 GCN Recovery News Report This
report will constantly be updated as information becomes available The following is from Kathleen Johnson at Katrina Relief in Waveland. Kathleen is a Katrina volunteer and publishes a blog on the Internet of her agency's activities and her observations of the recovery. This is from her July 21st report, which followed a Congressional Delegation visit that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: So whats going on this week you ask? Well, the recovery effort is pretty well left us twiddling our thumbs. The Case Managers have a mile of cases - there are no funds right now. The Case Managers have been reduced to doing intakes to make piles of files on their desks. Lets see - Red Cross is ended. We can not seem to get a straight answer on Salvation Army grants - that story changes daily with today's rendition stating that it might be till the middle of August until the round table will open up. That's right - there are no Round Tables being scheduled at the Hancock Long Term Recovery right now - there are no funds to distribute. The much touted HUD funds turned out to be 35 houses handed out with the hint there might be more - but even that story is changing with every twist and turn with one person at the top hinting that "we got it all wrong". Although the information was handed out at a normal Wednesday coordination meeting and all reporting back reported the "same" story. Gulf Coast Recovery is out of funds and relying on the HUD funds that "might" be released in September and its only initially for 35 homes. All of this information leaking out in bits and pieces and not one complete press release from any one of the organizations in "charge". Why is that? (More Here) Since Hurricane Katrina made landfall three years ago, there have been 300 federal indictments for related fraud in the state - and the number is expected to grow, according to the Clarion Ledger. "We have 1,350 investigations still going," said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Dowdy, who heads the criminal division for the Southern District. "I do anticipate we will have a substantial amount of restitution." In most of the cases, people made false statements to obtain Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster assistance funds or other disaster assistance. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has formally approved the State of Mississippi’s “Ground Zero” action plan, which directs about $200 million of federally awarded Hurricane Katrina recovery funding exclusively to Hancock County. The funding is sourced from a $5.4 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) recovery package that Congress appropriated for Mississippi’s hurricane recovery needs. All CDBG funding is administered through HUD. (More Here) After several months of exhaustive efforts to clear federal environmental and regulatory hurdles, the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) has begun closings and initial check disbursals pertaining to its Small Rental Assistance Program (SRAP). With the first awards, initial projects totaling $6.5 million to help construct almost 200 low and moderate income housing units for renters have now cleared all eligibility requirements and closings have begun with property owners.“This is a major milestone in our Hurricane Katrina recovery initiative, and in the coming months we’re poised to see this program accelerate rapidly,” said Gray Swoope, Executive Director of the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA). (More Here) The Pascagoula City Council has denied allowing Mississippi Cottages to become permanent dwellings, reports the Mississippi Press. The issue was not on the council agenda but was added by City Manager Kay Kell. Kell said the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency has offered to donate 12 to 16 cottages to the city through a pilot project. She said the cottages, which were originally meant to be temporary housing, would be lived in by people MEMA places in the homes for two years. After that time limit, occupants must vacate the home and the city could sell the cottage. (More Here) The Sea Coast Echo reports that Waveland city officials had planned months ago to move the temporary city hall to a new office complex on Hwy. 90, but FEMA representatives say the site still isn't ready. City clerk Robin Gavagnie said Tuesday she was told by FEMA officials that the project was way behind. "We are working with FEMA and other agencies to move forward with Waveland's city hall and FEMA standards need to be met before the city can progress," Mayor Tommy Longo said.Also on Tuesday, Alderman Brian Schmitt proposed an ordinance to place a temporary moratorium on issuing development permits and building permits for some multi-family housing projects within the city of Waveland. (More Here) The total number of
occupied travel trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) has dropped below 4,000 in Mississippi’s three Coastal
counties hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. As of June 27, the trailer
inventory stood at 3,690, notably below the 9,137 units identified in
January 2008.
