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Posted on Wed, Nov. 30, 2005

BEFORE AND AFTER

Point Marine Lumber on Henderson Point

Ren Barnes, her husband Charlie and their son Bill Price remember walking through Katrina-ravaged Pass Christian in early September.

"So much was gone and people were poking in rubble with that startled, deer-in-the-headlights look. We felt we just needed to be there for them," recalls Ren Barnes.

When October rolled around, the ravaged family business, Point Marine Lumber Co., was open, restocked and operating out of a temporary trailer.

To get to the Henderson Point site on West Bayview Street at U.S. 90, customers still have to go the back way - Menge Avenue to North Street to the checkpoint on Bayview. The location is like an island, because bridges on both sides of it are out of commission.

"I know how everybody is talking about having to wait to get things rebuilt, but if the house was still standing, they needed plywood and they needed somewhere to get it," Barnes said.

"I cannot tell you the number of people who came by and just thanked us for being open and bringing life into the community. We got the business two years ago and we're keeping it a locally owned and operated business. We're home folk, not trying to be the big box."

A lumber yard on that site was first opened in 1969 by the Coggins family, who wanted to help the Coast rebuild after Hurricane Camille.

Following in the same tradition, Point Marine Lumber opened a second business in Diamondhead after Katrina.

- KAT BERGERON

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Posted on Wed, Nov. 30, 2005

New Urbanists back for town halls

By DAVID TORTORANO

BILOXI - New Urbanists who met here in October to redesign 11 hurricane-ravaged communities are back for a three-day gathering that includes five town meetings tonight.

Five more town meetings are set for Thursday.

"We want people and elected officials in all the towns to have a chance to look at these final proposals in their fullest form," said Will Longwitz, spokesman for the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal.

"We want them to be able to ask questions, to really dig into these proposals and see what they like, what they don't like, what they will implement and how to get them done," Longwitz said.

At the Imperial Palace, Mississippi Renewal Forum workshops will be held Thursday and Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. for local officials and invited guests, including developers and casino operators.

Thursday's workshop is for Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Biloxi and Ocean Springs. Friday's is for Waveland, Pascagoula, Moss Point, Gautier and Gulfport. D'Iberville officials also will attend, though the town meeting will be scheduled at a later date.

In the workshops, participants will get a chance to catch up on the design teams' reports. There will also be presentations by FEMA mapping officials and by state officials about financial matters.

Participation of developers is considered key.

"This is the first time they've heard the whole pitch. It's important that they buy into it," said Ben Brown, a media specialist for the Congress for the New Urbanism. He said private dollars will be rebuilding South Mississippi.

The event this week is a follow-up to the Mississippi Renewal Forum held in October at the Isle of Capri. More than 150 New Urbanists from across the nation - led by internationally known new urbanist Andres Duany - met for six days to brainstorm with local representatives on designs for 11 cities.

The forum was followed by a series of town meetings at various locations to begin showing the designs to local communities and to get feedback.

The forum is part of a broader initiative by the Governor's Commission, headed by philanthropist Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. That initiative is funded by Barksdale and the Knight Foundation.

The final design report for the 11 communities will be part of the broader plan to rebuild South Mississippi that will be presented to the governor in December.

This week's meeting marks the end of the New Urbanists work here as a group, though many may wind up working directly with some communities. Many of the same New Urbanists will return in March for a three-day smart code workshop.

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Posted on Thu, Dec. 01, 2005

A postcard view with its own code

The black and white photograph of the Mexican Gulf Hotel - an image familiar to anyone who knows Pass Christian history - flashed on the screen and Laura Hall posed the question: "What if you had this as a condominium instead of high-rise towers?"

The large, late-1800s hotel burned down long ago but is not forgotten, so interesting was its architecture. At her question, heads nodded in the standing-room-only crowd of 300-plus Wednesday night.

Then Hall, the California New Urbanist leading the Renewal Forum team for this socially and economically mixed town of 6,500, showed a turn-of-the-20th-century postcard that captured an alluring downtown Pass with trees and quaint store fronts with living spaces.

"What is it that you would like to see today if you are going to send a postcard of Pass Christian around the world?" she asked. "When you redesign your city, you think how to pose the next postcard view...and then you code for it."

Knowing this was the first time many had heard the team's vision for their town - 80 percent destroyed or damaged by Katrina - Hall explained the concept of SmartCode, which considers open spaces, walkability, businesses and urban-suburban areas that are connected and offers developers and property owners easier tools for redevelopment.

Because much of the Pass is impacted by new FEMA flood zones, Hall said Forum leaders are asking for "performance-based standards," so that living in the Pass will not be like "living in bird houses."

"Know that this is the big issue," Hall said, "and that we have some high-powered people working on it."

KAT BERGERON

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Posted on Tue, Nov. 29, 2005

South Mississippi awarded $12 million in aid

Mississippi counties will receive about $12 million in federal grants for rebuilding the storm-ravaged area, U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., announced Monday.

Hancock, Harrison, Simpson and Jackson counties will receive funding to rebuild structures, utilities and to clear debris.

Pass Christian Middle School will receive $3.5 million to rebuild two buildings that will house the cafeteria, band hall, and the science and computer facilities.

Bay St. Louis will receive $1.2 million to rebuild the Jimmy Rutherford Fishing Pier and Simpson County will receive the same amount for debris removal.

The West Jackson County Utility District will be awarded $2 million to install control panels and rebuild pump stations and parts of the sewage system.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Regional Watershed County Utility District will be granted $2.6 million to restore public utilities.

, particularly at the water treatment plant in Moss Point. Mississippi Gulf Coast Regional Wastewater will receive $1.5 million to restore the treatment facilities in Gautier.

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Posted on Sun, Nov. 27, 2005

Scenic Drive in Pass Christian - KAT BERGERON

Scenic Drive was a step back in time. The elevated street in Pass Christian parallels U.S. 90 and the ancient oaks that line it were green glitter on the beautiful homes, gardens and waterfront views that made Scenic Drive a polished Mississippi Coast emerald.

Some of the 85 houses on this two-mile stretch were built before the Civil War; others date from the turn of the 20th century. All, no matter size, became the stuff of home and architectural magazines. Scenic Drive is one of three sites in the United States designated as a national historic street.

Reports the National Trust for Historic Preservation: "Scenic Drive remains the largest architecturally intact major 19th century resort area in the South and one of only a few... that have managed to retain most of their original character."

That was before Hurricane Katrina, which ate high bluffs that separated the drive from U.S. 90 and destroyed many beachfront houses and businesses. The east end seems to have fared better, and that's where businessman Dave Dennis, wife Jane and two college-age children live.

They returned Monday after repairs. It's not the Scenic Drive they are used to but the family remains upbeat, having counted about 12 livable houses and another 10 to 15 that are repairable.

The Dennises were asked, as a family, what brings them back to Scenic Drive: "The historic nature of the houses and the attitudes and willingness of the owners to share the ambiance and history with others on the historic house tours makes Scenic Drive very special.

