Alabama drying out
2005-09-04 20:23
Catherine Hours
Mobile - Fuel queues grew and residents scuffled over hot meals as the city of Mobile, Alabama emerged painfully on Sunday from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
While the city on the Gulf of Mexico was spared the massive loss of life suffered by New Orleans, 180km down the coast, part of its infrastructure was destroyed, leaving a trail of hardship in what was a bustling resort town.
A week after Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast with a vengeance, Mobile's 200 000 residents are still subject to a curfew, and in parts of the city electricity has not been restored.
Homes and businesses in its southern suburbs and bayous have been reduced to rubble, while seafront dwellings and restaurants have been swallowed up by the rising waters.
Like other survivors, Deborah Deguire, who manages the "A and M Peanuts" candy store in the town's historic centre, is filled with a mixture of relief and concern over what the future holds.
"My concern is we still have two more months of hurricane activity to go," she told AFP.
"I have this fear that we could get the same again," she said adding that the harder hit cities of New Orleans and Biloxi in neighbouring Mississippi were regular vacation destinations for Mobile residents.
"What happened is so sad."
No sign of life
Deguire managed to save her stock of chocolate by turning up the air conditioning in her shop to full blast.
"I thought my chocolates would be gone, melted," she said.
But outside, in streets lined with old buildings, there were no signs of life.
"With the fuel problem people don't move," Deguire explained. "I go home, I come here, I go home.
A friend had a wedding last night, I couldn't go because it's 24km away.
Over the US long weekend, Mobile residents were panicked about the possibility of running out of petrol and not being able to refill their vehicles.
Some fuel stations have been damaged, others have no electricity to power pumps and refugees from the decimated Mississippi coast are boosting demand for the precious liquid.
Residents wait in line for two or three hours at a time to fill up, as police control the traffic snarl-ups in and around fuel stations, some of which have imposed a $20 limit on petrol purchases.
"First the hurricane, now the fuel problem - it's bad," sighed unemployed Rob Ladd as he waited in line at a petrol station.
Tougher time to come
"The gas price is too high, with the hurricane we have no money," he said.
Ladd's passenger Gavin Jackson feared that tougher times were still to come, in a stricken area of a country already hit by soaring fuel prices following the destruction of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
"I think it's going to go worse, the price will go up," said the telephone salesman. "Three dollars is ridiculous for a gallon (3.8 litres) of petrol."
Restaurants reopening in Mobile's suburbs meanwhile, confronted an onslaught of customers rushing to get hot meals.
"They were (waiting) on our doorstep," said Rod van Orman, one of three managers of the Steak'n'Shake restaurant, adding that nerves were frayed.
"Everybody is tired, tempers are flaring, with the fuel situation and prices going up."
Some McDonalds fast food outlets limited their menus to meals that are quickest to prepare as they battle to cope with lines of customers and only a handful of staff members.
But jewellers Virginia and Leon Wildberger, 80 and 90 years old respectively, are keeping cool heads, even after their house disappeared into the gulf.
"I'm so experienced with hurricanes, I know to move, to get out ... but this was horrible," said Virginia, who has seen her homes destroyed five times in the past.
"I rebuilt five times. We'll build again on the same spot," she said.
- AFP