Since hurricane Katrina Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Farve (Photo right) has worn Bermuda shorts as a reminder to the world of the devastation his city received from the hurricane. But Farve's shorts are wearing thin on many of the city's residents. They feel that it is time for his honor to "Put Those Pants On," and quit subjecting the world to his bony knees. To that end, a website has been created on My Space to encourage other residents to get Farve into some decent clothes. The website is at: http://www.myspace.com/putthepantson The Clarion Ledger reports that in the years since Hurricane Katrina
ravaged the Gulf Coast, state officials have given the school districts
there a recovery cushion - unchanged amounts of state funding, even
though they saw an enrollment drop from storm migration. But that
changes for the 2008-09 school year, when the coastal school districts
will receive state funding proportionate to the number of students
enrolled. That means decreases in Mississippi Adequate Education Program
money by as little as $61,058 in the Picayune School District and as
much as $3.7 million in the Biloxi Public School District. Enrollments
at the schools remain below levels prior to Katrina, but that is
expected to change. Biloxi schools receive money from the city's casinos
and those monies are helping to Finally, nearly three years after Katrina destroyed Gulfport's Jones
Park, there are signs of real improvements at the once heavily used park. The city has established two small ponds in the area that was once only
dirt. The ponds cannot be seen from U.S. 90, or even from the parking
areas inside the park, but they are there, lying low near some trees. The nearby harbor remains empty though boaters do use the boat
launches. Work
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston, June 25, accepted a $350 million plan by the State of Mississippi to produce thousands of affordable housing units for working families who continue to experience a chronic housing shortage in the State. Mississippi’s Long Term Workforce Housing Plan will provide grants and loans to local communities, nonprofit organizations and private developers to produce approximately 12,000 affordable homes in Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, and Pearl River counties. (More Here) The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) has begun sending checks
to 360 Gulf Coast homeowners who’ve qualified for federal grants under
the agency’s “Sold Home Program,” designed to assist some homeowners who
sold their Hurricane Katrina damaged residences before they could apply
for assistance through the broader Homeowner Assistance Program (HAP).
“The Sold Home Program is a way to provide grants to those who’d sold
their damaged property after the storm and who could not obtain
agreement from the new homeowner enabling them to receive the
conventional HAP grant, which, of course, is calculated based on damage
to the applicants primary residence on August 29, 2005, when Hurricane
Katrina made landfall.” said Lee Youngblood, Communications Director for
MDA’s Disaster Recovery Division The Gulfport City Council, following an administration request, has extended the moratorium on issuing building permits for an area of the city that has seen very little recovery. The area is mostly south of the CSX railroad tracks and west of the Island View Casino in Ward 2. Several residents complained about the moratorium that the city issued earlier this year during a recent council meeting. The city seeks to establish building code guidelines for the area currently zoned R2 and include implementation of a variation of the city's Smart Code system. The problem is that the administration has yet to fully define the code for that area and needs more time. Property owners in the area want to start building and can not do so until the city establishes the rules. That will be at least another 45 days, as a result of the council's vote June 17. Gulfport, the state's second largest city, is seen as falling farther and farther behind in recovering from Katrina. (More Here) Debris that was once Harrison County's boardwalk is on its way to a scrap yard. Contractors have finally begun dismantling broken sections of the wood and steel walkway. FEMA is picking up the $10 million tab to haul off and then rebuild the eight miles of wooden boardwalk that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, plans to rebuild the comfort stations along the beach have been in the works for well over a year. But the project has been delayed by elevation issues, insurance questions and most recently a lack of funding. Only a few wooden pieces remain of the six beach comfort stations. The county plans to rebuild the stations. Current plans call for the restroom buildings to cost $1.2 million each. But there's a reason for the seemingly high price tag. They are being built of concrete with a design suitable to withstand future hurricanes. One of the real problems that has persisted since
Katrina is replacing the thousands of old wood frame homes and older
apartments that were the primary housing for poorer and working-class
residents on the Coast. From Pascagoula to Waveland, thousands of these
truly affordable homes were lost and have yet to be replaced. The issues
regarding the replacement of these homes have been many. Most were small
homes that had been in families for generations and rented at low costs
to individuals. In many cases, the homes were in older neighborhoods on
small lots that no longer meet building codes but were grandfathered in
until they were destroyed by Katrina. Additionally, construction and new
elevation requirements are too costly and if built to past requirements,
they are too vulnerable to future hurricanes, making insurance
unavailable or far too expensive. What the whole issue points out is
that there are large numbers of the population that don't make enough
money, nor can they, to afford such homes, and builders cannot construct
them. That leaves the government as the last hope. Efforts to locate new
homes and build in more suitable areas with government Katrina
relief funds have been stymied as well. Many local political leaders and
housing officials are concerned that if the government builds these
homes, these neighborhoods would become blighted, crime-ridden areas
creating even more costly problems that extend well into the future. For
the past decade, the assisted housing areas, the former "projects" have
been torn down throughout cities in the area, even around the country.