"Scenic Drive appears to be rebounding significantly on the east end, and downtown has great expectations of rebuilding and renewal with the announcement that St. Paul Catholic Church will rebuild. The people on Scenic Drive who still have structures that are savable are working to the best of their abilities. We choose the optimistic approach."

In June 2000, Mrs. Mississippi United States 2000 Gilda Seymour of Ocean Springs ran along Scenic Drive in Pass Christian during the Batten's Walk fundraiser.

Many oak trees along Scenic Drive still stand after Hurricane Katrina, though only time will tell how many will survive the salt and wind.

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Posted on Sun, Nov. 27, 2005

Follow-ups on city design meetings set

By DAVID TORTORANO dtortorano@sunherald.com

Residents have an opportunity to talk to design-team leaders and public officials about rebuilding this week during town meetings Wednesday and Thursday.

Key participants in last month's Mississippi Renewal Forum - a nearly weeklong event at the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel where new designs for 11 cities were developed - will return for a three-day workshop/seminar at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi.

The workshop will be held in conjunction with 10 town meetings in communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Only D'Iberville's meeting has not been scheduled.

The first set of town meetings will be Wednesday between 6:30 and 9 p.m. in Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Biloxi and Ocean Springs.

That's followed on Thursday from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. by a seminar at the Imperial Palace for public officials and invited guests from Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Biloxi and Ocean Springs.

On Thursday evening from 6:30 to 9 p.m., there will be town meetings for Waveland, Pascagoula, Moss Point, Gautier and Gulfport.

That's followed on Friday by the second seminar, from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., for officials and invited guests from Waveland, Pascagoula, Moss Point, Gautier and Gulfport.

During the seminars - both days will have identical sessions - town officials will get a chance to catch up on the design teams' reports. There will also be presentations by FEMA mapping officials and by state officials about financial matters. Developers also have been invited to attend the seminars.

In October, more than 150 New Urbanists from across the nation met for six days at the Isle of Capri to brainstorm with local representatives to create designs for 11 cities devastated by Katrina.

After the six-day Mississippi Renewal Forum, a town meeting series was launched to begin showing the designs to local communities.

The forum is part of a broader initiative by the Governor's Commission on Rebuilding, Recovery and Renewal headed by philanthropist Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. That initiative is funded by Barksdale and the Knight Foundation.

The final design report for the 11 communities will be part of the broader plan to rebuild South Mississippi that will be presented to the governor in December.

Town meetings

Wednesday, 6:30 to 9 p.m., Bay St. Louis (Waveland Middle School cafeteria); Pass Christian (Pass Christian Gospel Singers of America); Long Beach (Long Beach High School gymnasium); Biloxi (Imperial Palace); and Ocean Springs (Ocean Springs Civic Center)

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Posted on Tue, Nov. 22, 2005

Study to look at social ties, rebounding from Katrina

By DAVID TORTORANO dtortorano@sunherald.com

University researchers are gearing up for a study to determine the importance of social ties in helping people rebound from Hurricane Katrina.

The University of Mississippi was awarded the $96,000 grant by the National Science Foundation. It's among 30 grants awarded for studies related to Hurricane Katrina.

The study is designed to find out if members of social networks - such as a church group - fare better in the recovery process. It will also try to find out if membership in groups post-Katrina helps.

David Swanson, chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and director of the Center for Population Studies at the University of Mississippi, said he believes the researchers will find membership beneficial.

"If it looks like that helps, we can start to develop low-cost initiatives to get people involved, perhaps in neighborhood groups," he said.

One idea: create groups similar to the crime-related neighborhood watch, only in this case it would be a "neighborhood disaster watch."

The study will focus on Waveland, Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian, but researchers hope to have enough funding to also include Long Beach.

Swanson said there will be 16 to 20 people in the field doing the surveys. They will come from Ole Miss, Mississippi State University and the University of Southern Mississippi, as well as people identified by the South Mississippi Regional Planning Authority.

They'll begin training in early January and start collecting data the same month. Plans are to finish no later than Jan. 14. Preliminary findings will be presented in February at the annual meeting of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences. But it will take several more months for a full-scale analysis, said Swanson.

"Like most research, this will answer some questions and bring up more that needs to be addressed," he said.

He said that, like the census bureau, the researchers place a high priority on privacy and data confidentiality.

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Thanksgiving Feast attended by Fr. Carver and Curries.

http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=67445

Time to rebuild

By Geoff Mosher / Daily News Staff

Monday, November 21, 2005

WALPOLE -- One community was nearly wiped out by a Category 5 hurricane that slammed into the Gulf Coast 12 weeks ago.

The other is still feeling the aftershocks of a clergy sexual abuse scandal that erupted five years ago in Boston.

As the 2005 Advent season approaches, the thread that has bound together Catholics from St. Paul parish in Pass Christian, Miss., and Blessed Sacrament Church in Walpole is the need to rebuild, a priest from the Gulf Coast town of 5,000 people told the parishioners here.

The relationship between these two parishes 1,500 miles apart was consecrated yesterday in Walpole, as the Rev. Dennis Carver of St. Paul Church presided over morning Mass.

In the afternoon, Carver and a couple from his church who lost their home were honored during a feast in the Blessed Sacrament elementary school gymnasium off Diamond Street.

The feast marked the beginning of a fund-raiser to help St. Paul rebuild its parish and Blessed Sacrament to renew its faith. The idea for the "renewal project" came from a Walpole men's prayer group which formed, in part, to discuss the clergy abuse scandal and the controversial round of church closings that followed.

Blessed Sacrament is asking members of its parish to donate $250 per family for the relief of St. Paul. At yesterday's feast, residents were able to donate money to the cause, and they can also expect a mailing for their donation, said prayer group member Dan Kelly.

Near the end of the feast, Laura Curry of Pass Christian thanked her Walpole hosts. Curry and her husband, Jim, lost their 1920s home that sat on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. They now refer to themselves as "slabbers," meaning all that's left of their home is the concrete slab upon which it was built and a set of stairs leading nowhere.

"We may have lost our home, but we haven't lost our family," she said.

The Pass Christian Currys and others returned to what resembled the Japanese city of Hiroshima after U.S. forces dropped an atomic bomb on it, Carver said during the 11 a.m. Mass yesterday.

The town, Carver said, lost approximately 80 percent of its buildings, including St. Paul parish's elementary school, rectory and seven other buildings. The church, which had been rebuilt after Hurricane Camille in 1969 to withstand future storms, survived the 140-mph winds but sustained heavy wall and floor damage from the two-story-high wave that followed the storm.

About 70 percent of Pass Christian's residents have been displaced. The streets are the only areas that have been cleared of debris. There is no water, sewer or phone service. And six days ago, a local woman's body was discovered two miles from her home under a large pile of debris, Carver said.

During the Mass, Carver drew parallels between Katrina and the priest abuse scandal, which he called a "Category 5 scandal."

"I think you know what it is like to go through a storm," he said. "I think both of our churches' hope has been decimated."

For that reason, the two parishes, Carver said, are in a unique position to help each other rebuild.

"I think that we can help you just as much as you can help us," said Carver, who recalled being in Boston when the scandal broke.

