Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Mississippi's forgotten gulf coast

Blackfive brings to our attention an editorial discussing the devestation to the Mississippi gulf coast

As Aug. 29 recedes into the conscious time of many Americans, the great storm that devastated 70 miles of Mississippi's Coast, destroying the homes and lives of hundreds of thousands, fades into a black hole of media obscurity.

Never mind that, if taken alone, the destruction in Mississippi would represent the single greatest natural disaster in 229 years of American history. The telling of Katrina by national media has created the illusion of the hurricane's impact on our Coast as something of a footnote.

The awful tragedy that befell New Orleans as a consequence of levee failures at the time of Katrina, likewise, taken by itself, also represents a monumental natural disaster. But, of course, the devastation there, and here, were not separate events, but one, wrought by the Aug. 29 storm.

There is no question that the New Orleans story, like ours, is a compelling, ongoing saga as its brave people seek to reclaim those parts of the city lost to the floods.

But it becomes more and more obvious that to national media, New Orleans is THE story - to the extent that if the Mississippi Coast is mentioned at all it is often in an add-on paragraph that mentions "and the Gulf Coast" or "and Mississippi and Alabama."


I left a comment to suggest something similar to what Hugh Hewitt did, posting links to New Orleans shops online. I'd be happy to pay a little extra by shopping online and paying for shipping for something I need or as a possible gift. I did buy a couple gifts from one of the online stores (Laura's Candies) Hugh had linked, and plan to from a couple others (those cigar stores look too yummy to pass up)