The record of such communities is truly a concern and is among the
reasons why new versions have not been constructed. Some people see
government-built housing that would re-create such neighborhoods as a
problem that is not a good solution to the current affordable housing
situation. What is left is the hope that the area's economy can grow to
help more people afford the homes and apartments that can be built in
the area. True Katrina recovery for the area needs a combined effort by
government and business to rapidly strengthen the area's overall
economy. There are also the problems associated with insurance that has
slowed rebuilding of existing structures. Most of the FEMA trailers
still in use are on private property in front of homes that their owners
have yet to find a way to rebuild. Hundreds of Coast residents and visitors turned out for the opening June 3, of the restored 1852 National Historic Landmark, Beauvoir on U.S. 90 in Biloxi. Contractors and volunteers have worked since the August 29, 2005 hurricane to restore the home, which amazingly survived the devastating hurricane. The opening drew well over a thousand visitors and guests to the property. Before the storm, Beauvoir received more visitors than any other heritage house in Mississippi. The $3.9 million restoration returned the home to its appearance during the when U.S. statesman and Confederate President Jefferson Davis retired. (More Here) Nearly three years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, a portion of the federal temporary housing mission has come to an end. Thirty-four of the forty-two temporary housing sites built by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the height of disaster recovery operations were closed as of May 16, 2008. FEMA continues to relocate families to safer and more secure housing. The deadline for federal housing assistance remains until March 1, 2009, said Sid Melton, director of FEMA’s Mississippi Transitional Recovery Office. (More Here) The Mississippi Gulf Coast was devastated by Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005. Now, nearly three years later, state officials said that it will take just as long to dispense the billions of dollars in Katrina aid promised by the federal government. The state is still in the process of distributing $5.48 billion in recovery aid from the federal government. Administrative costs will take up $200 million. Approximately $3.5 billion has been assigned or spent so far. That leaves about $1.7 billion to still be spent on storm recovery, almost three years after Katrina. The Washington Post reports that safety lapses raised risks In trailers for Katrina victims. The Post says that formaldehyde has been found in High Levels; 17,000 people say the homes caused illnesses. (More Here) The
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) has announced that their
program to provide Mississippi Gulfport is the state's second largest city, population 72,464 (2005 estimate). Biloxi trails at 50,209 (2005 estimate), but the two cities, which both saw major destruction from hurricane Katrina in 2005, are a study in contrast when it comes to rebuilding and their receipt of Federal Emergency Management Agency re-imbursement funds. GCN contacted FEMA regarding the total amount of re-imbursement funds the two Coast cities are to receive. FEMA has obligated over $190 million for repairs in Gulfport. This includes many project such as City Hall, Jones Park and Gulfport Harbor. Biloxi will receive some $490 million in FEMA re-imbursement money, nearly a half billion dollars for repairs and rebuilding city services and infrastructure. This money includes such projects as the Biloxi Point Cadet and Biloxi Harbor, and a substantial amount of infrastructure repairs for water and sewer systems throughout the city. (More Here) Red Cross officials in New Orleans say the agency is nearing the end of its storm-relief funds. It has given nearly $200 million to help the longterm recovery of victims of the 2005 hurricanes. ( More Here) Hancock County officials say that the county's finances are slowly recovering from the losses of Hurricane Katrina. WLOX TV reports that county officials seriously feared bankruptcy shortly after the hurricane, but progress in the area and careful management has tipped the county in favor of solvency. (More Here)
USA Today reports that
Hurricane Katrina appears to have triggered a sharp rise in serious
school discipline problems throughout Mississippi, new research finds —
for students who were displaced by the 2005 storm and those who weren't.