The Rev. Tim Kelleher of Blessed Sacrament agreed. Kelleher told the parochial school gymnasium crowd that when he and 14 members of Blessed Sacrament visited Pass Christian on Oct. 23, they were moved by the faith and vision of the St. Paul parishioners with whom they celebrated Mass in their shell of a church.

The moment was captured in a seven-minute digital video Walpole's Rey Spadoni and Gerry Nelson created and played yesterday during the feast.

The video shows a standing-room only crowd of worshipers singing the spiritual "This Little Light of Mine." It cuts to a shot of a group of Walpole children handing out cards and bracelets to people their age from Pass Christian. Kelleher then presents a San Damiano cross to Carver symbolizing the renewal project.

"We, like you, are trying to rebuild," Carver says. He hugs Kelleher as the worshipers erupt in applause.

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Posted on Mon, Nov. 21, 2005

Marine touted for hurricane heroism

By MICHAEL NEWSOM

GULFPORT - Last week, the Air Force changed command, the Seabees hosted a Salute to the Military and a Marine was honored for rescuing nearly 200 hurricane victims.

Staff Sgt. Jerod P. Murphy, 29, of the 4th Amphibious Assault Battalion based in Gulfport, led a team of about five, including one Seabee, and "rolled out" to Point Cadet in two Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs) and saved about 130 people, including infants, just a few hours after Hurricane Katrina subsided. On the second day, Murphy and others pulled about 70 into the AAVs at Henderson Point in Pass Christian.

The work earned Murphy the Thomas V. Fredian Community Service Award at the 27th annual Salute to the Military Tuesday night at the Seabee base.

"I am extremely honored," Murphy said. "From my understanding, I don't think a Marine has ever won. I was extremely honored to be the one to bring it home for us. There are a lot of Marines out there that do just as much as me."

As for his work during the storm, Murphy said the Marines were believed to be the first military branch to leave shelters.

"It was worse than anything we can imagine," Murphy said. "Everybody was still locked down. From what I understand, we were the first DoD assets in action."

In addition to his rescue efforts, Murphy also coached soccer, football and taught Marine Corps martial arts with his sons' instructor in Long Beach. Murphy was awarded a Purple Heart after being shot in the left elbow while fighting in the Iraq war in March 2003, near the town of el Shatra. He was the first Mississippian wounded in that war.

Murphy was honored at the Salute, which the Seabees helped the Coast Chamber put on by letting them use a large Army Reserve warehouse on base. The warehouse was converted into a ballroom with large camouflage netting on the walls.

Seabees - While the work to convert the warehouse into a ballroom was ongoing, the Seabees finished the last of a set of modular houses to be used by base personnel and their families who had damage or lost their home to Hurricane Katrina. They were also installing modular buildings to be used as classrooms, a galley and a child-care center.

Air Force - Keesler Air Force Base changed command last week. Brig Gen. Paul F. Capasso took the reins of Keesler Air Force Base on Tuesday and said he was thrilled to be back for his third tour. Capasso succeeded Brig. Gen. William Lord, who was promoted to major general and took a job at the Pentagon.

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Posted on Sun, Nov. 20, 2005

A people of the sea --- Katrina took away Coast Vietnamese's life, work

By JOSHUA NORMAN – jdnorman@sunherald.com

A Vietnamese folk legend says in ancient times, the sea dragon Lac Long Quan married the mountain fairy Au Co and she gave birth to 100 children. Half of the children went with their mother back to the mountains, and half stayed to live off the sea. From these 100 children came the Vietnamese people. The 50 children who stayed with their father became fishermen. Thus those who make their living off the sea have an honored status in Vietnamese society.

The sea rose and took away much from the Vietnamese community along the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina.

In response, a collective of fishermen called the An Giang Fisheries Association from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam gathered $15,000 and gave it to the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi to distribute among their brethren here, reported the Thanh Nien Daily, one of Vietnam's largest newspapers.

Though it was a small amount compared to the devastation - for the 10,000 or so Vietnamese in South Mississippi, the hurricane ruined their principal occupations of shrimping and hospitality as well as their neighborhoods - it was a huge gesture from one of the world's poorest and last communist countries.

"The concern is that one of our own is suffering, starving in a foreign land," said Tuyet A.N. Tran, a community advocate and founder of New York-based viettouch.com, a Vietnamese cultural Web site. "Many in the Vietnamese diaspora have relatives in Vietnam still."

The Vietnamese community spread throughout America also was eager to help after the storm, said Huy Vu Bui, president of the National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies. The perception in the community here and abroad was that not enough was being done for a group of people who largely did not speak English and kept to their own.

That perception led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the Vietnamese government, American businesspeople and community organizations.

Interviews with dozens of Vietnamese living in South Mississippi did not reveal the same sense of abandonment by government that many in the outside community felt.

"They didn't do much for anyone," said Thuy Tran, 25, a manicurist in Gulfport who grew up in Pass Christian.

She said she did not feel the Vietnamese were ignored any much worse than anyone else and many Vietnamese spoken to in the last month agreed.

According to many of the interviewees, Vietnamese translators appeared in South Mississippi a little more than a month after the storm for agencies such agencies as FEMA and the Red Cross, while the Coast Guard had translators almost immediately after the storm to help in rescuing the many Vietnamese stranded on fishing boats.

The Rev. Dong Phan of the Biloxi Vietnamese Martyrs Church said finding comfort in community has been crucial since the storm. More than 70 percent of Vietnamese in South Mississippi are Catholic, and his church, one of several Vietnamese Catholic churches in South Mississippi, has been a cradle of the local community, providing spiritual guidance and a place to gather every day since the storm.

"There has been a lot of suffering," said Phan, a former chaplain in the South Vietnamese Army. He said he has been eager to get people together to help in the healing.

Just up the road from Phan's church at the Van Duc Buddhist Temple, the monks Thien Tri and Minh Nguyen have been trying to provide a sense of normalcy for their constituents.

The monks estimate only 30 percent of the local community is Buddhist, but said 80 percent in Vietnam are Buddhist. The monks hold daily meditation sessions and are especially able to empathize with their community - they rode out the storm in their temple's attic.

Nguyen said every monk is allowed four possessions: three sets of robes and one bowl. Everything else must be donated by followers because Buddhist monks vow a life of poverty by tradition. Nguyen said all he has left now are the robes on his back.

The sense of loss is overwhelming in the Vietnamese community and it goes well beyond material possessions.

Thuy Tran's parents lost everything to the storm. Her father, Thin Tran, 58, was a shrimper who stayed on his boat in hopes of saving it but barely escaped with his life. Now, like the hundreds of older Vietnamese shrimpers who know nothing other than shrimping and cannot afford a new boat because of a lack of insurance and an already-dismal shrimping season, Thin Tran does not know what he can do.

Thuy Tran lost her old job at the Wal-Mart in Waveland and now lives in her overcrowded apartment with several homeless relatives, like most Vietnamese in South Mississippi.

