Every street in Pass Christian tells a different story of Katrina, each as harrowing as the tales passed down about Camille. Craig Nicaise, 21, a Pass Christian police officer, waited out the storm inside the public library with 12 other officers. They watched a dozen of their police cars circling the building on a current of water. Then one crashed through the front door, made of glass able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. Water poured in and rose quickly. When the back glass door wouldn't open, the officers pulled their guns and fired at least 50 rounds into it, before it shattered. They each then grabbed a cable line and climbed onto the roof, where they spent the next three hours in 130 mile-an-hour winds. "We lost every patrol car," said Nicaise.

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A shaken and emotional Ellen DeGeneres, comedian now living in Burbank, CA, said her 82-year-old aunt had to quickly evacuate her home in Pass Christian, Miss., as Hurricane Katrina headed toward the Gulf Coast. "My aunt has lost everything, she has nothing," DeGeneres told AP Radio Wednesday. "She grabbed four pictures out of her house. She's lost her entire life." DeGeneres, who was born in Metairie, La., said her childhood was filled with weekends at her Aunt Helen Currie’s home, just over the state line from New Orleans. “It’s where I grew up every weekend. I spent all my childhood there,” she said. “Pass Christian … is just gone. There’s not one building left — no church, no nothing.” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has said towns such as Pass Christian, Gulfport and Long Beach are “simply not there” and compared the damage to Hiroshima. Meanwhile, DeGeneres said she is talking to networks about organizing a telethon to raise funds for hurricane victims similar to what was done after the Sept. 11.

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