Ground Zero Hurricane Museum

The museum sits in the 1927 Waveland Elementary School, one of the few structures that survived when the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed directly overhead on August 29, 2005. Ninety-five percent of Waveland was destroyed. The population dropped from 6,674 to under 3,000. The school building that held is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Inside, the exhibits trace Hancock County history from indigenous peoples through the space program — not just a disaster museum, though the storm's story is here. Waveland was the exact point of landfall. What came through that day, and what didn't, tells you what the Coast is made of. The building itself is proof: brick and mortar that stood when almost nothing else did. Admission is free. Open Monday through Saturday. Plan 45 minutes to an hour. You're standing in a town that lost nearly everything and rebuilt anyway. The museum is small, but the fact that it exists at all — in this building, in this town — is the point.