The sudden loss of housing and jobs - a vast majority of Vietnamese either worked in the seafood industry or in a casino-related job - has sent at least 25 percent of their population elsewhere in America looking for work, said several Vietnamese interviewed.

Hai Tran, no relation to Thuy, was a welder in Mobile who lived with his three children, his wife, his parents, his brother and his sister on Division Street in Biloxi before the storm. His house was leveled by the flood water and he now lives with just his mother, wife and kids because his father and siblings have gone from New York to California in search of jobs.

"I lost everything I got," Hai Tran said, adding he is grateful to have a FEMA trailer to live in. "I don't have money to rebuild my house. I applied for an SBA loan. I stay here for my family."

South Mississippi's pleasant climate and ties to the sea are what keep many Vietnamese here. While the sea took so much away, many said there is much that it can give back and that is their hope for the future.

Vietnamese diet

Vietnamese have a very different diet than Americans. Their food is largely vegetarian and consists mostly of soups and stews, as well as large amounts of rice and fish.

After the storm, many of the older Vietnamese struggled to digest the MREs and hot meals given out by the Red Cross and Salvation Army.

In response to the problem, the American Red Cross and other local relief organizations provided the Vietnamese community with two bulk deliveries of foodstuffs that were more in line with their needs. The items included fresh produce, tofu, ginger root, Vietnamese basil, bok choy, coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce, Vietnamese rice and seasonings.

- AMERICAN RED CROSS, COMMUNITY LEADERS

Vietnamese population

Most local aid agencies and community groups estimate there are 10,000 Vietnamese in South Mississippi, most here legally. Vietnamese represent the largest Asian ethnic group in South Mississippi.

• In Harrison County, there were 4,934 Asians, or 2.6 percent of the total population in 2000.

• In Jackson County, there were 2,102 Asians, or 1.6 percent of the total population in 2000.

• In Hancock County, there were 386 Asians, or 0.9 percent of the total population in 2000.

• In Biloxi, there were 1,489 Vietnamese people in 2000. Their median household income was around $25,000, compared with the citywide average of more than $34,100.

Most Vietnamese live in neighborhoods near harbors where shrimp boats can dock, such as Point Cadet in Biloxi, Bayview Street in Pass Christian and Lakewood in Hancock County. Unfortunately, these are also low-lying areas, which is why so many lost their homes to the storm.

- U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, COMMUNITY LEADERS

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is spoken by more than 60 million people in Vietnam.

There are also more than a million additional speakers of Vietnamese scattered across the globe, including 500,000 in the United States.

Vietnamese is a member of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austro-Asiatic language family. Other Mon-Khmer languages include Mon, which is spoken in Burma; Khmer, which is spoken in Cambodia; and Muong, which is also spoken in Vietnam. The language that developed into Vietnamese probably originated in the area of the Red River, which is in modern-day northern Vietnam.

Originally, Vietnamese used a character-based writing system that was similar to Chinese. However, in 1910, a romanized script that had been devised by Catholic missionaries in the 17th Century was adopted as the official Vietnamese alphabet. This writing system is still in use.

The Vietnamese alphabet consists of 17 consonants and 12 vowels. Vietnamese is a tonal language, meaning the tone or pitch used when a word is pronounced helps determine its meaning. There are six distinct tones in Vietnamese: the level tone, the high-rising tone, the low-falling tone, the low-rising tone, the high-rising broken tone, and the low-broken tone.

Many second-generation Vietnamese in America speak little or no Vietnamese, especially when living outside of a Vietnamese community. However, several Vietnamese who were raised in Biloxi said they are fluent because there were so many people to communicate with.

- TRANSPARENT.COM, COMMUNITY LEADERS

Vietnam's Boat People

A vast majority of the Vietnamese in America immigrated here between 1975 and 1980. The immigrants were almost all Southern Vietnamese fleeing the Communist takeover.

Many were the famous "boat people."

After the Vietnam War, more than one million refugees desperate to get out of the country took to overcrowded and leaky fishing boats and set out into the seas around Southeast Asia. It became the largest mass departure of asylum seekers by sea in modern history.

In many cases, parents still in Vietnam used life savings to put a child on a boat departing the coast of their homeland. Their plan was for the child (typically a son) to win refugee status in another country, a status that would be the anchor for the rest of the family following.

Some got lucky and were granted visas to a wide array of countries from Bermuda to Australia to Iceland, but many were forced to drift for years from one deserted spot to the next. Legends of piracy and cannibalism abounded.

Many also ended up in detention camps throughout Southeast Asia for years before either returning to Vietnam or getting asylum in a western country.

America took in the largest number of boat people during the early years. The final numbers of Vietnamese who stayed during this time varies, but at one point in the late 1970s, America was taking in 14,000 boat people a month.

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Posted Friday, Nov 18

Gulf Coast casinos outline plans for rebuilding

BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — Representatives for most of the state's battered Gulf Coast casinos outlined their plans for rebuilding before the Mississippi Gaming Commission on Thursday.

Hurricane Katrina, which struck Aug. 29, damaged or destroyed most of the 12 coast casinos and a 13th that was about to open.

Like many of the casino representatives in attendance, Bernie Burkholder, the chief executive and president of Treasure Bay Casino, credited the new onshore gambling law for giving the industry a better chance of bouncing back after the storm. The law allows Gulf Coast casinos to move off the water and build a short distance inland.

"I, for one, was getting really tired of chasing my boat down after every storm, dragging it back to its moorings and gluing it back in place," he said, prompting laughter from the crowd of about 200 that gathered for the meeting at the Imperial Palace, the least damaged of the Gulf casinos.

Treasure Bay plans to build a two-story, 70,000-square foot structure on the south portion of its existing hotel tower, Burkholder said. Renovations will likely begin by March, and will take about six months, he said.

Imperial Palace plans to reopen Dec. 20, said general manager Jon Lucas. The gambling areas will be expanded and all 1,088 guest rooms renovated, he said.

The Beau Rivage will rebuild in the same location, said Bruce Nourse, the casino's director of public affairs. The planned opening date is Aug. 29, 2006 — the one year anniversary of Katrina.

Other casino executives said they plan to move their facilities to new locations.

Both Boomtown Biloxi and Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis were severely damaged during the storm and will move into temporary facilities, said Len DeAngelo, executive vice president of operations for the casinos' parent company, Penn National Gaming Inc.

Boomtown, a barge facility, has limited surrounding land, and therefore does not have the ability to immediately relocate to a shore-based operation, DeAngelo said.

The company plans to refurbish the existing barge and move it to an adjacent property, where it is expected to open within six months. The company eventually hopes to move the casino to a land-based facility in the Biloxi area, he said.

Plans for a temporary Casino Magic structure are still pending, but the facility will likely be operational within nine months, DeAngelo said. Its golf course is expected to open in mid-December, which DeAngelo said should give a welcome boost to the local economy.

The state Gaming Commission has said the coast casinos generated $500,000 a day in state and local taxes before Katrina.

Executives of the President Casino, whose gambling barge was washed a half-mile down the beach during the storm and ended up on land, took a gamble after the storm that the onshore gaming bill would pass and immediately began working on a shore-based facility, said Paul Alanis, chief executive officer of Silver Slipper, the casino's new owner.

