Katrina Lends Name To Tent City

Camp Katrina in Waveland, Miss., has a population of 65, give or take a few. Its founding father, if you will, is Sgt. Bo Kring, an Army National Guardsman who was set to ship out to Kuwait until he became a victim of Katrina.

"I got down here, ran out of gas, drew a line in the asphalt and said, 'The buck stops here,' " Kring tells CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

Now, he is de-facto mayor of a growing tent city. All you need to move into Camp Katrina is no place else to go.

"We're family; we're all family," says new camp resident, Vickie Strong.

And if things are running smoothly at the camp, credit the courage of its residents. Camp Katrina was born of desperation and built with whatever its inhabitants could get their hands on because there was no one around to give them a hand.

"Not one time has anybody come here besides just civilians to give us anything," Strong says. "We need FEMA."

Another resident, Bay Bay Pulliam says, "FEMA told us we had to call them to get a case number, then they would call us back. We have no house. If we had a house, we'd have a phone, but we have no house."

One week after the storm, Camp Katrina got its first glimpse of federal aid when FEMA brought these folks — who are desperate to get out of their tents — more tents.

But just as nature abhors a vacuum, this tiny settlement on the edge of a giant parking lot has attracted an entire support system. An Alabama church is cooking up three hot meals a day for 1,200 hungry people. Donated clothes are available for all shapes and sizes, and a state-of-the art 121-bed hospital on wheels is now seeing patients.

While Bowers was there, Kring got called back to duty. He'll be pulling up stakes and moving his family on.

How long Camp Katrina will be there, though, nobody knows.