Engineers clear streets of Waveland

Courtesy Photo | Photo by Spc. Chris Jones, 40th Public Affairs Detachment, United States Army -- A Soldier with the Kentucky National Guard, deployed to the Mississippi coast to assist in Hurricane Katrina relief effort, stands on the bed of a military vehicle, tying a tractor on the bed of the vehicle, Friday afternoon. The tractor was used to clear the rubble along the coast of Gulfport, Miss.  

WAVELAND, MS, UNITED STATES

09.09.2005

Courtesy Story

DVIDS Hub       

By Spc. Chris Jones, 40th PAD

WAVELAND, Miss. -- After Hurricane Katrina, all but three houses on one Washington Street block in the city of Waveland, Miss.., were left in pieces. According to Annie Singleton, separated from her husband during the storm, the streets of Waveland were temporary rivers; she said her husband escaped the violent waves by kayaking down the street, with the family cat in his lap.

The flooding eventually subsided, and the streets of Waveland were left up to 6-feet high with rubble, from broken trees to smashed cars to segments of houses.

The Army Corps of Engineers was called in to clear the streets. Two engineers from the Arkansas National Guard, Staff Sgts. Henry Laxton and Bobby Farmer, have been operating bulldozers, sweeping the roads off the Mississippi coast, to allow for transportation in an area that was near the center of Hurricane Katrina's deadly path.

"All the debris was in the street, so nobody could really get to us for four or five days," said Andrew McDonald, who was at his mother's house during the storm.

Farmer and Laxton, both members of the 875th Engineers Battalion out of Jonesboro, Ark., have been working doggedly since last week. Laxton said the job can be emotionally draining.

"Sometimes it gets to you," Laxton said of working in the devastated city, constantly surrounded by citizens who have lost all their personal belongings and, sometimes, a loved one.

The job itself places Laxton and Farmer in often extreme heat, little time for rest and in conditions which offer constant distractions. Still, Laxton said he understood his job from the moment he arrived in the area, and the engineers in his unit have been working nonstop to make the streets of Waveland clear for transportation.

"We all knew right where to start, and we just got right into it," Laxton said.

Singleton, who returned to her demolished home across from the McDonalds" house, said the military's presence in the relief effort has been indispensable.

"I love what the military is doing here," she said. "The best part of my day is when I look up and see a helicopter, because I know that somebody's going to help."

McDonald withstood the hurricane with his wife, Deniz, and his mother, who owns the house, less than 100 meters from the beach. As it happened, the house they stayed in was one of only three houses on the street that withstood the storm. Every other home or building was completely demolished.

"[The house] saved our lives," said Deniz, who lives in Budapest, Hungary, with McDonald, but spent the summer in Waveland with McDonald's mother. "We have a new appreciation for this house."

McDonald and Deniz, both of whom are studying for doctorate degrees at Central European University in Hungary, were scheduled for a flight out of New Orleans and back to Hungary on Sept. 4.

They missed that flight.

Laxton and Farmer are among those making sure they make the next flight on time.

hkat

• Date Taken: 09.09.2005
• Date Posted: 09.09.2005 14:58
• Story ID: 2957
• Location: WAVELAND, MS, US