The 95,000-square foot facility will have 1,000 new coinless slot machines, 26 game tables and a 350-seat buffet. Construction is slated to begin next month and the facility is expected to open within the year, he said.

There were no representatives at the meeting for Casino Magic in Biloxi or Harrah's Entertainment, which owns the Grand Casino barges in Gulfport and Biloxi.

The commission on Thursday also approved site plans for the proposed Emerald Star Casino near Natchez, expected to open Nov. 30 2006.

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Posted on Fri, Nov. 18, 2005

Vision for Coast is nothing short of paradise

By DAVID BRUSSAT --- THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

If a plan for rebuilding Mississippi's Gulf Coast envisioned by the Congress for the New Urbanism ever becomes reality, the place will be nothing short of paradise.

I wish I could just fill this space with sketches from the charrette, or brainstorming session, held Oct. 12-18 in Biloxi, at the invitation of Gov. Haley Barbour. Eleven cities and towns along 80 devastated miles of coastline each got a set of plans for rebuilding from the CNU architects and planners led by Miami-based New Urbanist guru Andres Duany.

They imagined a Gulf Coast as it might be - as indeed it would have been - without modern architecture, planning and sprawl. Hurricane Katrina demolished all too many historic buildings, but most of what the bulldozers will clear away was already junk. "We're not picking up after Katrina," says Elizabeth Moule, of the Biloxi team, "we're helping this town recover from the hurricane of the last 50 years."

She and her fellow New Urbanists say Mississippians should rebuild not what they lost to the hurricane recently but what they lost to modern design and planning long ago. Mississippi must rebuild in a way that almost every architecture critic in America may be expected to condemn as "inauthentic," "copying the past" or "pure Disney fakery."

The last is from The Chicago Tribune's architecture critic, Blair Kamin, who couldn't resist that jab in a generally positive critique. Kamin, for whom such jabs are typical, wrote that the charrette's results were "immediately trashed from afar by modernists, who painted them as sentimental traditionalists." He admitted that "Chicagoans familiar with (Daniel) Burnham's classically inspired civic parks and infrastructure... should recognize that argument for what it is: ideological cant."

As an example of "Disney fakery," Kamin cited a replacement Wal-Mart for Pass Christian, designed by Ben Pentreath. You wouldn't recognize it as a Wal-Mart, but top Wal-Mart execs seem willing.

Modest neighborhoods could be swiftly rebuilt with temporary housing, such as the 294-square-foot bungalow designed by Marianne Casuto, so alluring that it might later be added on to and made permanent.

Casinos in Biloxi would not be segregated on the waterfront, but integrated into the streetscape - and what a streetscape! Monte Carlo, anyone?

With the sort of openness modernists rarely indulge, the New Urbanists invited their rivals to the charrette. But the work they contributed was curious. A good example of this is a sketch of one building with an up-tilting roof that seems designed to be blown off in a hurricane.

Typical. The up-tilting roof is a modernist cliche, intended to thumb its nose at traditional gabled roofs. But embracing novelty as a design principle leads inevitably to absurdity. The New Urbanists avoid this by embracing the best practices handed down by centuries of architecture. The resulting buildings and communities are not only more attractive but also more practical than almost all American places built with modernist design and planning.

For half a century, aware that most Americans hold modern architecture in contempt, modernists have sought to avoid defending their work on its merits.

For example, they pulled strings to freeze traditionalists out of the design competition to rebuild the World Trade Center. The result will be a huge "Kick Me" sign on the Manhattan skyline.

In contrast, the Mississippi charrette offers not just a great way to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Katrina; it offers all Americans a chance to re-acquaint themselves with what they have lost: the beautiful cities and towns that modernism everywhere has managed to destroy, starting half a century ago.

Andres Duany often points out that the historic districts Americans love to visit are nothing but typical neighborhoods built before World War II, before the modernists took over. Prince Charles has observed that modernism did more damage to Britain than the Luftwaffe. I would say that Hurricane Katrina, for all the death and suffering it caused, should be viewed as a dark cloud with a silver lining, a blessing in disguise, an invitation to a new beginning.

Like Charles in Britain, Duany and the CNU are inviting Americans back to the future.

In short, the Congress for the New Urbanism should really be called the Congress for the Old Urbanism. Whatever. It holds its 14th annual meeting in Providence, R.I., next June 1-4 (www.cnu.org). By then, I hope, not only Mississippi but America will have embraced the wisdom of last month's charrette.

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Posted on Thu, Nov. 17, 2005

Pass awaits guidelines, and permits are delayed

By JOSHUA NORMAN

jdnorman@sunherald.com

PASS CHRISTIAN - The road to rebuilding in Pass Christian is a long one.

Residents were told Wednesday night during a City Council meeting that it would take at least another week before guidelines for rebuilding could be properly ironed out, let alone have a system in place that would allow homeowners to apply for a permit to rebuild.

More than 200 people crowded into the Gospel Singers of America Hall to hear the Board of Alderman vote unanimously to delay a vote on the issuance of building permits at least another week while they waited for FEMA's flood elevation guidelines to be released.

Peggy Johnston, Pass Christian's building code officer, said only 27 permits for repairs have been issued to date in a city that lost at least 80 percent of its residences to Hurricane Katrina's wind and surge. A home can be no more than 50 percent destroyed for such a permit to be issued.

Chief Administrative Officer Malcolm Jones said it was prudent to get the permit process done now instead of having to amend it later.

The issue of rebuilding in Pass Christian is complicated beyond codes and guidelines because so much debris still remains to be removed from public and private property.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which is administering the city's debris removal contract, has not gone onto a single private property to remove debris, nor has it demolished any unsalvageable homes.

The two major roadblocks toward demolishing heavily damaged homes are the Environmental Protection Agency, which requires asbestos inspections, and the Historical Society, which requires that historically significant homes be inspected.

These inspections are not required in all cases, though.

"If your house is a debris pile, this is not a problem," said Jones, which drew a laugh from the crowd. "Debris on the ground is not historically significant, either."

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Posted on Thu, Nov. 17, 2005

Housing is key issue for panel --- Commission exploring options

By DAVID TORTORANO dtortorano@sunherald.com

Making affordable housing available as soon as possible has become a key issue for the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal.

Chairman Jim Barksdale and other members of the Governor's Commission, created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, held a briefing Wednesday to provide an update on the effort to rebuild South Mississippi.

The commission was formed to oversee a range of issues involved in the rebuilding of devastated South Mississippi. As a part of that effort, nine committees were formed to focus on everything from infrastructure to tourism. A tenth panel - affordable housing - was added last week.

Barksdale said Wednesday housing is enough of an issue that the new panel will focus on affordable, safe housing. It's headed by John Walton, president of Whitney Bank in Mississippi, and Fred Carl of Viking Range Corp.

Barksdale said the largest industry in the state of Mississippi is getting ready to blossom in the next 12 to 24 months - housing.

