Once the Driver of the
State's Economy, Mississippi Coast Now a Big Stretch of Rubble
September 01, 2005 — By Holbrook Mohr, Associated Press
GULFPORT, Miss. — From the
coin-spitting slot machines to the stately Southern beach cottages,
Mississippi's coastline has long been the economic engine for the entire
state. But every industry along the coast has been devastated by
Hurricane Katrina in a way that will take years, if not decades, to
recover.
Hotels collapsed into rubble and flashy casinos were tossed across
highways. Shrimping boats were violently slammed into land. Shipyards
were heavily damaged, oil rigs were destroyed.
In the short term, survivors are concerned with caring for the injured,
burying the dead and restoring the basics of water, food, power and
communications. In the long term, many are worried that the storm has
made the area uninhabitable.
"I lost everything. We can't even find my car," said Landon Williams, a
19-year-old construction worker in Biloxi whose apartment complex
collapsed, killing several neighbors. "I'm looking through this wreckage
to see if I can find anything that's mine. If not. I'm moving on. I
can't take it here any more -- not after this."
About 14,000 people work in the dozen casinos along the Mississippi
coastline. Each casino has a land-based hotel, and thousands more work
in those. All were closed and some were damaged beyond repair.
State Gaming Commission director Larry Gregory said the state loses
about $500,000 in tax revenue each day the coastal casinos are closed.
In 2004, Mississippi Tax Commission figures showed casino revenues
statewide -- including the coast casinos and others along the
Mississippi River -- were $2.7 billion, behind only Nevada and New
Jersey.
Another hard-hit area was at the Northrop Grumman shipyards in Gulfport
and Pascagoula, which employ 12,000 people in the state.
Every city on the coast took heavy damage, but Waveland, a beach town of
7,000 that was heavily damaged by Hurricane Camille in 1969, had some of
the worst, with nearly every building leveled by a storm surge that
pushed debris more than a mile from the beach.
"Total devastation. There's nothing left," said Brian Mollere, sitting
in a makeshift camp on the site where his jewelry store stood until
Monday morning. "Waveland was a beautiful town. It had just bounced back
from Camille. They were planning new streets. People were buying new
homes."
Other cities were also damaged, and it was hard for anyone to imagine
the scope of the rebuilding.
"It's beyond imagination," Gov. Haley Barbour said. "I never thought I'd
see something that looks worse than Camille, but this looks worse than
Camille."
The governor said the recovery process would be long.
"We're going to rebuild the coast bigger and better than ever," he said.
"But it's not going to get done next month. It's probably not going to
get finished next year. It's going to be a long time. We're in it for
the long haul."
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Associated Press reporters Cain Burdeau and Emily Wagster Pettus
contributed to this story.
Source: Associated Press |