The results come from an analysis of state data released this week by
researchers at the University of Southern Concrete will soon replace the Katrina-destroyed beach boardwalk along U.S. 90 in Harrison County. The Harrison County Board of Supervisors awarded the Pedestrian Pathway repair project to Coleman Hammons Construction Company. The company is a major player of construction projects in Mississippi. The company, based in Brandon, Mississippi, will replace the old timber boardwalk with a new concrete walkway. The total cost of the project is more than $10 million. Work to remove the old timber boardwalk has gotten underway. The new concrete boardwalk is to be completed late in 2009. Governor Haley Barbour the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and Jonathan Reckford, chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity, were in west Gulfport April 30, to inspect and tour a small Habitat for Humanity housing complex.Following Hurricane Katrina, the Amir and the People of Qatar donated $100 million to establish the Qatar Katrina Fund, of which nearly $30 million was contributed to Mississippi coastal organizations, including Habitat of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. (More Here) Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway recently told a WLOX news reporter that he was growing concerned about the slow pace of business recovery along the beach in his city. While most people consider Biloxi to recovering well, the rebuilding of the beach businesses is noted to be poor throughout Harrison County. Part of the reason is the high costs of insurance since Katrina, the other issues reflect the pace of rebuilding U.S. 90, which should be completed by the end of the year. Then there are issues related to rebuilding some water and sewer services. That work is also progressing, though it is far from complete in Gulfport and in portions of Biloxi.
Several
Coast cities have become alarmed that pending new flood elevation maps
from FEMA will require all new homes in many areas to be constructed
high in the air on stilts, homes significantly higher than in the past.
Where homes were once allowed at 8 feet above ground level, homes in
some areas identified in the maps would have to be raised nearly 26 feet
to qualify Two years after $640 million in Hurricane Katrina recovery money was earmarked for new water and sewer infrastructure, not one sewer line has been installed and only two projects are under construction. Gov. Haley Barbour recently told local utility authorities the work should be progressing faster. Harrison County has $243 million worth of work earmarked in the program, which uses federal Community Development Block Grants, but to date no construction has begun. The utility authority over Harrison County, which is made up of elected officials, asked the nine local firms handling the job to move up their target completion date. "I feel like we are sitting on our thumbs," said Long Beach Mayor Billy Skellie, a member of the utility authority. Almost 3,000 Mississippi Coast homeowners whose primary residences suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge will soon begin receiving grants to elevate their homes above new federal flood requirements. The Mississippi Development Authority began sending the first batch of checks the first week of April. The agency is telephoning other homeowners to schedule closing on their applications. The program, an extension of the Homeowner Assistance Program, (HAP) ceased taking applications Saturday, March 15, in accordance with the deadline for receiving all Homeowner Assistance Applications. The Elevation Grant Program is a construction initiative where the federal government requires that each site complies with all applicable environmental and building code mandates. (More Here)
The new bridge was initially scheduled to open in mid April but contractors, with weeks of good weather behind them, got the bridge fully opened earlier. (More Here) One of the
major problems since Katrina has been the lack of housing for area
residents and those still in FEMA trailers. But since the storm,
thousands of apartment units have been under construction and many
In 2007, Biloxi was about 400 apartments short of the number of unsubsidized apartments it had before Katrina. Biloxi officials say they expect that with the new construction, the city will soon have more apartments than it did prior to Katrina. Meanwhile, high insurance costs are driving many residents away from the Coast. According to a recent survey in Ocean Springs, insurance rate increases of nearly 300 percent are staggering residents and businesses. (More Here)
“By moving these families into Mississippi Cottages, we’re successfully providing many coastal residents with a more comfortable and certainly safer housing alternative while they work to rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina,” Governor Barbour said. “This is a milestone for the state’s ongoing recovery efforts.” The 2,000th unit was placed in Gulfport, making this the 667th family in Harrison County to receive a cottage. Hancock County has 848 families living in Mississippi Cottages, Jackson County has 480 families living in Mississippi Cottages and Pearl River County, which was recently added to the program, has five families living in units. Meanwhile, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency is notifying applicants for Mississippi Cottages that the program is ending and no additional cottages will be supplied. (More Here) FEMA reports that more temporary housing sites on the Coast are shutting down. Seven FEMA sites on the Coast from Jackson County to Hancock County closed by the end of March and another six shut down in June. FEMA built 43 sites, known as emergency group or group sites, with cooperation from local governments. By far, most of the FEMA trailers in use, however, remain on private property, in front of homes that have yet to be rebuilt. As of May 28th, there were 6,384 FEMA trailers and mobile homes in use in South Mississippi. The Coast's population is slowly recovering from the losses due to Katrina, according to government reports. According to the government, more than 32,000 people left the three Coast counties after the storm, but between July 2006 and July 2007, about 6,000 returned. Hancock County grew by 2 percent, the most significant percentage increase among the three coastal counties. According to the Sun Herald the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce commissioned an independent population survey about seven months after Katrina, which suggested more than 26 percent of the county's pre-storm residents had not returned. At the time, almost 3,000 Waveland residents were gone, Bay St. Louis lacked about 1,500 people, and countywide, more than 13,000 had not returned. The county's total population after the storm was about 34,000.Today, the U.S. Census Bureau says 39,687 people live in Hancock County. Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway says he thinks it will take another eight
years for Biloxi to fully recover from Hurricane Katrina. The mayor made
his comments at a recent ward meeting in north Biloxi. "It took over a
year to clean up the mess," Holloway said, and it will take three to
five more years to replace the infrastructure in the parts of the city
affected by the storm surge. "It's going to be a gridlock in a lot of
areas," he cautioned. The work will tie up streets and he said there
will be "a lot more inconvenience we're going to have to go through." Homeowners with elevated structures who lived inside the federally designated flood zone when Hurricane Katrina struck August 29, 2005, may qualify for up to $150,000 in federal grant funding through Mississippi’s Homeowner Assistance Program, Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) officials report.
