North Bay Elementary in Bay St. Louis, MS

On Monday, November 7, 2005, North Bay Elementary students and teachers returned to the first "official" day of school since Hurricane Katrina. I was there that day, with my associate Danielle and the eBus Driver, Mitchel. It was crazy busy, and terribly neat, to experience this moment.

North Bay Elementary was one of many of the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District schools to be hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. The school was entirely condemned, and the homes of most the students have similiarily been destroyed. Families are still not back from their evacuations, and many of the students are living with relatives across town or in FEMA trailers on the lawn in front of their homes.

Monday these students and teachers began their journey back to "normalacy" in these altered conditions, admist the rubble and despite the emotions that lie to closely beneath the sruface of everyone we meet. These students are attending school in prefabricated modules linked by a series of boardwarlks that keep them off the mud and sand, and lingering reminents of mold and bacteria, that still plagues the grounds.

Before the school opened, our bus was parked a few yards away near a grassy area that used to be a sports complex and served as a temporary "school" until this official re-opening. That was called "tent school" and brought similiar smiles and excitement to the faces of the students at this elementary school.

I am told the old school, just behind the mobile classroom village, awaits demolition. When I was there it was a zoo of workmen cleaning everything, at the school and across the community. There is audio show and articles linked to this website addy: http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/2005/11/an_emotional_re.html#posts