"We're going to build 50,000 units. That's more than they build in Houston, Texas, in a year, that's more than they're building in the central part of Arizona in a year. That's huge for an area that normally gets 1,500," he said.

But in the short term the problem is a severe shortage of all types of housing. Barksdale said the solution is trailers. There are 18,500 now installed, but 85 percent are on existing lots. What's slowing the process is sewerage.

Barksdale said the reports from the New Urbanists who met in Biloxi last month will be available this week and next. They will be fine-tuned after additional meetings, and the final report of the Governor's Commission - which will include all of the issues explored by the committees - will be released at the end of December.

Only about 10 to 15 percent of the final Governor's Commission report will involve the infrastructure issue. The rest of the report will focus on the findings of the other committees, including rebuilding the "ravaged" education system, the $6 billion defense and contract industry and a discussion of ways to fund the rebuilding.

The infrastructure committee has received most of the publicity, in part because of the nearly weeklong forum held in Biloxi Oct. 11-17.

More than 150 New Urbanists met with local counterparts to generate designs for the 11 cities pounded by the hurricane.

Since then there has been a series of town hall meetings to get public feedback. From Nov. 20 through Dec. 2 there will be one more gathering of key New Urbanists at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi.

"The major focus of the next six weeks is going to be on implementation. How do you take these ideas and make them happen?" Barksdale said. "I think the sellable ideas are going to sell, but that still doesn't mean they're going to be implemented. You don't have a great track record in that regard."

Barksdale said there were commissions after Hurricane Camille and other disasters, as well as recommendations. But "after each of these, it tended to sort of drift away."

He doesn't want that to happen this time.

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Posted on Wed, Nov. 16, 2005

Bay's troubled waters

MDOT wants merchant's land for bridge

By RYAN LaFONTAINE

rlafontaine@sunherald.com

BAY ST. LOUIS - The Mississippi Department of Transportation expects construction of a new bridge over the Bay of St. Louis to take 12 to 18 months to complete.

But when construction will begin is still anyone's guess.

Along with building the new span, MDOT wants to change the curve just before the bridge on the Pass Christian side.

The proposed modification puts U.S. 90 running through the middle of Penny Rodrique's property, on which the 43-year-old Pass native has owned and operated a fireworks business for more than two decades. The building was destroyed by Katrina's storm surge, and Rodrique was planning to rebuild, saying she'd seen a steady rise in profits over the last few years.

"MDOT is wiping out what's left of my business, and they don't care," Rodrique said.

Wayne Brown, the Southern District commissioner for MDOT, said the agency was working on a deal to buy the property from Rodrique. But Rodrique said the state has taken possession.

Rodrique and her husband, Larry, told the Sun Herald that MDOT filed court papers seeking eminent domain on Oct. 27, with a court date scheduled for March. Then on Nov. 2, MDOT filed right-of-immediate-possession papers, which supersedes eminent domain. Brown said he was unaware court papers had been filed.

The move, also known as a quick take, was signed by a judge on Nov. 12, the Rodriques said. MDOT can take possession five days after that date, they said.

According to an informational booklet from MDOT, a quick take is used when immediate title and entry are necessary.

"In some cases, it may be necessary for the department to gain immediate title and entry into your property before the eminent domain trial. If so, the right-of-immediate-possession law requires the court to appoint an appraiser for the court. The department will then deposit 85 percent of the court-appointed appraisal or 100 percent of the fair market value. This will give the department immediate possession of the property."

Rodrique would not say how much MDOT's offer was worth, but she said a developer offered her $83,000 more, in 1994, than MDOT offered. She noted the 1994 offer was made before she added a 4,000-square foot building for her business on the property.

Sometime this week, MDOT is expected to secure the legal title to the property, Rodrique said.

In order to afford a new bridge, federal funding stipulations would require MDOT to build an 85-foot high-rise and widen the bridge to add emergency lanes.

Rodrique said many residents would normally oppose such a plan, but because most of the homes in the Pass were leveled by the Aug. 29 hurricane, no one is around to speak out.

"I have not agreed to this. I've never wanted to sell my property to MDOT," she said. "It's amazing that in the United States of America, these things can happen to you and you have no recourse."

Aside from its battle for the fireworks business, MDOT faces financial challenges in financing the two U.S. 90 bridge projects.

MDOT has spent nearly $100 million removing debris and repairing parts of Interstate 10, but the agency has received only about $5 million in federal funds.

Brown told a congressional committee last month that rebuilding the Bay St. Louis bridge would cost about $200 million.

The state hopes to receive 100 percent of the federal funding, plus another $200 million to reunite Biloxi and Ocean Springs.

"We are up against the wall, and in desperate need of funding," Brown told the Sun Herald this week.

Three engineering firms are expected to submit proposals for the work sometime next month.

Brown said the three firms are designing a new bridge using a list of requirements from MDOT: The plans must be for a high-rise bridge and include just four traffic lanes, and smaller emergency lanes along each side.

Some residents have voiced their chagrin about a high-rise bridge across the bay, but Brown said there's no other alternative.

"If we are going to build a new bridge, it has to be a high-rise," he said. "The government is not going to give us money to build something that we would have to rebuild again later."

Brown said the old drawbridge was worn out, and fixing it is not practical. A high-rise would mean the state would no longer need to pay for an operator to staff the bridge 24 hours a day.

Based on meetings with local leaders, state officials have made a few minor changes to the bridge proposal, a plan Brown called "attractive and safe."

"There will be less accidents and less fatalities on the new bridge," he said. "That's something that I'm very, very proud of."

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Walpole Church to launch Katrina fund-raiser

By Geoff Mosher / Daily News Staff

Monday, November 14, 2005

WALPOLE -- The Blessed Sacrament Church will fete members of a Mississippi parish devastated by Hurricane Katrina on Sunday during a feast to mark the start of a local fund-raising effort to help the Gulf Coast Catholics rebuild.

After Sunday morning Masses, the East Street parish will hold a potluck feast for its flock at noon in the gymnasium of its elementary school. The guests of honor will be the Rev. Dennis Carver of St. Paul parish in Pass Christian, Miss., a town of 6,000 that lost its Catholic Church's rectory and elementary school and more than two-thirds of its homes. Carver will be joined by two parishioners who lost everything.

Blessed Sacrament Church has adopted St. Paul parish and its school, which serve 900 families and 160 students in preschool through grade 6.

"We're not professional fund-raisers; we're simply appealing to the parish and hoping they respond," said Walpole's Dan Kelly, who came up with the idea to adopt a Gulf Coast parish, yesterday.

Through the Internet, Kelly got in touch with the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, which then assigned Blessed Sacrament to St. Paul. Kelly and other parishioners felt they could do more if they focused on a specific community.

On Oct. 22, a 14-person delegation from Walpole traveled to Pass Christian to meet Carver and his parishioners, pray together, tour the town and assess the church's needs. The delegation was led by the Rev. Tim Kelleher of Walpole and arrived in Pass Christian on Oct. 23.

"It was literally like it had been bombed during a world war," said Kelly, who added the town was surrounded by barbed wire fences and National Guard outposts.