In what is clearly great news for
Katrina-devastated Pass In a development directly connected to the post-Katrina recovery, a federal grand jury has begun an investigation into a Katrina Homeowner Grant of Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr.
There are continuous news reports and FEMA press releases that
describe the billions of dollars of federal aide There are growing reports that private contributions for Katrina recovery are not reaching the ground as well. Some volunteer organizations have been cut-out of funding as there has been is an effort by private-sector individuals to create new non-profit 501-3c organizations to control where the relief money is going. This consolidation under new non-profit private corporations is not very visible to the news media and is being conducted in the background in the Mississippi Coast area. Partly as a result of these new "consolidated" groups, money provided by people contributing to the recovery is not going to where it is intended. There has been from the days after Katrina a huge need for a state-organized Katrina Recovery Fund administrative organization. So far, only private organizations have being set up and those are not very visible in their activities. The money trail has become nearly impossible to follow. In a recent case, where Katrina donated funds were to be used to purchase a building, more than three new 501-3c's were formed to administer the transactions, several to be operated only temporarily. Real leadership on this issue has yet to occur at the state level and there is no centralized oversight over these donated monies in place, neary three years after Katrina slammed into the Coast. There are concerns that some donated monies are being bled off to administrators, lawyers and accountants instead of reaching groups that are actually doing the field work helping people recover from the hurricane. Meanwhile, Since Hurricane Katrina, medical care for residents has been poor
with doctors and hospitals short staffed or often overwhelmed with
patients. The situation for mental care has been far worse. The Coast
has high numbers of elderly and elderly visitors. Families with
Alzheimer sufferers and those who have other mental illnesses have had
few resources to draw upon. GCN is very much aware of nearly a complete
collapse of the Coast's mental care services since the hurricane and the
system is still functioning without the resources needed. Mental health
providers continue to report problems in lack of staffing, facilities,
and funding for handling this continued crisis on the Coast. Families
are also still dealing with confusing and conflicting information, and
inadequate facilities for the caring of mentally and physically disabled
family members. Five nursing homes were destroyed on the Coast by
Katrina and none have been replaced as the Coast nears the three year
mark since Katrina. Long term care for Alzheimer's
sufferers is acutely short and what facilities that are available are
far from the Coast. One Biloxi hospital shut down just earlier in
January citing a "lack of patients." What is lacking is not patients,
but money as high health insurance costs have resulted in many residents
not having the money for health care, or insurance. It is not uncommon
for people who have insurance to wait for weeks for an appointment,
forcing residents with illnesses to seek costly emergency room services
