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On Mississippi’s shore, what Katrina erased not yet replaced

In this July 23, 2015 photo, Efrem Garza stands before his new home built on the lot of his previous house that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and holds a photograph taken by a friend of the remains of that house on South Seashore Avenue in Long Beach, Miss. Before the storm Garza was surrounded by houses and trees, now 10 years later, there are only two houses on that land, as few of the residents returned and rebuilt. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
In this July 23, 2015 photo, Efrem Garza stands before his new home built on the lot of his previous house that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and holds a photograph taken by a friend of the remains of that house on South Seashore Avenue in Long Beach, Miss. Before the storm Garza was surrounded by houses and trees, now 10 years later, there are only two houses on that land, as few of the residents returned and rebuilt. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

By Associated Press 5 min read

LONG BEACH, Miss. (AP) – Between Mississippi’s seashore and the railroad tracks a little ways inland, where Hurricane Katrina all but erased a neighborhood 10 years ago, Efrem Garza and a handful of other homeowners are still resettling a frontier.

Once lined with houses and a small condominium complex, South Seashore Avenue in Long Beach was ravaged by wind and waves in 2005. Running from the beach highway to railroad tracks paralleling the shoreline – a zone of maximum destruction along the Mississippi coast – it was on the front lines of the storm’s fury.

Before Katrina, 10 houses and the condos stood between Garza’s house and the beach highway, U.S. 90. Now only two houses stand there, giving Garza a new, clear view of the Mississippi Sound from the breakfast table in his rebuilt home.

“It’s come back very slowly,” he said.

The storm leveled Garza’s house and others near the beach, pushed a giant wall of debris halfway up the block and flooded the houses closer to the railroad track’s elevated barrier.