GULFPORT — A Hurricane Hunter flyby Friday opened the 20th anniversary ceremony of Hurricane Katrina at the Barksdale Pavilion in Gulfport, filled with hundreds of people who each has a story of where they were on Aug. 29, 2005, and how Katrina changed their lives.

It ended about 90 minutes later with the young choir from St. James Catholic Church in Gulfport joining songwriter Steve Azar in an energetic rendition of “One Mississippi,” the state song.

It was as if the ceremony and the many photographs and memories brought out and examined this week ripped off the bandage to the pain of Katrina and the loss of 238 people.

Here are the five most memorable quotes of the day from Gulfport:

“We’re so blessed. We’re so fortunate,” said Gulfport Mayor Hugh Keating, whose home was flooded with 8 feet of water during Katrina. “We survived, and we thrived,” he said of south Mississippi.

He and all the speakers saluted the volunteers who came from across the country and even the world to help with the recovery — “960,000. I had no idea there was that many,” Keating said.

The speaker’s platform, set up where the storm surge rushed in to devastate Gulfport, is close to the Mississippi Aquarium and Island View Casino, which opened since the storm. The State Port of Gulfport was rebuilt and the downtown is revitalized, with a lively restaurant scene and offices.

“We coined a new word after Katrina — ‘slabbed,’” said Haley Barbour, who was governor at the time Katrina struck. From Waveland, where after the devastating storm surge “every structure was destroyed,” he said, to Pascagoula, 80 miles away from the center and still with so many homes lost, “It looked like the hand of God had wiped away the Coast — utter destruction,” he said.

The audience gave Barbour and his wife, Marsha, standing ovations. She was at Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg the day before Katrina and “came down with the troops,” her husband said. She was on the Coast, making sure needs were met, for months.

“We are always better together,” said Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. director of national intelligence, who greeted the crowd with an “Aloha.” Listening to the stories from Katrina on the 20th anniversary reminded her of the fires that destroyed Lahaina on Maui in her native state of Hawaii, she said, when 102 people died and the area was left with total devastation.

We will always remember those lost, she said, “But my hope is that we remain inspired, as we stand here 20 years later, by what came after, and remember the unity that we felt, remember the strength that came from all of us coming together as neighbors, as friends, as colleagues, as Americans, that allowed us to get through these historic disasters.”

“Together, we proved you should never bet against Mississippi,” said Gov. Tate Reeves. At the time, Katrina was five times the size of any natural disaster to hit the United States, he said.

People returned home to find nothing but “steps to nowhere,” every other trace of their home gone. Their churches, schools and offices also were damaged and destroyed.

Sen. Trent Lott and Sen. Thad Cochran fought for federal funds, working with state officials and Gov. Barbour to bring south Mississippi back, he said. “Everyone knew who was in charge, and that was Gov. Barbour,” he said. “He never once wavered. He never once quit.”

If Mississippi only built the Coast back to what it was, the state would have failed, was Barbour’s mantra after Katrina and the vision for south Mississippi today. The priorities initially were homes, jobs and schools, and in the 20 years since, south Mississippi has seen great business growth.

“Hurricane roulette,” is how Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann terms it. “Sooner or later it will be our time,” he said, but Mississippi is better prepared than it was for Katrina. Homes and offices were built back stronger and, “We have money set aside in the state,” he said. Mississippi has $1 billion in the windpool between cash and reinsurance for another major storm that one day will come.