks really swell parked next to the pick-up trucks, etc. in front of the Baptist Church feeding tent where the elite meet to greet and eat here in B.S.L. Charles refers to it as \"la Pavillon\". If \r\nnothing else, Katrina was a great leveler.\r\n\r\nThe public library has an open wireless network where I can do my internet chores during business hours. They even offer free coffee and info about where I can apply for food stamps (assuming Congress doesn’t eliminate them to pay for Katrina recovery). It’s not nearly as much fun as driving around town looking for hot spots to hack into the wireless networks of the unsuspecting but it does offer free coffee.\r\n\r\nI’m waiting for the powers that be to determine where our next survey team is going so I can start making arrangements. I’m really much more anxious about that than my personal accommodations because that has to be done by the time they arrive next Saturday. I can always throw all of my stuff in the renta-racer (a red Ford Taurus – don’t laugh, it’s my\r\nsign) and sleep in the back seat. But I can’t work half a dozen architects and engineers nearly to death for week without giving them a dry place to sleep and three (more or less) squares a day close to the work site. Well, I could, but the word might get around.\r\n\r\nSpeaking of three squares, I have sworn off the Christian food tent save for the odd ham sandwich at noon. Sunday they served the third tomato and pasta entrée since I’ve been here. There’s not a fresh veggie in sight unless you count the iceberg lettuce shreds with ranch dressing. I drove thirteen miles to the closest supermarket and bought a large piece of dead cow, four or five pounds of fresh veggies, a six pack of beer and a bunch of water (you still can’t drink out of the tap although I use it to wash dishes after boiling it and adding chlorine). On the way back I bought a couple of bottles of wine, a merlot and a chardonnay (to go with the chicken thighs I bought for tomorrow night). I made a salad only slightly smaller than my head, microwaved a potato and fried the steak rare and had it served on an antique table with paper towel place mat and the finest crystal and china available. Needless to say, I tipped the waiter excessively and sent my compliments to the chef. I very much appreciated that there wasn’t a Bible on the table (Did you know that there is a “Tactical Bible” for law enforcement officers? I saw one at the Baptist feeding tent – really!)\r\n\r\nThere are gobs of monarch butterflies here. That struck me as interesting because I’m reading “The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie and one of the characters, after disappearing for a week and sleeping with an archangel comes back to her village clothed only in a thousand butterflies. If you liked Tom Robins and Thomas Pynchon (not to mention Gabriel Garcia Marquez) you’re gonna love this book. It’s not too hard to see why he pissed off the Ayatollah.\r\n\r\nMy evenings are divided between reading and playing “San Francisco Bay Blues” on my banjo (yes, oh South Baltimore Sheiks, I ignored your advice and brought the banjo rather than my guitar – for better or worse – but I am practicing (also for better or worse). There are so few people around here at night that it works little harm save to myself.\r\n\r\n10/18/05 10:25 AM\r\n\r\nSo here I am back at the library sucking up my email and getting ready to go to Pass Christian this morning to see what I can see. It\'s only a mile or two across the Bay but with the Hwy. 90 bridge gone it\'s now a twenty mile hike to IH-10, east ten miles then five miles south again. So near yet so far...\r\n\r\nToday\'s photo is one of the houses on the beach about four blocks from where I am staying. If nothing else it now has a great ocean view. Keep in touch at all times.\r\n\r\n73\r\n\r\nL.