Return of the live oaks

MSNBC:

If the trees could talk, they would tell us everything.

Silent, gnarled sentries, the live oaks of the Mississippi Gulf Coast have seen it all. Since well before they beckoned Spanish and French explorers with their massive limbs like welcoming arms, the oaks have been dutiful witnesses to the timeless cycle of birth and life and death. And hurricanes.

Of Hurricane Katrina, 20 months after she unleashed her fury, they have two stories to tell. One story is as plain as the leaves on their branches. Denuded by 120 mph winds, the oaks now bristle like happy Chia pets.

“Last summer, you saw no green,” says Bay St. Louis artist and businessman Mark Currier. “This year, look at the live oaks!”

As with the oaks, the outward signs of human recovery are visible all along the coast.

Locals are planning the biggest party they’ve ever thrown to mark the opening of the new $267 million, four-lane Highway 90 bridge between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian to the east. The nearby CSX railroad bridge has been open for a year now and freight trains rumble daily through town.

While the occasional jolting juxtapositions of stairs to nowhere and toilets on slabs remain, the breathtaking piles of debris that clotted the landscape after the storm are gone. The cleanup efforts, subsidized by billions in government spending, are in their final days.

Between Waveland and Bay St. Louis, there are more flavors of fast food than you can shake a stick at and a healthy number of more refined eateries. There is still no stand-alone grocery store in either town, but the Wal-Mart in Waveland, forced into a circus tent after the storm, is back in its building and busting at the seams with everything from pineapples to patio furniture. Kmart has reopened, and a booming business in building materials is being done at a new Lowe’s and Home Depot as well as several outlets that pre-date the storm.

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There is much more.

Bay St. Louis is in Mississippi which probably explains why its recovery is well ahead of New Orleans. The State of Mississippi and its people responded to Katrina with grim determination and without the whining heard across the river in Louisiana.

Live Oak trees are tough too. The USS Constitution, which sits in Boston Harbor got its nick name "Old Ironsides" because British cannon balls bounced off of it hull made from live oak. Besides being tough the curved limbs had a natural bend that made it easier to shape the front of the ship.

Wood from live oak makes attractive furniture but it is difficult to work with. It has very uneven shrinkage as it dries which means when you flatten it to make boards there is a lot of waste. Most woods cut at the mill one inch thick flatten about three quarters of an inch like you typical one by stock. To get a similar final board of live oak, you need to start with a board cut at one and one quarter inches. But they are worth the effort.