Ms. Melissa Hootselle
Melissa Hootselle teaches 11th and 12th grade ESOL students from all over the world. Many of her students have lived through catastrophic or dangerous weather events, so they understand the experiences of survivors of Hurricane Katrina which hit the United States Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Ms. Hootselle's family is from Mississippi, and she has a lot of friends on the coast. Many of these friends were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. One friend, Mr. Arthur Pontas, was willing to share his story with the class. Ms. Hootselle invites you to commemorate the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by reading his story in "Cultural Connections."
"I will never forget visiting my friends in Ocean Springs, MS, six months after Katrina hit. Nothing was recognizable. Gorgeous old homes along the beachfront were completely wiped out. Huge pieces of the bridge connecting Ocean Springs to Biloxi were stacked up and leaning like a pile of dominoes. Debris was still piled at the curb in every yard. In Gautier, homes were destroyed two and three blocks from the waterfront. One of the saddest things for me as a part-time artist is the loss of artwork by the family of Walter Anderson. They had stored thousands of his watercolors in a safe supposedly out of reach of the storm surge, which 'couldn't be as bad as Camille.' They were wrong. Thousands of these irreplaceable pieces of art were completely destroyed by water damage. Another friend had just hung thirty original oil paintings representing six years of work at a local college in Gulfport. Wandering the site of the school after the storm, he was able to find three pieces. I am glad my friends and family are safe and sound. Mississippians are a tough bunch!" shared Ms. Hootselle
Ms. Hootselle has two boys aged nine and eleven who keep her on her toes. She used to be a salesperson, but she thought that teaching kids would be a lot more fun, which it is!
"I will never forget visiting my friends in Ocean Springs, MS, six months after Katrina hit. Nothing was recognizable. Gorgeous old homes along the beachfront were completely wiped out. Huge pieces of the bridge connecting Ocean Springs to Biloxi were stacked up and leaning like a pile of dominoes. Debris was still piled at the curb in every yard. In Gautier, homes were destroyed two and three blocks from the waterfront. One of the saddest things for me as a part-time artist is the loss of artwork by the family of Walter Anderson. They had stored thousands of his watercolors in a safe supposedly out of reach of the storm surge, which 'couldn't be as bad as Camille.' They were wrong. Thousands of these irreplaceable pieces of art were completely destroyed by water damage. Another friend had just hung thirty original oil paintings representing six years of work at a local college in Gulfport. Wandering the site of the school after the storm, he was able to find three pieces. I am glad my friends and family are safe and sound. Mississippians are a tough bunch!" shared Ms. Hootselle
Ms. Hootselle has two boys aged nine and eleven who keep her on her toes. She used to be a salesperson, but she thought that teaching kids would be a lot more fun, which it is!
