A few weeks ago I heard about a flea market that was held on the weekend before the first Monday of every month located at the Mississippi-Tennessee State line. I told my wife that we should make a trip and see if we might find something that we could add to our museum. So off we went on a much need road/treasure hunt weekend trip.

We traveled north to Jackson, Miss., and then turned onto the Natchez Trace Parkway. This roadway was first started by Indians around the 1700s. It is now a two lane road that doesn’t allow commercial vehicles, oversized trucks, road signs, utility poles, phone lines or advertisement along the roadway. We traveled the road for over one hundred miles and did not see any paper, water bottles, soda cans or any other form of litter at all. The trees on either side were gorgeous with their full green foliage and had grown over the roadway and the limbs touched each other. It was like driving through a tunnel of trees.

As we got further along the parkway, we started to see trees that had been blown down. As we approached the Jeff Busby Campground, we saw hundreds of trees that had been blown over by what appeared to be a straight line wind. This was the campground were Lt. Wade Sharp of the Covington Police Department had died while protecting his young daughter during the storm. The park was now closed because of the destruction caused by this storm. Throughout this area there was wind damage that appeared to be caused by the straight line winds that had blown through.

A few miles further down the parkway is where some of the deadly tornadoes had struck the area, and it was hard to believe what we were now seeing. All of the trees were gone, no longer standing with their limbs touching the other side. It looked like a timber company had been hired to clear cut the land. For miles, as far as you could see all the trees were gone. At one point, my wife and I both said it looked as if an atomic bomb had been dropped. It was heart wrenching to see this devastation. Then as we traveled several miles further, the trees reappeared, and it looked as if nothing had been touched.

We left the parkway, and while traveling north on a neighboring roadway, we came upon emergency workers and lots of emergency equipment. We couldn’t tell if it was a subdivision, mobile home park or homes that were gone, just piles of debris in some spots and personal belongings scattered across the open field and high upon a hill. We felt for the people that had gone from having homes and places of safety for their families to just the clothes that they have on their backs.

The news reports that hundreds have been killed and hundreds are still missing. They show the pictures on television, and I am sure that most of you have seen them, but I can tell you seeing it first hand is unreal. You cannot believe what you are seeing, and you are also sickened by the sights. I hope that after you read this article, you stop for a minute and say a prayer for all the people whose lives have been affected, and give thanks for what you have and most of all stop complaining about what you don’t have.

Louisiana Treasures Museum is located on Highway 22 west of Ponchatoula. Call Wayne Norwood for more information or tours at 225-294-8352.

Wayne Norwood is a lieutenant with the St. John the Baptist Sheriff’s Department and owner and operator of the Louisiana Treasures Museum.