My trip to Mississippi Wednesday was excruciating. Left LAX for Houston at 7 a.m.; that should've been a 2-1/2 hour flight, but weather was bad in Houston, so we circled for an extra while, hoping they'd open that airport. They didn't, so we had to divert to San Antonio, where we sat, in the plane, on the tarmac, without food, for nearly five hours. They did finally bring bottled water at the fourth hour, which they served sparingly in plastic cups. Finally, we were cleared for the 45-minute flight back to Houston, arrived, then had to wait an hour for a gate. So, just over NINE hours in that plane. Then I was off thru the chaos to find the last flight of the day from Houston into Gulfport. Made it on, but sat for an hour awaiting our turn to take off for another hour of flying.
Mom picked me up about 9:30 and we headed to TGIFridays to eat. As we pulled into the parking lot, there was a guns-drawn police throw-down with a bad guy about 50 feet in front us. Then while we were eating, the restaurant started to flood because of the rain (we had to hold our pant legs up as we waded out to keep from getting wet. I ran to get the car thru horizontal sheets of torrential rain so strong that I looked like a cartoon character. I hope the trip home today is much less eventful.
Biloxi is much more functional now that it was in the days after Katrina (obviously), but it's still obviously a city in shambles. There are tons of trash and rubble piled along roadsides, tarp-covered homes, and demolished businesses. The beach road is still impassible in most places and looks much like it did after the storm. A couple of the back bay casinos are scheduled to reopen in the coming weeks, but most of the ocean-front ones are moving inland in coming years. From what I understand, the off-shore requirements are no more, so this will likely be a booming mini-Vegas in 10 years. Not sure if that's good or bad.
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