When we left New Orleans we expected to see some damage to buildings along the coast, but we were not prepared for what we actually saw - the devastation was just unbelievable. Multi-level buildings, houses, restaurants, billboards were not spared the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, to us it looked as if the Mississippi coast had been "carpet" bombed. We did not expect this sort of destruction, the TV coverage we saw in New Zealand concentrated on the damage to New Orleans and no mention was made of the damage in Mississippi, Alabama or Florida. It was very evident from our discussions with many people the news coverage was politically biased, which has resulted in quite a split between people from certain states, there is plenty anger at the corrupt Louisiana state government. We heard so many stories of corruption and pure simple ineptitude on the part of the Louisiana officials. Unlike New Orleans which suffered water damage, Mississippi took the full brunt of the force 5 hurricane strength wind, and subsequent tidal surge. Interesting enough, we experienced an extremely bad thunder storm on December 30 near Gulfport, later we heard a few tornados had touched down not too far away.

Our plan before we left for the USA was to travel along the coastal road in Mississippi, however once we entered Mississippi and visited the Visitor Centre, we were told 2  bridges we planned to cross had been destroyed by Katrina, which meant we had to change our plans.

We did travel along the coastal road from Long Beach to Biloxi and although it was not what we expected, due to the damage, we did find it interesting albeit quite depressing. There was hardly a structure left standing from the beach back for about 4 blocks. Many of the casinos had been destroyed, there were no restaurants (very strange for the US!).

In fact, we spent New Year's eve in Biloxi and there was nowhere to go out for a meal - so we went to bed at about 9:30pm.