I was off work in the afternoon of Thanksgiving day, so I went over to the small waterfront town of Bay St. Louis, west of Gulfport to celebrate the holiday. And I found much for which to be thankful.

My idea was to volunteer to help serve dinner to the people in the shelters, still homeless after nearly three months. And the people living in damaged home where they still can't cook because the gas is off. The town had set up kind of a town fair by the historic train depot. I'd heard that group of volunteers would provide food, entertainment, games, and fellowship. I wanted to help. But I was overwhelmed by what I found there.

The volunteers were wearing orange t-shirts. It was a sea of orange. They by far outnumbered the victims. Make that "guests." I was talking to a man named John, from the Calvary Church in San Marino, California. That sea of orange shirts came with him. They were here for the long haul, he explained. From Calvary Churches in various parts of California, South Carolina, and more states. I was embarrassed that I'd never even heard of the denomination. They and so many other faith-based groups are here in force, caring for the people who had had their lives, but not their spirit, wiped out in the storm. And these groups do this all the time.

John said I should forget about helping and go eat. But I didn't want to be taking anything intended for the "guests." He laughed. "We brought so much food it will all go to waste." I hesitated. He insisted. He broke the impasse by waving over his associate, Jose. "This is John", he said by way of introduction, "John needs to eat." I was led away, still protesting awkwardly, to the food tent. Jose wouldn't let me take a tray. "We are here to serve," he said simply. He filled a plate and escorted me to a table. "May God bless you", he said as he left me. I thought, "It is surely you whom God will bless."

But, as it turned out, he may have been right. Seated across from me is Bob. He is in his mid-sixties, tanned with sun-wrinkled skin. I ask him how he is doing. I've learned that the first thing you need to ask is," are you ok?" Bob says he's fine. He is living in the wreckage of his home a half block from the water. He smiles when he says his decision to ride out the hurricane was really dumb. "I rode out Camille [the 1969 hurricane that was the benchmark for really bad ones], and I only got about 3 feet of water in the house. So I figured this couldn't be as bad." It was actually much worse. His house just came apart. He says he was really lucky to have survived.

Bob got an initial grant of just over $4000 from the government-intended to pay for him to live temporarily in a hotel somewhere. He could get more money later for an apartment. But there are no hotels or apartments available on this part of the gulf coast. Most were trashed. Besides, its hit me that Bob's house was not covered by insurance and he is hording that rent money to use instead for repairs.

I quiz Bob a bit on his situation. He's trying to clear the downed trees and rubble off his lot so the government will bring him a travel trailer to live in. He says he gets some help from roving bands of students who come by to help, but they have no equipment.

He's anxious to finish eating and get back to work. But I ask him if he's applied for a low-interest government loan. "Nah," he says. "At my age I can't repay a 30-year loan." I bite off the quip that comes to me. That after he's gone he won't have to worry about the rest of the loan. But I realize Bob knows that. He's a man of honor. He won't cheat the government, even in death.

I explain that this process could also result in a grant that he wouldn't have to repay. He just needs to fill out the form. "I'm OK, he says." I can rebuild it myself, if I can just get a trailer to live in." He's been waiting nearly three months. I know this means something is very wrong. People like Bob, those not living in hotels or apartments, not with relatives, not safe and secure in some kind of temporary housing, get a priority for the trailers. Hundreds each day are being set up in Mississippi. He should already have one.

Later a quick computer check shows that he's living in a home that inspectors already certified as "destroyed." He's been awarded thousands of additional dollars to help rebuild, but a computer glitch (his award was entered twice) has frozen the funds. Because of this freeze he hasn't received his money and is not actually in the queue for a travel trailer. Processes that were previously handled by humans have been automated, to allow computers to check an application and issue relief money. But there have been glitches.

I tell Bob's story to the man who runs the travel trailer operation. He sends a team of Washington and Colorado state firefighters to find Bob. They verify what Bob told me is true. Red tape is cut; priorities are assigned. Bob will get his trailer just a few days after Thanksgiving. He has no idea there is any connection.

I will be in Bay St. Louis tomorrow on business. I plan to stop and see Bob. And will also make sure he gets all the money he has coming to help him rebuild his life. It won't be enough, but it will help.

So Jose may have been right on target when he suggested I'd be blessed. I certainly do feel blessed. I know just how lucky I was to have shared an open-air Thanksgiving dinner with this fine gentleman. And I know how lucky it was that Jose happened, quite by accident, to seat me at this particular table. If Jose knew, he'd probably say it was not really an accident.

My wife called later to ask if I'd had a chance to get out of the office in the afternoon and do something to celebrate Thanksgiving. I told her it was one the best Thanksgivings I'd ever had.

And it made me wish I had a flag to wave.

