bay st. louis, mississippi

Sister city to Port Townsend, WA. In 2005, I was planning my next adventure to Puerto Escondido in southern Mexico when Hurricane Katrina hit. Around the same time, I heard about a team from University Presbyterian heading to Bay St. Louis to help with rebuilding homes. My Mexico trip could wait—I decided to join the team.

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We arrived in Bay St. Louis two months after Katrina hit, working directly with families determined to stay and rebuild. Our team spent a week clearing homes down to the studs, helping families salvage whatever they could. It felt like a small contribution in the face of such devastation, but every bit mattered. The families we volunteered for found a little hope, even knowing the road ahead would be long.

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This period also marked the blossoming of my love for photography. Capturing the scenes of destruction helped me process the overwhelming power of the disaster and the deep, emotional toll it left behind. Personal items scattered through the wreckage, grand oak trees with their deep roots withstanding the storm, and a resilient community having experienced this traumatic, destructive event, striving to move forward after losing nearly everything. Our time there coincided with Halloween, a surreal but needed distraction for the children, and Gus Halvorson, the famous Berlin Candy Bomber, participated in the event of candy dropping from a plane—a rare moment of joy amidst the chaos.

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Bay St. Louis faced sustained winds of 125 mph and a 25-foot storm surge, which destroyed nearly all the town’s structures. Despite the devastation, about 25% of the community chose to stay and rebuild. Today, Bay St. Louis has recovered and now boasts almost double its pre-Katrina population.