Many on Miss. Coast Feel Overshadowed

[intheflow]

Many on Miss. Coast Feel Overshadowed
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer

(snip)

Henderson lost her temper when she logged on to her computer and spotted this headline: "New Orleans Dolphins Find New Home." She knew the dolphins actually came from a hurricane-ravaged marine park in Gulfport, not New Orleans.

The headline writer's error reinforced her belief — shared by many on Mississippi's Gulf Coast — that New Orleans has gotten a disproportionate share of the news coverage and the nation's attention in the aftermath of the storm, now more than four months gone.

(snip)

Not everybody is clamoring for a brighter media spotlight, because bad news can be bad for business. "I really think there's a downside to overexposure, if it's exposure that says things aren't working well," said Stephen Richer, executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Yes, there has been less coverage here, but I think in the long term we may come out ahead, because there's been more focus on the constructive things we're doing."

Three casinos already have reopened in Biloxi and others have vowed to be back before Katrina's anniversary on Aug. 29. In 2004, the dozen casinos on the Mississippi coast generated $1.2 billion in gross revenue.

Stephen Richter is worried that tourists are staying away because of negative coverage? :wtf:

Mr. Richter--this is what downtown Biloxi looks like TODAY:



Somehow, I don't think it's negative coverage that's keeping the tourists away!

[Olney Blue]

1. Kicked. Attention must be paid.

[merh]

2. Actually, if the truth be known, the tourists are flocking here to

gamble and gawk.

My niece works for one of the casino hotels and she tells me that the tourists that come here often say that they wouldn't believe the damage if they hadn't seen it for themselves.

They agree that the media has done a piss poor job of reporting our destruction.

Three casinos are open in Biloxi, all three are never in need of customers and the hotels that are not filled by construction/recovery agencies are filled with tourists.

Mr. Richter needs to appreciate the tourist draw we have. I know it sounds ghoulish, but whatever brings in the money that helps the economy and keeps my taxes for my lot down, the better off I am.



(Hi, intheflow! :hi: You in town? Did you take that photo? That is not far from where I live.)

[jobycom]

4. I agree. You need the tax revenues, because Bush's promises aren't

being kept.

[intheflow]

11. "To gamble and gawk."

So true, so true! I know there is not a hotel room to be had in Mississippi south of Hattiesburg, and they can't all be filled with relief workers and construction crews. I did think of that when I posted that, along with the idea that Mr. Richter needs to appreciate the reason the tourism bureau opened in the first place--to generate revenue. We are in total agreement there, merh!

The problem is that not enough hotels/casinos/restaurants/whatever are even close to thinking about reopening again at this point because of the devastation. Where are the tourists supposed to stay and eat when every 3-story-or-under beach front hotel from Biloxi west is gone? Even if they were still in tact, there is no safe, affordable housing anywhere on the coast for workers to live (yet paradoxically, workers whose homes were not significantly damaged may be out of a job). The problem is that rebuilding has not happened because many businesses are bogged down in insurance red tape and/or may be considering relocating, at least inland. The problem is that the federal government is relying on businesses and church groups to rebuild the Coast, they are abdicating their responsibility to tax-paying Mississippians! There are so many, many problems--which goes back to the original point of the article before Mr. Richter hijacked it: Southern Mississippi needs more media coverage!

:banghead:

But of course I'm preaching to the choir telling you that. :hug:



(And yes, it's my quickie photo as I took a wrong turn in D'Iberville and ended up crossing the bridge. I got into Biloxi last night. I'm actually in Pensacola tonight, supposedly preparing for a big meeting tomorrow but sluffing off on DU instead. I'll call you this weekend. :hi:)

[merh]

17. Preach it, please preach it!

Even the choir enjoys listening to the sounds of the truth!

And thanks so much for caring so much. :hug:

You weren't far from my lot/femansion when you took that wrong turn that precipitated that photo.

[jobycom]

3. That's one of the casino's that re-opened, too. And I think that the

building in the foreground is the old Mille's Snow Cone place, which is where my wife got her first job, and was fired for theft because the owner's daughter, who was the one actually stealing from them, accused her.

And for the record, that's one of the least affected parts of the Coast.

[merh]

5. I have to disagree with you.

That area WAS affected, more so than areas of west Biloxi and a good part of Ocean Springs and Gulfport. Most of the area was affected by the Gulf waters and the Bay waters which met during the storm.

It is after all, a penisula.

I live here and can tell you, IT WAS AFFECTED.

Come visit my neighborhood.

[jobycom]

7. I didn't say it wasn't affected, I said least affected. Here's some photos

I wasn't trying to say there was no devestation. Obviously the picture shows it. The devestation is horrible between Back Bay and the Gulf, but that area on the Back Bay was rising water damage. Houses floated, some collapsed and washed away, and much of it is unlivable. On the other hand, the IP survived, the Boomtown didn't look damaged (though it must be, since it's still closed), the oak trees across from the BT are still standing, the fire department looks salvagable. On the Gulf side of Biloxi, though, everything is washed away except the strongest of buildings. No houses, no churches, no more Biloxi on the Green.

