Minutes to Memories

With Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran today...

It must have been two or three days after Hurricane Katrina, when life was still off-the-chart NUTS. No electricity. Tanks driving up and down the street. Choppers constantly overhead. Although we had seen amazing things, the concerted relief efforts all over the country were still being organized. It was a very, very weird time.

I decided to drop by State Farm agent Phil Harvey's office that day to let him know that, though we were in no relative hurry, the church building had withstood lots of damage and that we would be filing a claim. Mr. Harvey was sitting in his office, sweating, without air conditioning of course, in a Mississippi August with lots of clients stopping in to see him.

On the way over, I felt silly that I had not remembered that my car had satellite radio! With a real interest, I turned it to CNN Radio to hear what the nation was saying about our little bout with history. I was humbled to hear that much of the talk revolved around a "missing persons" hotline CNN had set up where people could call in and try to locate their loved ones displaced by Katrina.

Was I ever surprised when one of the callers said that her daughter was the mayor of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and that she hadn't heard from her after the storm! She provided a picture for the national audience in case anyone knew anything; she just wanted to hear that the mayor was alright.

I laughed, not at the situation, but at the realization that the little town I was driving my car in was so isolated from the rest of the world that CNN couldn't locate our mayor. Which was a weird feeling I must say.

So I drove to City Hall...

I walked in the front door with my baseball cap on backwards and several days of a developing beard, and walked directly into Mayor Connie Moran's office where she was talking on one of the few working telephones in town. Mayor Moran had just been elected in June (before Katrina's August), so I had not had the pleasure of meeting her yet. I realized that my appearance probably didn't make the best first impression, but she seemed unfazed. When she hung up the telephone, I introduced myself and told her I just wanted to drop by and tell her that she was just on CNN.

This piqued her interest!

After I explained to her what I had heard, she smiled and simply said, "I hope she used a good picture."

# posted by Al Sturgeon @ 10:28 PM