at the hospitals that remain. Biloxi’s casino industry reported its largest ever annual gross gaming revenue in 2007, more than a billion dollars, according to figures compiled by the city. The city’s eight casinos reported total gross gaming revenue of $1.007 billion for 2007, a year in which nine months saw revenue of more than $80 million, including an all-time monthly high of $97 million in July. (More Here) 2008 began with thousands of Coast homeowners still in FEMA trailers and the Mississippi Coast facing a housing crisis, especially for elderly and low to modest income residents. The situation on housing is interfering with the influx of workers for the typical jobs long associated with the Coast. Among the key challenges to housing is the high cost of insurance that has skyrocketed since Katrina, which has slowed the sales of homes and the reconstruction of the Coast in the hardest hit communities. There is progress however as the billions of dollars of federal reconstruction aid is beginning to be seen, but it will be years before many areas of the Coast will seem "normal." What is evident is that residents struggle to get used to communities that have yet to make their way back. Biloxi and the Coast communities east into Jackson County are making the best progress. Still, there are vast areas where little remains except open fields where neighborhoods once stood. Much of the beachfront from Gulfport to Pass Christian along U.S. 90 remains empty. Piles of debris are far less than in the immediate months after Katrina, but they remain to add a unkempt look to many of the Coast's communities. The stark, empty slabs of homes and businesses remain bleak reminders of the past. This constant reminder wears heavily on residents who know their lives have truly not returned to normal. Many residents that live just inland try not to visit the immediate coastline as it still bares the scars of Katrina. The Mississippi Department of Transportation opened all four lanes of the new Bay St. Louis bridge Jan 8. The bridge was completed under a $266.8 million design-build contract with Granite Archer Western (GAW). The bridge opened two lanes of traffic on May 17, 2007, approximately ten months after the original bridge was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
More of Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr's "decorative" street lights Badly devastated Waveland has hired a project manager to oversee millions of dollars of construction projects that include such items as a new City Hall complex, fire and police station, library and a business incubator. Overall, the project manager will be overseeing some 13 projects citywide. Waveland lost all of its public buildings from Katrina's storm surge and winds Aug. 29, 2005. Since then, the city has been operating out of temporary trailers. The project manager is Kurt Evans of Digital Engineering. He told aldermen in a workshop in a recent meeting that he'll be providing them with a monthly update on the projects and their millions of dollars' worth of funding, which comes primarily from FEMA and MEMA funds and Community Development Block Grants. Meanwhile, the city of Pass Christian is finally moving into the rebuilding mode. That city also lost its public buildings, including City Hall, police and fire department buildings and library. Its downtown business district was also completely devastated. But since the hurricane, the harbor has been reopened and a restaurant at the harbor built. Hancock Bank's downtown branch has been restored and opened.The Coast's first beachfront gas and convenient store opened this spring in Pass Christian. All of the gasoline stations from Biloxi to Pass Christian were lost from Katrina. Two gas stations opened just before summer in Biloxi on U.S. 90 and another is nearly complete. In Pass Christian, work crews are about nearing completion of a new water and sewer system in the city, which was lost from the storm. Still, in devastated Pass Christian, Waveland and Bay St. Louis, many neighborhoods have yet to see any real recovery and thousands on people have yet to rebuild homes. In Hancock County, the board of supervisors only recently modified rules on how septic tanks are approved in rural areas of the county. The existing rules delayed recovery and rebuilding for property owners. Biloxi, which is clearly leading the recovery among the Coast's most
damaged cities has now issued more than a billion dollars in permits for
commercial and residential construction since Hurricane Katrina.