Here's Pass Christian:




I mean, it's hard to take pictures of the destruction because everything at the west end of the Coast is so devestated that there's nothing standing to take pictures of. Look at the first picture. Those were concrete and steel condos, and look how high the damage reached. That's on the beach in Pass Christian. I could show my pictures of the miles and miles of empty highway and people wouldn't be impressed unless they had been there before and realized that there used to be houses and businesses almost every foot of the way, for half a mile back.

Edited to change a plural to singular.

[merh]

9. The entire Point was wiped out.

Boomtown was affected, as was the IP, the IP just had the money to put into the rebuilding and their barge's mooring system was apparently designed better than the others. It withstood the storm yet their hotel suffered major damage. Their advantage was that their hotel is taller than most along the coast and they had their own electrical system and water system. They were able to reestablish themselves thanks to the wealth of the organization, thanks to the fact that Ralph Englestadt had created his own construction company to do his construction jobs (though Englestadt is dead, his companies flourish) and the IP didn't have to rely on too many others to get back up and running.

The IP also has been making a small fortune because the FEMA & SBA reps have been living there since the storm.

The Point, which is the edge of the area where the IP was located was literally wiped out, just as the Pass was. The waters came from 3 sides, the Gulf and the Bay met during the storm.

It is not fair to say the area was the least affected, as it was not. Just because the IP and the Palace have been able to reestablish themselves and open, doesn't mean the area was not as affected as the Pass & Bay St. Louis. In all actuality, the area, the City of Biloxi, had more businesses and homes and those that were wiped out thanks to Katrina are equal to what the Pass & the Bay lost.

It is a matter of perspective, it is like saying NOLA was hit harder than the MS Gulf Coast. You and I both know that is not true. I know the damage that Biloxi has suffered and just because some businesses were not destroyed does not mean we were not severely damaged and that we were just as devastated as the other areas.

Again, come see my neighborhood, go see the point and wonder what happened to all of the homes that once stood there, the families that once lived there.

My neighborhood, which is not far from where that photo was taken, doesn't have one home that was not damaged by Katrina. The majority of the homes were severely gutted and destroyed.

Are you still living on the Coast?

[jobycom]

13. I've driven through that area, and it's bad, but not like Pass Christian

I don't live there anymore. My parents live up in Saucier, and I've been back several times.

Again, I'm not minimizing the damage. I've driven around the area. I know the destruction. I understand the water dynamics. I've got pictures of some of it, too. But have you been in Pass Christian, Henderson Point, Waveland? Henderson Point was a peninsula, too, and Waveland and Pass Christian got hit from three sides, too. The storm surge was over 30 feet. One of my oldest friends had a house on twelve foot stilts, four foot above the water, about five miles from the beach. The water was over the roof of her house. The roof was thirty feet from the water level. I have friends in DeLisle, and the water reached the back of their property. They are more than five miles from the beach, though the back of Bay of St. Louis and Wolf River are only a couple miles away.

I'm not trying to claim that back Biloxi wasn't hit hard, I'm just pointing out that the other side of the Coast was hit harder. There is no place unaffected, except Gulfport in some parts above the tracks. Even some areas there were hit hard, and the beach front, obviously, was destroyed as it was everywhere.

I've driven through both areas, gotten out, walked around. And they are both areas I knew before. I went to high school in Pass Christian, had close friends in Waveland. My wife's father worked on Keesler the whole time I knew her, and we used to go fishing and boating (it was an old, ugly boat that ran occassionally) on Back Bay and the various rivers around there. I even had a friend who lived for a short time close to you. So I know the before and after. Not as well as you, I'm sure, in your area. But I've seen it.

Pass Christian is like nothing I've ever seen before.

[merh]

15. You are minimizing the damage.

The entire Coast was severely damaged. I was in a home 2 miles inland, off of the back bay marshes, and just a roadway south of 1-10 in Biloxi.

The house was at 17 foot elevation, the waters rose 9 feet into the house, gutting the entire first floor, gutting the single story home next to it.

The entire Coast is like nothing I have ever seen before, therr are areas of Gautier that were totally wipe out, just like the Pass. This was a huge storm and all ends of the Coast were severely affected. This is not a competition, this is the reality of the storm damage.

Pass was not alone in the devastation, it was just smaller than the other cities affected, thus it appears to have taken a more extreme blow.

It is all relative and if visiting equates to living the reality, then I guess the tourists gawking can be as informed as you are.

[intheflow]

16. If I may step into this conversation,

I have to say you are BOTH 100% right in your assessments.

