Operation Photo Rescue: Restoring Photos Damaged by Hurricane Katrina

March 3, 2006 4:11 PM

Operation Photo Rescue: In an effort to help the residents of Pass Christian, MS in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, photojournalist Becky Sell and photo editor Dave Ellis have embarked on a mission to recover the photos and memories that would be lost to the storm. Read about it from Day 1, or hear about the backstory.
posted by tozturk (7 comments total)

When my wife found her mother's wedding album in her destroyed home in Waveland, Mississippi, we spent two weeks carefully peeling the photos out, pressing them flat, reproducing the ones that were almost completely destroyed, and hunting down duplicates from her uncle who had a lot of the same pictures in his home in Seattle.

For her anniversary, about six weeks after the storm, we presented her with her wedding album as a gift. There's really no feeling like it in the whole world.
posted by ColdChef at 4:19 PM on March 3, 2006

I drove through Pass Christian right after New Year's. It's gone. You turn right at some point and leave the beach road, and it's still gone, three miles back. Swimming pools and Live Oaks. There's still stuff blown into the treetops along I-10.
posted by atchafalaya at 5:03 PM on March 3, 2006

is george sitting on trent lott's porch yet?
posted by quonsar at 8:35 PM on March 3, 2006

Holy crap. This just blows me away. I have to get involved in this. Finally, all those hours Gimping away on the 'puter can be put to good use, instead of just making funny pictures of Bush.
posted by Biblio at 8:38 PM on March 3, 2006

ColdChef : that picture - and the 'Cats Have Survived' picture - made my night. God bless, and take care of the city that I'll never return to.
posted by suckerpunch at 10:38 PM on March 3, 2006

This is very generous -- I was wondering, since it's what I first thought the project was about, whether there's also a program to recover lost photo albums due to the hurricane and find owners online. Anyone know?
posted by VulcanMike at 3:13 PM on March 5, 2006

i'll be in pass christian for a work week just three weeks from now. part of my crew will be performing work at the library. i'm forwarding post this to them.
posted by 3.2.3 at 9:25 PM on March 5, 2006