Tuesday January 8, 2008

I heard from Laura this afternoon and she said Nick came through his operation okay. They were able to do all that they wanted to do. He was in the recovery room when she called and she was going to go home to pick up the kids and take them back over for a visit. He will stay overnight at the hospital and be home tomorrow. We hope for a speedy recovery. We had an awesome lecture last night. The head of the Historical Society, Charles Gray, was a fabulous speaker. He was 73 and looked and acted 55. He previously ran an extremely posh restaurant in New Orleans. Dinner was by appointment only and there was no money changing hands - the hosts were sent bills at the end of each month. He gave us the history of Bay St. Louis from its origins and then showed us photos of the lovely houses that used to line the beachfront. I found it interesting that no one had flood insurance as there had never been a water problem before - the houses were on a 31 foot cliff! Most of these houses were destroyed completely and the few that survived were heavily damaged. The only thing left of his own house was the front staircase. He had a houseful of antiques and lovely paintings - all gone. He did find his grandmother's silver chest 2 blocks from his house with the silver still inside - only 2 teaspoons were missing. He also found an emerald tie tack while planting bushes around his FEMA trailer a few months after the storm. He obviously was a very wealthy man and while he cannot afford to replace what he lost, will be able to rebuild on his land. Many of the poorer folks were not able to fund the rebuilding of their homes and have either left the area or are on a list for help from various church groups or Habitat. We went the emergency room early this morning as Dave has developed quite a cough. It turned out to be bronchitis and he is now on drugs. While we were there though, Dave noticed that there was a part of the hospital still under repair. When he asked about it, the doctor said that they had wind damage and the water was knee level throughout that whole wing of the hospital - which is a good 2 miles from the beach! We got to the work site late and Dave played supervisor as he is supposed to take it easy for a day or two, I worked on putting up some trim boards around the porch, carport and roof line and also continued to work on the porch railings. We should be paining tomorrow which will be a nice change of pace. We will probably go to bed on the early side tonight as Dave is feeling a bit tired from the medication. Will try to remember to have Dave take some photos tomorrow so we can get them up on the blog (now that I have figured out how to do it).