Biloxi, Mississippi: Hurricane Katrina Memorial

This is a large granite block listing names of those who perished during Katrina, and is right off Highway 90 and Main Street.

The Hurricane Katrina Memorial is dedicated to the gulf coast victims who perished in Hurricane Katrina. The memorial was built as a project by the television show Extreme Makeovers Home Edition as one of several projects they have undertaken on the Coast. It was constructed in only five days and was completed February 2006 (can you believe so much time has passed since Katrina?!).

The memorial consists of a mosaic wave, symbolizing Katrina's storm surge, and a black wall with a glass case filled with personal art from Katrina victims. The memorial sits like an oasis of green in the center of downtown at the beach highway. The granite on top of the black wall is the depth of the storm surge at the height of the storm (without additional height of wave action). It's said that the surface of polished black granite will be etched with the names of all the dead and missing victims of Katrina once a final list is released. Another wall spirals from the black granite wall towards a central point along an arc segment that is a golden mean spiral, the geometric construct of both a breaking wave form and the spiral arms of a hurricane.

At the center of the arc spiral is a raised platform with the American flag, a symbol of the hope and defiance shown by the Coast's residents in the face of one of the worst natural disasters to occur in memory. It's touching to see the memorabilia that was donated and is now in the glass case... including a picture of Jesus one of the victims donated, a flag that was one of the only things that survived a destroyed home, and a bronze medallion from a destroyed mansion along the coast. Additional items that were donated but not used in the glass memorial case are buried in a time capsule on the site.

The memorial is set in a cloistered meditation garden that provides an inviting calm, offsetting the somber memorial. I'm so glad I made time to stop by.

Tile mural of a wave, a group of items recovered from after Hurricane Katrina, and a 12 ft black granite slab representing the height of the storm surge in 2005. Also nearby, a seating area around one of the large trees that survived the storm.