PORT TOWNSEND — Arlene Johnson will wake up inside the Bay St. Louis, Miss., senior-citizens center this morning, hoping she can go outside later today to see what her town looks like in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.
Johnson and a small group of Bay St. Louis neighbors have been in the makeshift shelter since the weekend, waiting for Gustav to pass across the Gulf Coast — which it did Labor Day morning.
She is one of several people came to know people in Bay St. Louis’ Washington state “sister city,” Port Townsend, after the latter sent relief supplies and materials and, later, construction crews and more supplies to help Bay St. Louis rebuild.
Then Gustav struck.
Johnson and other residents of Bay St. Louis were staying in shelters following mandatory evacuations from their homes.
“Right now we have about 25 people in our shelter,” Johnson told the Peninsula Daily News via her cell phone Monday evening.
“We really weren’t advertised as a shelter, but there are about 200 homes under water.”
Johnson said wind gusts of up to 75 mph had been coming and going throughout Monday — but it was the flooding that caught townsfolk by surprise.
“The flooding was worse than we expected because it just happened so fast,” Johnson said.
“My brother had to swim out of his house.
“We didn’t expect it in Katrina, and we didn’t expect it this time, either.”
