Hurricane Katrina: One Year Later

This past Sunday, Catholic parishes in the U.S. collected money to help with the uninsured portion of the Hurricane Katrina losses of Catholic churches, schools and religious houses in Mississippi and Louisiana, as discussed in this previous post. 

At our parish, we were also treated to a gallery of photographs of the Hurricane Katrina area, taken by photographer Kimberly Pitt.  The photographs can also be seen in two photo essays on her website.  They include one essay of varied Hurricane Katrina photographs and another specifically of photos of Our Lady of the Gulf.  The photo shown here is one of her photographs in the "Hurricane Katrina" gallery, showing a statue of Our Lady where it was found after the hurricane.  This photo was taken September 14, 2005.

Our Lady of the Gulf is a Catholic parish in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, a city on Saint Louis Bay and about 60 miles from New Orleans.  Before the hurricane, Bay St. Louis was known for its community of artists living by the sea.  The parish website for Our Lady of the Gulf has photos of the church before the hurricane.

Please go to Kim's website and enjoy her very moving photographs of the hurricane area, as well as the other striking photos in her online collection.

August 29, 2006 is the one-year anniversary of the date when the hurricane made landfall in Louisiana.  August 27 is the one-year anniversary of the date when it hit Florida, killing 11 people.  The disaster is being remembered on both dates this year, particularly as August 27 fell on Sunday.

The photo shown here is used by permission from Kimberly Pitt.