More than two years after
Hurricane Katrina devastated
As everyone living on the Coast already knows, the cost of living here has sharply risen since Katrina. Housing is the main reason it has become much more expensive to live in South Mississippi, experts say. Insurance costs have escalated, making it more difficult to buy a home, and rent also has gone up because of the scarcity of apartments and houses. A study by the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute added figures to the obvious regarding the slow progress in restoring housing on the Coast. The study found that about 60 percent of the region's housing, including 5,700 rental units, was damaged by the storm, the report said. Also, 60 percent of the region's rental stock was located in the hard-hit coastal areas of Pascagoula, Gulfport and Biloxi, re-searchers concluded. Ninety-five percent of the region's multi-family properties were located either on the Coast or adjacent to the region. Researchers said that the Aug. 29, 2005, storm compounded the pre-Katrina shortage of affordable housing and the lack of affordable multifamily housing is stalling the recovery. A big concern is the lack of housing for workers helping to rebuild the area, and for Coast residents who need affordable rental homes and apartments, which have yet to be built. The Rand study noted that it may be four to five years before such homes and apartments can be constructed. A review by GCN of a recent Gulf Coast apartment guide found that most apartments on the Coast are now renting for between $800 and $1,200 a month, which is too expensive for many people, including workers in the service-industry who earn just over minimum wage. The housing problem is most acute for residents in Hancock County. The City of Biloxi has begun work to restore its harbor, which was destroyed by Katrina over two years ago. Contractors are on the site and will clear the harbor of debris, restore electrical service and rebuild piers. In Gulfport work to restore that harbor is supposed to begin in July, but so far, there is no evidence there is work underway...Boat owners throughout the Coast use have few places since the hurricane to moor their boats. Hurricane Katrina did more than destroy homes in communities across the Coast. It also destroyed the underground stuff that makes a home possible, such as water and sewer lines. Work to replace water and sewer lines are underway in Pass Christian, Long Beach, Bay St. Louis and Waveland. In Waveland, the damages were extreme and is among the main reasons that rebuilding has gone so slow. The federal government has stepped up to plate to provide disaster funding to the tune of nearly $60 million dollars to rebuild Waveland's water and sewer lines, as well as natural gas lines that were torn up by Katrina. But the work, which began in late summer 2007, is also creating havoc. Construction crews are tearing up what is left of the roads in many of the most devastated areas leaving, for months to come, dirt roads that when it rains, creates muddy, nearly impossible to travel, streets for residents that still live in the area, or are seeking to rebuild.
Everywhere there is still sharp evidence that the recovery isn't so much a recovery, but a process that has only begun. Where people were saying earlier it might take five years for the area to look normal, the talk is now ten to fifteen years. That isn't recovery, it is a shame. A big issue that remains for 2008 is where is the money. GCN has been reporting for months that billions of dollars allocated by the federal government to help cities and people recover has not been hitting the ground fast enough. There are many reasons for this and none of them good. The problems with the money stem from everything from a slow bureaucracy, to concerns over fraud. Federal officials are also worried that some of the money is also finding its way improperly to the hands of individuals and some companies through good ol' boy networks well established in south Mississippi and in Louisiana. This cronyism is part of the culture that has been difficult to weed out over the years. Mississippi has poor laws and inadequate regulations to ferret out corruption and observers have worried that the relief effort is a windfall for some people. That is not to say the federal help and the donated money is being wasted. The scale of the disaster is such that it takes great effort to identify and work through the problems. For example, many people cannot rebuild their homes because much of the coastline lost water and sewer systems that have to be rebuilt. Such infrastructure needs are difficult to implement, costly to design and repair, and always take longer than anticipated.
Gulfport is slowly moving forward to build facades on empty and derelict downtown buildings. Officials hope the facelift will stimulate interest in the area. Gulfport's downtown was heavily damaged by Katrina's storm surge, but the buildings were also empty for the most part before the hurricane. GulfCoastNews.com received a prestigious award during the Online News Association annual meeting held in Washington, Oct. 6-8, 2006. During award ceremonies Oct. 8, GCN received the ONA Excellence in Service Journalism Award for small websites for its GCN Survivor Connector Database. "This is truly a deep honor," said Keith Burton, GCN's owner and editor. "The GCN database was created to help people that were relocated from evacuations during Hurricane Katrina, but I never realized at the time how it would help so many people." (More Here)
|
somewhat offset the loss. (
on the harbor is said to get underway in July, but it will
be many months before it is a harbor again. Currently it is mostly a huge
shoreline lake. (
.
(
Cottages has ended. This announcement comes as many residents in
FEMA trailers and apartments were counting on the cottages to be their
next home. According to MEMA, 
Ever since
hurricane Katrina, restaurants along the beach highway have been few.
The busy road was filled with all types of places to eat before the
hurricane and now some are coming back with more on the way. The latest
to rebuild is McDonald's in Biloxi's downtown area. The new restaurant
near the Hard Rock and Beau Rivage casinos opened last week and as you
would expect, it is a bit higher off the ground. (
Mississippi. The data suggest that the hurricane disrupted the lives of
students in ways that educators may not have initially recognized. (
Biloxi officials have initiated a review of the true
number of condominium projects that appear to dead in the water. This is
after finding that some ten major condo developers have allowed building
permits to expire. Officials and developers are citing a slowdown in the
overall economy and the difficulty in getting money as a result of the
banking industry’s sub-prime mortgage problems and overall banking
problems. But the national slowdown that is affecting the city hasn’t
slowed down progress at a number Biloxi condo sites that have come out of
the ground. Prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and even after, the city
seemed poised for a huge building boom. And that is still the case, but
not as great as the permit filings now indicate. (
the community for future flood insurance from the federal government.