It is now a week later. I went out to see Bob and found he had waved off his travel trailer. He told the trailer delivery contractor he needed another week to clear the away the debris from the only location he thought would work. Another year is more like it.

Bob is worried that the government will want to bulldoze his house, which is still upright only because the wiring is holding the walls together. He insists I take a tour, explaining that in the late 1800s this was the coach house for the now-shattered manor house down the road. His home is a shambles. The windows are gone, there is rubble everywhere inside. There is daylight coming through the corners and the wooden floor boards are curled up like a toboggan at the ends. It is tiny, just two rooms. In the back room there is a bed, neatly made. Bob has no heat, no lights, no water, no nothing. He had told me he was using the toilet in the home next door, but hadn't told me the house with the toilet has no walls.

Outside we talk about the huge pile of rubble that remains, despite the months he spent picking at it with his hands and hauling it off in a wheelbarrow. The large house that used to be behind his now exists only as Bob's pile of rubble. On his lot. I ask how he will remove the huge wooden beam at the bottom of the pile. "I'll chip it up with this crowbar," he says. "Then haul it off in my wheelbarrow." Sure.

The next day I contact the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A project manager named Melanie tells me they have a program to remove rubble from private land as well as from roadways. "We give a priority to people who need debris removed so they can get their travel trailer." She promises to send a front loader to Bob.

This process is being repeated across Mississippi, and gives you some idea of the problem facing the state and federal response forces. Bob has no TV, no radio, no newspaper and no way of knowing who can help him. His sister registered him for benefits on her computer months ago, but made one tiny error that hid Bob from those trying to help him.

So legions of federal employees have fanned out across the disaster area looking for the Bobs they know are still there. Some are still living in their cars or in tents three months after the hurricane. They may have been given money for motels-as Bob was-but may have elected to stay at their damaged home to protect it, or repair it, or just to keep the rental assistance money to use for repairs. Or they just couldn't find a hotel room available.

Insurance is the big problem, or lack of it. Guess what? Your homeowners insurance may cover windstorm damage. But rarely covers flooding unless it is caused by your own plumbing. So people here are finding that their insurer will pay only to re-roof their house. If they still have a roof. National flood insurance is cheap if you are not actually in a flood plain, which was often the case here. But not many people buy it because few insurance agents push it.

So which caused the damage? Windstorm or flooding? Both, of course. But which came first, the chicken or egg? That will likely keep the courts busy for years.

Life is still far from normal here. I got off the I-10 freeway for gas, but all I found left was a tall BP sign. You go to a restaurant for dinner and have to wait for hours. There aren't many eateries operating. Fast food places that are open are drive-through only. This week I found a regular McDonalds actually open. But they had no Big Macs. Food stores that have reopened don't seem to have all of the usual items on their shelves. You can drive on the roads but most of the bridges are down. So wherever you want to go, you can't get there from here. A commute that used to take minutes now takes an hour or more. Downtown Biloxi, the size of Ogden's downtown, is a ghost town. The cities are having to rebuild without sales taxes coming in. Nothing is simple anymore.

The other night a friend showed me around the town of Waveland. "This is the center of town," he said. But we were in a grove of trees. "Over there was city hall, that was the police station. Over there was the library and grocery store." Randy had lived here before the storm. But it is all gone. Not a collection of rubble, just gone. And the house Randy lived in until two weeks before D-day-indeed his old neighborhood-has disappeared.

I have life pretty easy compared to the local residents. I did work 70 hours last week, trying to help more Bobs. Hundreds of Bobs. But unlike him, I can go home at night to a nice motel room. I look around as I type this and everything here seems quite normal. But we call this former Holiday Inn the "Armageddon Arms." It has no phone service, no lobby, its front structure has crumbled, and it has no first floor rooms at all. The clerk operates his "front desk" off boxes stacked in front of the elevators. These elevators don't work, of course. The motels on either side of us are gone. So are the restaurants across the street on the beach. I'm living in a scene out of one of those end-of-the-world movies. No art director could have imagined this. There is even a National Guard barricade and checkpoint on the road out front. Like in Iraq.

And remember this is months after Katrina. It will take years to rebuild. Maybe decades. There are homes here along the shore that sat here for over one hundred years, and survived many really bad hurricanes like Camille. But Katrina flattened them.

But the flags remain. And the people, while worn out and discouraged, seem determined to rebuild. More are returning each day.

But I know that the biggest difference between me and the residents along the Mississippi Gulf Coast is that just before Christmas I will be gone. I'll be back in Logan, where the snow will blanket the ground of an intact city. I can go to a mall, eat in restaurants, browse through bookstores and all the other things you can't do here. I'll be back to normal. But the people along the Gulf will be here for Christmas.

And for the rest of their lives.

John Taylor

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