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TWO
TUESDAY
NEW 0 R L E A
DEVASTATION REPLACES BEAUTY
Coastal Trip Harrowing Experience
By EDWARD J. LEPOMA
(States-Item Staff Writer)
BAY ST. LOUIS - Trying to get to the Mississippi Gulf Coast by car is as harrowing an .experience as the devastation .that Camille left behind.
This reporter had double Reason for going to see and report the aftermath of Camille. His mother, father and grandmother and families of two •brothers were in North Biloxi near Biloxi Bay when the big storm crashed into the coast Vj-ith her 190-mile-per-hour winds $nd torrential rains. No direct word has been received from them yet.
* The coast via U.S. 90 from New Orleans was inaccessible, the Chef Menteur Highway and the camps that dot the swampy area were of the first to go under when Camille hit.
TRAVELING along Interstate 10 East, the devastation, got. progressively worse.
Fishing camps along the North Shore and the Irish Bayou came into focus more sharply once you passed over the twin span to Slidell.
Some of the camps that, were blown off their pilings bcbbed in the still-choppy waters. Roofs of others were caved in, windows blown out. Some were underwater.
Split and uprooted trees were common all along 1-10 but their numbers increased nearer the path of the hurricane. The: tallest and strongest of pines1 were snapped in two.
Mammoth oaks three and four feet in diameter were pulled out of the ground.
SOME OF THE TREES smashed through the roofs ofi big farmhouses that sit atop! high hills along the interstate.! Powerpoles and wires were strewn across the countryside.
Motorists were left to guess the best route to attempt to approach the Bay St. Louis and Waveland area.
The shortcut to the Gulf Coast at the La. 1092 exit was the first route tried, but the ravaged Holiday Inn motel near the cutoff was a clue that the two-lane road below would be closed.
A state trooper stationed about eight miles past the cutoff directed motorists to turn around. This reporter managed the turn with water in the ditch-
KM-:--	-4 XT.- 1--4A.....<• ^
' <«
STORM DEVASTATION ’N BAY ST. LOUIS
—States-Item Photo.
car had plenty gas. No service stations were operating along the route, since none had electricity to operate pumps.
Cigarettes were also a rari-tyfor those who had the habit, since most places did not have keys to get into the machines. Water was being rationed in most placed and soft drinks were sold hot.
The rains came down in buckets on the return trip, but you stayed dry and comfortable as miles ticked off.
You felt guilty about the thousands left homeless.
N.O. Schools Inferior/ Says Union Leader
By DALE CURRY New Orleans public schools are “decidedly inferior” on a national basis, says the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
David SelOen of Washington,
By TOM GREGORY
(States-Item Staff Writer) GULFPORT, Miss. - The only tourist attraction on the Mississippi Gulf Coast now is desolation.
Hurricane Camille took all
Storm-Caused Desolation Only Gulf Coast Attraction
The freighters Silver Hawk of New York and Hulda of Monrovia, Liberia, and a liberty ship are beached at the port of Gulfport. Cargo litters the beach and Highway 90.
A house on the West Beach
the fun out.	;at	Gulfport	was just rolled
For roughly 300 yards in-awav. It looks like a jigsaw
land from Mississippi’s famed man-made beach, a wartime invasion could have caused no more damage. It looks, in fact, much like a bombarded battleground.
BILOXI’S “STRIP” is
stripped. Much of it is as bare as some of the showgirls who have performed there. Ironically, the “strip” had just begn to jump again alter months of heavy-handed law enforcement before Camille became its last tourist for a long, long time.
The fancy hotels along the beachfront all suffered extensive damage and some of the smaller hostels are beyond repair.
On the Beach, Camille played no favorites. Everything
puzzle laid out in sections for assembly. A food freezer, fully stocked and including more than 50 pounds of prime ribs, is more than 300 yards from the foundation.
A SIX-FOOT section of brick wall lies intact upon the roof of a new car in a luxury automobile agency in downtown Gulfport. The car would have sold for $4,800—w i t h o u t the bricks.	j
In a North Gulfport mobile! home sales yard, one trailer lies twisted and ripped. The trailer adjacent appears untouched.
In West Gulfport, a large two-story house is only a framework now. It’s next door neighbor is a tiny four-room house