Walpole's Rey Spadoni, who took photographs for the delegation, said the devastation was overwhelming. "The magnitude of the destruction is more than you can really comprehend when you're looking at it," said Spadoni.

Hurricane Camille in 1969 destroyed St. Paul's original clapboard church, which had been built in 1874. The church was rebuilt to withstand hurricane-force winds.

When Katrina hit, the building's frame didn't buckle but its brick walls were no match for the towering storm surge, which left gaping holes in the sides of building through which a car could pass.

Despite its wide swath of destruction, the storm was curiously selective. It gutted the interior of the church but spared a statue of Jesus on the cross that hangs from the ceiling on two thin wires and a surrounding set of stained-glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross.

"With all the destruction, to see those items untouched was amazing," Spadoni said. "It seemed as though...they should have been destroyed."

On the Sunday the delegation arrived in Pass Christian, a standing-room only Mass was held in the shell of the church, where rows of lawn chairs had been set up in place of pews.

At the end of the Mass, Kelleher presented the parish with a San Damiano cross symbolizing the need to rebuild.

"I was amazed that in all the people that I spoke to, none of them spoke with any type of negativity," Keller wrote in an essay on the church's Web site.

"Many of them were what they called 'slabbers,' meaning...all that was left of their home was the slab on which it was built."

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Posted on Tue, Nov. 15, 2005

BEFORE AND AFTER

The Blue Rose in Pass Christian

The Blue Rose, an 1848 home built in Pass Christian, opened in 1990 as a fine dining restaurant and enjoyed a run of popularity for diners as well as families celebrating special occasions.

The Blue Rose closed in 1998, partly because the Coast trend had moved to casual dining and partly because Philip LaGrange needed to care for an aging parent.

Then a year ago, LaGrange reopened the Blue Rose, this time with weekend dining and with a bed and breakfast. LaGrange thought he'd found his niche and loved being a part of historic Pass Christian's sense of place. Then came Hurricane Katrina.

"The upstairs is as we left it, with beds made and things on walls," LaGrange said. "It was weird, like we could have checked people in."

But only on the second floor. Wind and surge gutted the first floor. The front porch collapsed and a huge tree fell on the side of the building.

"I'm doing everything I can to save her," said LaGrange, whose business partner is Herbert Pursley. "Like every one else, I'm dealing with insurance and SBA loans. I'm physically working seven days a week to save this building.

"There is a reason the Blue Rose survived. The easiest thing to do would be to walk away, but I keep looking at her and the incredible workmanship and I feel a moral responsibility to renovate. I brought in a professional company to stabilize the foundation, and if I have to board it up until I can restore, at least it will be stabilized."

- KAT BERGERON

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Posted on Tue, Nov. 15, 2005

Three Catholic churches to rebuild

Four parishes to merge into two

By KAT BERGERON

kbergeron@sunherald.com

Advent is the beginning of the Catholic year, and for the Biloxi Diocese, it signals a year of change with four parishes combining into two and news that several of the worst-hit beachfront parishes will be allowed to rebuild. Advent begins Nov. 27.

Bishop Thomas J. Rodi said he made the decisions after six sessions at which parishioners voiced their preferences and concerns, and after what Rodi called much "prayerful consideration." The availability of priests and parish attachments to community churches were main considerations.

St. Paul in Pass Christian, St. Clare in Waveland and St. Thomas the Apostle in Long Beach can rebuild their Katrina-ravaged sanctuaries.

"I think it's a beautiful location and I think the vast majority of parishioners are excited," said the Rev. Louis Lohan of St. Thomas, which like the others was destroyed in a 1969 storm.

"I feel good about the decision, but hope that we aren't setting ourselves up down the road. The thing we have seen since Katrina is that the church is the people gathered together. The location is secondary," Lohan said.

On hearing the news of his church, the Rev. Martin Gillespie of St. Clare said it "is a testament of faith and hope."

Unlike the others, St. Paul also is affected by the bishop's decision to merge with another parish, Our Lady of Lourdes. OLL faced the retirement of an 82-year-old Trinitarian priest whose order has told the diocese it can no longer staff OLL. The new parish will be pastored by a diocesan priest.

"The bishop heard the people of St. Paul and Our Lady of Lourdes and he's respectful of the two identities," said the Rev. Dennis Carver of St. Paul.

"It's a wonderful marriage and I think the two communities will live together as a family. That doesn't mean we're not going to have work, learn how to live as a new family in a new household parish, but out of marriage comes new life."

The name for the new parish and a Biloxi parish that will come with the union of two small parishes, St. John and St. Louis, are not yet known.

The new Biloxi parish will be pastored by the Rev. Steve Wilson, a Redemptorist priest whose order works with the poor. He arrived in Biloxi immediately after Katrina to help the diocese.

"For St. John and St. Louis, this is a true merger about parishes with equal strength," said Wilson. "We're locating it physically at St. John because it's a bigger church and more sound. At the meeting there wasn't a lot of dissent. People were expecting it, but a little saddened.

"We have big plans for the parish to revitalize East Biloxi."

At a glance

The Biloxi Catholic Diocese announced:

School Rebuilding: No decisions have yet been made about these Catholic schools destroyed in the hurricane: St. Clare at Waveland, St. Paul at Pass Christian, St. Thomas in Long Beach.

Parish Rebuilding: St. Clare in Waveland, St. Thomas in Long Beach and St. Paul in Pass Christian will rebuild on present beachfront sites.

Parish mergers: St. Paul and Our Lady of Lourdes will become a new parish; St. John and St. Louis in Biloxi will become a new parish. Our Mother of Sorrows will remain a personal parish pastored by the Rev. Steve Wilson.

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Posted on Sun, Nov. 13, 2005

Town hall meeting set for Tuesday

SUN HERALD

PASS CHRISTIAN - The first of several town hall meetings with the Carl Small Town Center from Mississippi State University will be held Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Gospel Singers of America Hall at 951 E. Scenic Drive.

The Carl team will seek to supplement the findings of the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal by helping the city of Pass Christian with ideas on how to plan, implement and fund the next stage of this nearly wiped-out city's existence.

The meeting is designed to inform the public, as well as ask for input and ideas.

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Posted Sunday, Nov 13

Bishop Rodi merges 2 parishes

SUN HERALD

PASS CHRISTIAN - Effective Nov. 27, St. Paul and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic parishes will be merged into one.

Biloxi Diocese Bishop Thomas J. Rodi announced the merger, which takes into consideration the pending retirement of the Our Lady of Lourdes pastor, Father Thaddeus Searles, 82, and the availability of diocesan priests.

The two parishes had a combined total of 768 households before Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29. The new parish will probably be assigned only one priest as it rebuilds, Rodi said.

Rodi earlier in the week granted permission for St. Paul, destroyed by the hurricane, to rebuild.

Our Lady of Lourdes Church was not damaged.

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Posted on Sun, Nov. 13, 2005

EDITORIAL

Cities and counties along the Coast need to comply with FEMA maps

Responding to an unprecedented disaster, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has revised maps of the flood plain in Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties with unprecedented speed.