Coast cities worry that people won't return to build such homes, and the
sky-high homes would change the character of their communities to towns
on stilts. (
The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) promised they would
have all of the lanes open April 7th and their word was true. Coast residents
now have what is truly a picturesque bridge across Biloxi's Bay Bay
between Biloxi and Ocean Springs.
are
close to completion. Here is a list of apartment units under
construction in cities in Harrison County.. 
Governor
Haley Barbour reports that 2,000 Mississippi families have moved out of
their FEMA provided travel trailers and mobile homes and into
Mississippi Cottages. 
Even after nearly
three years there remains key city buildings that have
yet to be repaired or rebuilt since Katrina, but there is progress on
this front. Waveland is planning a new City Hall complex near U.S. 90
and now Pass Christian is in the final planning stages for a new City
Hall and library. Both of those cities had all of their public buildings
completely destroyed by Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005. D'Iberville will also
have a renovated City Hall and library. Meanwhile, Gulfport has
yet to announce when a renovation to its downtown City Hall
for projects to rebuild the Coast. While some of this money is reaching
local communities, the vast amount is still held up with federal and
state administrators. When people read these stories in newspapers
around the country, even here on the Coast, it is easy to assume that
work for many repairs are underway, that is not necessarily the case.
The money doesn't get released when FEMA approves work. That is only
part of the process, which takes months of work by city and county
officials who must submit project work orders to the state and FEMA to
get approval. This process is so intricate that many times local
officials have to resubmit paperwork, delaying work even farther. People
also have to understand that the FEMA programs are mostly re-imbursement
programs. The cities must spend their money, if the they have it, first,
then they get the FEMA money.
are going up on U.S. 90. Work crews began installing some of the new
lights along the roadway after months of groundwork, which included
burying conduit, constructing pedestal bases and wiring electrical
cable. The new lights are finished in black paint and hang from poles
nearly 40 feet from the ground. Mayor Brent Warr says all of the lights
should be installed by the end of April. The often delayed lighting
project got underway in August 2007 and was to have been finished by
December.
Since
Sept 1, 2005, the city has issued a total of $1.086 billion in permits
overall. Of that number, 50 percent -- $542 million -- was for
non-casino and non-condo construction. In terms of residential
construction, $452 million in permits has been issued for residential
work, with $51.5 million for new single-family homes, accounting for 341
new homes permitted since Katrina. While the number of new home permits
is impressive, the city lost nearly 6,500 homes during Katrina, many in
the city's Point Cadet area in east Biloxi. Most of the those homes have
not been rebuilt, nor are they likely to be rebuilt as the lot sizes,
insurance costs and new elevation requirements have made reconstruction
prohibitively expensive.
The
long-awaited FEMA elevation and flood maps were finally released to the
public Nov. 16. These official maps reflect the areas most sensitive to
future storms and flooding on the Coast and have been needed to help
cities, residents and the insurance industry know where to best adjust
how and where people will build and what it will cost. Residents
know the areas all too well as many of the areas remain empty of homes
and businesses. For the most part, large sections of the Coast in
communities from Jackson County to Hancock County have significant lands
that are subject to big hurricanes. The FEMA maps are the most detailed
ever for the region and they will help communities develop building
codes and built height requirements for the future. Cities are
being required to make the tougher standards or face the loss of future
FEMA support. (
Also,
since the previous, badly-damaged, system has been shut down, residents in
the area have been provided with plastic tanks to collect dirty water, and
sewage from their homes. These tanks are in the front yards on the surface
and are somewhat translucent. You can see what is inside them. The tanks
are placed in the front of the homes, connected to the sewer pipes from
the homes. They also don't hold much and the contents have to be pumped
out of the tanks sometimes several times a week. A household with kids
will quickly fill the tanks. That means pump trucks are now as common as
garbage trucks also some streets, but the work pumping the tanks does not
move as swiftly. The tanks are translucent to allow residents and pump
crews to quickly see the level. (
Meanwhile, it
also appears Gulfport is falling further behind on Katrina recovery. As of
mid July 2008, no repairs
have started yet on