When I worked damage assessment for the Red Cross, I did see that places like Waveland and Pass Christian were completely leveled. Those are uninhabitable areas, for sure, and the damage is dramatic.

But I also assessed homes in Biloxi, and many of them looked just fine on the outside--maybe a few windows out, maybe some roof damage. But inside the homes had 12 or 16 or 20-foot water lines, mud caked on the floor, drywall molding, totally inhabitable.

And I'm sure just as many people had had their livelihoods taken along with their homes and businesses in Biloxi as in Bay St. Louis or Pearlington or Ocean Springs.

So the damage may not seem as dramatic in Biloxi as in Pass Christian, but the devastation is just as complete all along the coast.

*Edited to add that I havent' been to the beach in Biloxi, so I really can't talk to the devastation there as compared to beachfront in, say, Waveland or Bay St. Louis.

[merh]

18. The beach of Biloxi is just as destroyed as the beach in the Pass

and the Bay.

That is my point, this storm was HUGE (<<<< that is not a typo). It wiped out entire sections of Pascagoula, Ocean Springs, Gautier, Moss Point, and D'Iberville, Mississippi and it even destroyed parts of Alabama. Bayou Labatre is no more for all practical purposes. Dauphin Island was devasated. Okay, only 26 homes were located there, but 20 of those 26 were totatlly destroyed.

To say that Biloxi was the least affected, especially that section near your photo, is to be minimizing the total destruction along better than 80 miles of our nation.

As I live in the damage, as it is my legacy that has been altered, I take exception to any language that tries to minimize the damage suffered in any area.

[intheflow]

20. I didn't mean that at all, merh.

As I said, I haven't witnessed the Biloxi beaches, and I certainly didn't mean to minimize the damage. I certainly never said that Biloxi was least affected by the storm. Katrina's eye was 50 miles wide when it hit shore! I was merely agreeing with you that for people who only visit the area and haven't been living intimately living in it since the storm hit that it might seem on the surface that Biloxi wasn't hit as hard as further west, but even if that is the perception (however wrong), it certainly doesn't reflect the reality of the situation at all.

You know I wouldn't be working in Biloxi if I thought it had been spared Katrina's wrath. I'm just trying to keep the peace between two DUers, you and jobycom, who obviously care deeply about the Mississippi Coast. We may all have different experiences, personal perceptions will always vary greatly--of course jobycom reacts more to Pass Christian (his old stomping grounds) as you react more to Biloxi (your home). Minister-Me just hates to see disagreements between good Dems over such colossal Repuke rebuilding and RW media fuck-ups!

:grouphug:

[merh]

22. No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean you, I just mean that we, any of us,

can't say that the Pass is worse than D'Iberville or worse than Biloxi. It is a matter of perspective, I would never think that Biloxi was worse than the Pass, I know that all of the coastal cities have been impacted by the storm, there is enough devastation to go around.

I understand your desire to keep us from disagreeing. My desire is that the truth be known, all of the Coast has been devastated. For another to say that the area captured in your photo is the least affected areas is an untruth. It is down the street from where my house once was.

I'm sorry I have been confrontational, it is just that the truth about the ENTIRE COAST is vital to our recovery.

:hug;

[jobycom]

23. You're putting words into my mouth

I'll just repeat. I wasn't minimizing the damage around the Imperial Palace. But it was not the hardest hit area. I don't know why you think that affects your legacy. It wasn't meant to be a competitive or judgemental statement, it was only meant to show that the damage in the picture in the OP did not begin to capture the damage on the Coast.

I'm curious what you meant about Dauphin Island, though. There are far more than 26 homes on Dauphin Island. Was that one section of the island? I've been following the Island as much as I've been able to, which hasn't been much, and I know they've been busy with rebuilding, and I know the west end was hard hit, and that the island itself was split, although the split was past the homes, on the private property part of the island. I've seen no good pictures or comprehensive descriptions.

I've heard that Bayou La Batre was devastated. There was a story recently that the town is fighting an attempt from some outside developer to turn the whole town into resorts and condos. The story made it sound like the town was still functioning, but I've seen a lot of references to it being basically destroyed. I wish I could get a reliable, detailed description, but I haven't found one, yet.

[merh]

25. I am not putting words in your mouth.

I am objecting to your down playing the damage to the area of town that I live in. You originally said it was the least impacted area, which is false - blantantly false.

Just because structures are seen does not mean that they are habitable and does not mean the area didn't get the storm surge and the winds that Pass Christian and the Bay received. Folks I know where on their houses in the Cities of Biloxi, the reason the City was not totally wiped out is because it is a much larger city than the Pass, it had more areas inland and out of the reach of the storm's waters.

Please don't down play any area and do not tell me how the area of town I live in has been affected. I have been affected as much as anyone in the Pass and so have my neighbors. Again, come live here and see what is real and what is simply your understanding of what is.