Those maps will be shared with public officials in coastal cities and counties this week and will be available to the general public by week's end.

The purpose of these revised flood maps is to reduce the risk - to life and property - along the Coast. This is especially important in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"Quite frankly, in terms of hurricane storm surge, nothing compares to Hurricane Katrina. Not even close," says Todd Davison, the director of FEMA's mitigation office in Atlanta.

While FEMA's new recommended flood elevations are lower than Katrina's storm surge - which was at least 35 feet above sea level at one point in Pass Christian - the new elevations are three to eight feet higher than current flood elevations in the three Coast counties.

But then, the current elevations are not current at all, having been made in the mid-1980s. Considering the changes along the Coast since then, and the advances in mapping skills and the science of hurricanes, Davison said the elevations now in place were due for revision because they underrepresented the risk to property owners - and insurers.

For the federal flood insurance program to be effective, there must be an accurate appraisal of the risks involved in building in an area that might flood. FEMA will unveil that more accurate assessment this week.

But that is only part of the process.

The second thing that must be done is the adoption of building codes and zoning ordinances that reflect that risk. Doing that will ensure insurers that the redevelopment of South Mississippi will be done as safely and prudently as possible.

The implementation of FEMA's recommendations will also lower the cost of flood insurance to property owners. In fact, FEMA has an incentive program that permits communities to cut the cost of a flood insurance policy by as much as 45 percent.

An additional incentive for Coast communities to embrace these safer elevation recommendations for public structures is that they will improve the chances that essential services are reestablished much more quickly after the winds die down and the storm surge goes back out to sea.

The more sustainable our buildings are, the more lives and money we will save in the long run.

"What we're trying to do," says Davison, "is reduce future damage." For buildings, that means: "The higher you go, the safer it is." And for insurance purposes: "The higher you go, the cheaper it gets."

FEMA's recommendations are intended to make our homes and workplaces, our police stations and fire stations, our hospitals and schools, safer. That will certainly make them easier to insure and probably allow us to move back into them quicker following a storm.

This is an extremely important matter of public policy and demands the immediate and focused attention of both the private and public sectors.

We cannot prevent another hurricane, but we can and should mitigate the damage that might be done by the next one.

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Posted on Thu, Nov. 10, 2005

Latham: Housing top priority

By MELISSA M. SCALLAN

mmscallan@sunherald.com

GULFPORT - State and local emergency management agencies want to have everyone displaced by Hurricane Katrina in travel trailers by the end of the year.

Robert Latham, director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, was in South Mississippi on Wednesday and said 16,000 travel trailers and mobile homes have been delivered and set up in this area.

Officials expect more than double that number by the end of next month, Latham said.

"Housing is our top priority," he said. "Temporary housing is just that. What we've got to start doing is looking at more-permanent housing."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has set a time frame of 24 months for people to get out of trailers.

For those who haven't received trailers, tent cities in Pass Christian and D'Iberville opened Wednesday. Another tent city is expected to open in Harrison County next week.

The tents, constructed by Seabees, have hard floors and outer coverings and contain showers. Laundry facilities are being built on site, and FEMA is providing food.

"Gov. Barbour wanted to make sure local governments had options," Latham said. "It's been a challenge, but it seems to have worked really well."

The deadline is Nov. 26 for FEMA to pay 100 percent of housing, debris cleanup and other costs, but Barbour is asking for an extension.

Right now, FEMA also is paying for people from across the country to travel with cleanup crews and look for remains of people killed in the storm.

"We knew there was a possibility that there could be some bodies in the debris," Latham said. "These spotters are trained, and they can stop work immediately so we can treat these people with as much respect as possible."

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Posted on Wed, Nov. 09, 2005

Flood elevation maps coming

By ANITA LEE

calee@sunherald.com

GULFPORT - Beginning Nov. 18, South Mississippians can go to the Internet and pinpoint flood elevations recommended for construction on coastal property.

FEMA is using satellite technology to generate maps showing new advisory flood elevations, lot by lot. Maps also will show Katrina's tidal surge, which was even higher.

"Quite frankly, in terms of hurricane storm surge, nothing compares to Hurricane Katrina. Not even close," Todd Davison, FEMA's mitigation director for this region, told the Sun Herald today. He said the surge from Hurricane Camille in 1969 was 10 feet or more lower.

Katrina's highest recorded surge was 35 feet, on the Mississippi Sound in west Pass Christian.

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Posted on Thu, Nov. 10, 2005

Architects discuss ways to make coast more beautiful and safe

Associated Press

GULFPORT, Miss. - Architects helping to reconstruct the Mississippi Gulf Coast want to build a beautiful beachfront with buildings and homes that can withstand a major hurricane without "ugly and expensive" pilings.

But Todd Davison, mitigation director for Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the Sun Herald Wednesday that Hurricane Katrina showed that goal isn't realistic.

"There's no way, despite whoever says it, we can build a house to take a bath, so to speak," Davison said. "It's virtually impossible to build a building to withstand wave forces in a cost-effective way."

Architect and urbanist Stefanos Polyzoides of Pasadena, Calif., who leads a design team for rebuilding Biloxi, disagrees with Davison.

Polyzoides said buildings could be built at grade to survive tidal surges.

"You have two choices, as I see it," Polyzoides recently told city leaders. "Either scrap the town (Biloxi) and move north, or create a town that can take a swim every 30 years."

The debate in Biloxi comes while federal officials debate what size wave is a homewrecker. When determining a coastal area's designation on national flood zone maps FEMA officials consider not only the depth of rising water, but also "wave action."

Areas where 100-year storms are likely to make waves greater than 3 feet high are considered "velocity zones," the most dangerous.

"The thinking is, anything greater than 3 feet will wipe out a house," Davison said.

But Hurricane Ivan last year and the monstrous Katrina have changed some experts' thinking.

"After Ivan, and especially after Katrina, we learned a lot about debris loading," Davison said. "That is, the large amount of debris, missiles, in the water makes a big difference."

"Quite frankly, in terms of hurricane storm surge, nothing compares to Hurricane Katrina. Not even close," Davison said.

He said the surge from Hurricane Camille in 1969 was 10 feet or more lower. Katrina's highest recorded surge was 35 feet on the Mississippi Sound in west Pass Christian.

Jackson County supervisors have already voted to require 4 feet as the increase in elevation, above the current flood maps, for new construction and the total reconstruction of some homes.

"It's all about the elevation," Davison said. "The higher you go, the safer it is."

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Posted on Wed, Nov. 09, 2005

PASS CHRISTIAN

By JOSHUA NORMAN

jdnorman@sunherald.com

PASS CHRISTIAN - Lisa Hayden finally came home to Menge Avenue last week, decades after she left, to live in a FEMA trailer on her parents' lawn.

Her Bay St. Louis home is gone and her childhood home at 328 Menge Ave. is a shell of its former self.

Hurricane Katrina's surge flooded most of Menge's seven-mile stretch from Interstate 10 south to the beach.

In Hayden's neighborhood, nearly a half-mile from the beach, at least ten feet of water ente