Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Lives were lost. Families were torn apart.

To those of us that lived there, the world would never be the same. Not a day went by for at least two years where I didn’t have a conversation that started with “So, how much damage did you get?”

I stayed on for another four years and watched with pride as our Gulf Coast slowly began to rebuild and to heal. Somewhere in the middle of year two, we found other things to talk about. That’s when I knew that the Gulf Coast would be OK.

Despite our rebuilding and our regrowth as a strong South Mississippi community, I must admit that it still stings a bit when each year’s anniversary pays homage to New Orleans and their plight and ignores the devastation that still exists on the Gulf Coast Gulf. Katrina didn’t hit New Orleans. Katrina punched the Mississippi Gulf Coast leading to massive flooding in New Orleans.

I never expected the Mississippi Gulf Coast to be overlooked by a Mississippi news outlet. Today, I picked up a newspaper because I knew that a co-worker had been interviewed by the Post. She evacuated New Orleans the day before Katrina and never returned, having lost all her belongings and her job.

I expected to find her story mixed in with stories of Mississippi residents and how the storm affected them. I would have never imagined the front page and internal two-page spread to be all about New Orleans residents. Of the nearly three pages of stories, there were only seven paragraphs that mentioned Mississippi residents. And of the six stories of now Vicksburg residents who were forced out of their homes by Katrina, none were about Mississippians.

I know of at least 10 families currently living in Vicksburg that were residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005 (including myself and my parents, both of our homes sustaining major damage in towns on the Mississippi Gulf Coast that were obliterated).

A good friend of mine that grew up in Vicksburg lived in Gulfport at the time and lost everything except some clothes and a few pictures.

And what about the stories of the many who evacuated to Vicksburg and then went home to face the disaster and to live through the rebuilding years that followed? Where are the stories of those people? Where was the tribute to the lives of Mississippians that were lost in the storm? The information on the many who have never been accounted for? What about the Gulf Coast children who will never be the same?

Last Sunday’s Vicksburg Post is a slap in the face to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I am so disappointed in my hometown newspaper.

Jana Persons

Vicksburg