My information relative to Dauphin Island comes from people that lived there. Funny thing about us survivors, we may be in a resturant in a Mobile trying to be normal for a change and we can spot another survivor accross the room, just by the look in their eyes.

You don't live here so please don't profess to be the only one that knows what occurred during Katrina and what is happening now. This is not a competition, it is what it is. THE ENTIRE MS GULF COAST HAS BEEN DEVASTATED.

intheflow knows what it is like, she has been a volunteer working her in sections of the area that neither you or I have seen.

If you want to know what it is really like, if you want to be able to tell all about the reality, then come volunteer to help those that were not as fortunate as your parents. The ones that lost it all thanks to Katrina, whether it was washed out into the gulf or just spread throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. The lose is as real for me as it is for anyone in the Pass and I believe my neighbors and many, many people in east Biloxi will tell you the same thing.

[jobycom]

28. Please go back and read this thread

Because you have something in your mind that isn't in my posts. I won't waste our time repeating what I've been saying all along, but it is not what you accuse me of saying. intheflow got what I was saying.

And that wasn't what I asked about Dauphin Island. I was trying to find out information, not tell you how it is. But the island has over a thousand full time residents and well over 26 houses, so I was trying to judge how much you knew. You stated something as fact that wasn't, and I was trying to see if I misunderstood what you were saying.

What I've seen is trivial to what you went through, and I'm not claiming otherwise, but I have friends who swam for their lives, and others who lost it all, and still others who are in FEMA trailers. I've done what I could when I was down there, and I've been through flooded and destroyed houses from Pass Christian to Pascagoula--all owned by friends. I waded through glowing bayou muck and rotting animal corpses to rescue pets and look for friends and try to help people salvage stuff from what was left of their houses. I haven't lived it the way you have, and I haven't done as much as I wish I could have, but I've been more than a damned sightseer.

[bluestateguy]

6. This only feeds into the "librul" media bias crap

That media cares little for rural or country folk, in favor of sophisticates in the city.

Mississippi has been on the short end of the news coverage stick.

[jobycom]

8. Actually, it's because of conservative bias, because

the media wants people to believe that the Democrats in Louisiana were responsible for their problems, and the Republicans of Mississippi are hardier people who can handle it all on their own. MSNBC has a special section on their web page from Bay St. Louis and Waveland, called "Rising From the Ruin," where they run lots of stories about how hard all them good white people in Mississippi are working, without federal help, to rebuild their homes. Of course, the segment praises not just the hard working white folk, but also the churches and other faith-based volunteers who are chipping in, along with the corporate help, to rebuild these areas. It's a perfect Republican segment: No federal gov't, no government handouts, churches and business handling the clean-up and recovery all themselves, etc. It's all BS. The recovery is so small in that area as to be unseen, and if the feds were using the tax dollars we paid them just for this type of situation, the recovery would be much further along.

[anitar1]

10. The Pugs have stolen the tax dollars tosink

into the hole called Iraq and also to line the right pockets. And let's not forget the churches. I cannot imagine the despair those people must feel as they realize there will be NO help.

[intheflow]

14. You are SO right on, jobycom!

I returned to work with an interfaith group down here, just because no one (i.e. federal government and many large coporations) else seems to be doing much of anything. I left for a month and when I returned yesterday, I could see little difference. One drawbridge has re-opened, a relatively few trash heaps are gone, but other than that...

Didn't know about the MSNBC baloney. :grr:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. Same here

I was down there for a week, and it was heartbreaking to see people whose houses and jobs were wiped out but who are too poor to leave the area.

To think what all the Iraq War money could do in that area...

[jobycom]

24. And you stayed at my old high school! I don't know why I think that's cool

but I do. :-) BTW, here's a picture of my favorite restuarant in Pass Christian, just east of Espy on Hwy 90. The open air seating is new. :-(

[QC]

27. But the media really do tend to ignore "flyover country," unless

there's a real juicy murder "out there." And working-class issues are almost entirely absent, unless there's a grisly mine accident.

[intheflow]

29. I don't think the media necessarily favors "sophisticates in the city."

I think it does favor the money in the cities, though. I think New Orleans generates a lot more money than Biloxi, between the tourism and the oil industry. That's the real reason the focus has been on New Orleans, because it's certainly not been about the diaspora of the poor, other than to note all their homes have to be demolished with or without owner permission. You know that formerly affordable housing property is going to end up eminent domained, given to the highest condo builder bidder. :cry:

[brooklynite]

12. But, Gov. Haley Barbour said the Administration was doing a great job...

He wouldn't have lied, would he?

[intheflow]

26. No, a Republican would never lie.

Just ask any of them. x(

[usedtobesick]

19. keep us remembering

we can not forget...