In 2005, I had just returned home from an 18-month mission trip in Brisbane, Australia. Settled back on the West Coast, I was safe, comfortable, and watching the devastating images of Hurricane Katrina unfold on the news. Like so many people around the world, my heart broke for New Orleans.
At the time, I didn’t live in Mississippi, but I’ve always carried a deep fascination and reverence for the South. I sometimes joke that I have a “geographical identity”—and the belief that what’s meant to be will always find us. And in 2009, it found me in the form of my future husband, a Hattiesburg native named Bryce.
On our very first date, we sat in a restaurant talking until the lights dimmed and chairs were being stacked. Knowing he was from South Mississippi, the journalist in me couldn’t resist asking about Hurricane Katrina. I was shocked when Bryce explained that it wasn’t just New Orleans that suffered —much of Mississippi had also been devastated, including the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the Pine Belt. That night, he sketched the storm’s path across the state on a napkin. Nearly seventeen years later, I still keep that napkin tucked away in a memory box.
When I recently asked Bryce to share his memories, his voice carried the weight of both hardship and pride.
“Hurricane Katrina hit during my senior year of high school,” he recalled. “Usually, Hattiesburg is considered the first safe point of evacuation when a hurricane heads toward the Coast. Nobody expected us to get hit as hard as we did. But the eye of the storm went right over us.”
Much of the city lost power and water for weeks. His family, like so many others, lived under a blue tarp roof while waiting for repairs. Daily life looked very different.
Photo credit: Bart Boatwright/Hattiesburg American
“We bathed in our swimsuits in neighborhood spillways,” Bryce remembered. “When water service finally returned to Oak Grove in late September, I took a cold shower in the dark with a flashlight, and I thought—this is the best shower of my life.”
After the storm passed, recovery began immediately.
“I remember my dad and I scouting out the neighborhood to see the damage, then getting straight to work—because that’s what Mississippians do,” Bryce said. “At church, Sundays became prayer and service days. The men wore blue jeans and carried chainsaws, clearing debris and helping neighbors. The women prepared meals from whatever food they had at home ( a true talent) since grocery stores were still closed. Everyone pitched in.”
The sense of community, he explained, is something he will never forget. Neighbors helped neighbors. Schools were out for over a month, and when classes finally resumed, Bryce remembered Oak Grove High School welcoming students who had been displaced by Katrina.
“The greatest lesson I learned is that Mother Nature doesn’t discriminate,” he said. “A storm of that size doesn’t just impact the city in the headlines—it impacts entire regions. The Mississippi Gulf Coast was devastated, and the Pine Belt suffered a significant impact as well. But you can’t keep a Hattiesburger down. We’ve come back better than ever.”
His words reminded me of something important: many of the heartbreaking scenes shown on the news were often labeled as “New Orleans,” but in reality, they were images from Mississippi’s Gulf Coast and even Hattiesburg. Our state’s story was largely untold in the national spotlight, but it lives on in the people who endured it—and in the resilience they showed afterward.
Hurricane Katrina is part of Mississippi’s history, but it doesn’t define us. What defines us is the way neighbors became family, the way churches turned into command centers, the way young and old worked side by side to rebuild. That is the Mississippi spirit—steadfast, generous, and unshakable.
Nearly seventeen years after that first date conversation, I still believe Katrina’s truest legacy is not destruction, but determination. As Bryce put it, “You can’t keep a Hattiesburger down.” I’d add—you can’t keep a Mississippian down, either.
