Katrina

Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed the Mississippi Gulf Coast town of Waveland and most of the nearby historic towns of Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Gulfport, Biloxi and Ocean Springs. I volunteered for The National Trust for Historic Preservation to assess the damage to structures on the rosters of the National Historic Register, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the Mississippi Heritage Trust. Although my primary responsibility is to promote historic preservation, I am staring straight into the mouth of the dragon of economic despair. It is apparent that preservation is not on the minds of those who have lost everything. I took these photographs to record the present for the archives of history.