Hello SSLiveSteamers:
You should have received an e-mail from me a few hours back, asking
you to sign up again for the SSLiveSteam list.
Within seconds of sending out that mail, the computer that I had
spent four days programming went up the spout.
As a consequence, many of you who responded to that message will get
e-mails back, claiming that the server has never heard of
sslivesteam-request. In layman's terms, let's just say it had a bad
case of amnesia which I have now fixed.
If you got one of those bad e-mails, please just reply again.
Actually, you could save me one little extra step by clicking on the
web link in the message and when the page comes up, fill out your
name as well.
You can also sign up on the Web at
http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam/
On a much more grave topic, many have messaged the list (while it was
down) with concerns about Jerry Reshew and Diamondhead, Miss. I have
been unable to get complete confirmation on anything -- and I have no
idea the whereabouts of Jerry -- but below you'll find some selected
mentions of the town that I gleaned from newspaper web sites.
These are excerpts from usually much longer stories, they are all
early reporting and some of information is second-hand, so take it
with a grain of salt:
--------------
From The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.):
Lanny Ladner of Waveland left the shelter he was staying in
Diamondhead in Hancock County because of the conditions there.
"There are 300 people in Diamondhead at a Ramada Inn, and the roof is
falling off." he said. "They have no water."
--------------
From The New York Times:
In Diamondhead, Miss., Don Haller and his 17-year-old son, Don Jr.,
were left clinging to the remains of their house when a 23-foot surge
of water hit it, flexing the roof like a deck of cards.
They had decided against evacuating, Mr. Haller said, judging the
storm "just a lot of rain."
"We rode the house," Mr. Haller said, emerging from the waters here,
his son carrying their dachshund, Kuddles.
-------------------
From The Globe & Mail (Toronto):
Just west of Gulfport, brothers Mark and Johnny Alison went on a tour
of what was left of the yacht club at Diamondhead, an upscale
subdivision on the Gulf Coast where some houses included parking
spaces for private planes using the adjacent landing strip.
"This was definitely ground zero," Johnny Alison said, pointing to a
forest of broken pine trees now littered with upturned boats, pickup
trucks and the contents of several million-dollar houses that had
been swept away.
At a nearby shopping mall, Mark Alison pointed to a shingled rooftop
sitting in front of what was once a Texaco station. "That's the roof
to the photo shop -- it's totally gone."
---------------------
From The New York Times:
But a few miles away, affluent Diamondhead fared no better, and
perhaps worse, as the hurricane obliterated an entire subdivision of
$500,000 houses, leaving just the pilings they once stood on and
piles upon piles of rubbish, sodden clothing and battered appliances.
Mary Rae Schmidt, 64, lost two houses. One was a new house in that
Diamondhead subdivision. The second was her old house across the
Jordan River, which she was to have sold two days before the
hurricane arrived.
"I guess the sale is off," Ms. Schmidt muttered.
Under her feet was an old Johnny Mathis "Greatest Hits" vinyl record,
one of the few identifiable objects left from her house. She also
lost two cats in the storm, which she rode out in a friend's house in
Picayune, La..
Now Ms. Schmidt and her husband plan to move to Atlanta to stay with
their daughter.
"All I've got are these shoes," she said, looking down at her white,
mud-splattered sneakers.
A neighbor, Lynn Terry, picked through pieces of shattered dinnerware
in what used to be her yard.
"It's amazing the things that survive," she said, examining a small
Pyrex dish. "Stupid things, like this. But the pictures, the art, the
collectibles. All gone."
She paused and added, "But we're still here."
Ms. Terry, an accountant, said she and her husband owned another
house in Houston.
The damage to their subdivision was so extensive that it looked like
the work of a tornado, though it was more likely a result of the
storm's 150-mile-an-hour winds.
A stand of pine trees snapped in half like matchsticks. Plastic bags,
clothing and chunks of cottony insulation clung to branches of the
trees as if a clothing store had exploded. Acre upon acre was covered
with furniture, bikes, porcelain sinks, air-conditioning ductwork,
wicker fans and cooking pots.
At a gasoline station off Interstate 10 near Diamondhead, Kristy
Verdin, her mother and her brother's family set up camp while they
awaited help from government agencies. Their homes in Waveland and
Bay St. Louis had been damaged beyond repair. The 10 people planned
to stay in an eight-person tent, sustained by luncheon meat and
canned food until they found more permanent shelter.
Ms. Verdin and her family fled the area on Sunday, taking refuge with
friends in Panama City, Fla. But they returned on Monday night,
hoping to beat the traffic. They had not heard anything about
Waveland on the news, and they said they thought that meant it had
been spared. They were wrong.
"We were able to get back to our house," Ms. Verdin said. "But there
was nothing there."
-------------
\dmc
--
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Dave Cole
Gen'l Sup't: Grand Teton & Everglades Steam Excursion Co.
Pacifica, Calif. USA <http://45mm.com/> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
List Mom: sslivesteam, the list of small-scale live steamers
<http://45mm.com/sslivesteam/lists/>
ATTEND THE NATIONAL SUMMER STEAMUP IN SACRAMENTO, JULY 20-23, 2005
For more information, visit the web site at <http://www.summersteamup.com>
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