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Coming up on this episode of Beyond Katrina.

Officials from Mississippi' coastal cities give us an update on how thing stand in the recovery process.

From housing to infrastructure, from tourism to education, and what's next for the coast.

As the 2006 hurricane season approaching.

Hello, I'm John Johnson, and this is beyond Katrina.

We're coming to you from Biloxi, one of the communities struggling to overcome the damage wrought by the hurricane last August.

We're standing in front of th monument dedicated to the coast in February.

It stands as a testament to the strength and resilience of Mississippians who live here.

Each resident, each neighborhood, each city all faced their own challenges as it moves forward.

The 2006 hurricane season is just around the corner, and it must weigh heavil on the minds of those who live up and down the coast.

Jean Edwards is just dow the road at Point Cadet Plaza, where city officials and residents are gathered to talk about Mississippi's renewal and give us an update.

Jean, it looks like you've got quite a crowd.

John, thanks very much.

We think this is the first time this group has convened, probably since the charrette.

Is that right?

Since all of you have been together, all of these mayors from all the cities all along the coast, and some other guests that you're going to meet as this hour goes along.

Xavier Bishop is the mayor of Moss Point.

We are glad to have you here.

Matthew Olvera from Pascagoul to Pete Pope from gosh, Connie Moran, Ocean Springs.

Richard Rose is here representing the Iberville.

Today.

We're glad to have you here, Richard.

David Starling is the administrative affairs officer of Biloxi.

Your mayor is out of town and David Nicholls is the chief administrative officer of Gulfport.

Your mayor has had a death in the family.

And we are we exten our sympathies to the families.

And we're gla that you're here in his place.

Thank you.

Billy Skelly is here from Long Beach.

Glad to have you here.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Tommy Longo from Waveland.

Aren't you tired yet?

Man, you just work harder than anybody I've ever seen.

Like the rest of you.

Just like the rest of them.

Brian Sanderson is here representing the governor's Office of Recovery and Renewal.

Representative Randall Patterson is here.

He's from Harrison County.

We're glad to have you along with us, too.

We apologize.

A couple of the mayors couldn't make it.

We also invite Wayne Brown from Mdot to come.

He's not able to make it.

Imagine that.

Let's look out here.

Connie Moran, what do you think about what's out here?

One of the stories in the paper this morning has to do with, putting ferries in on both sides of the bay.

Is that.

Is that going to work?

Well, it has been funded by the federal government.

And we're analyzing sites right now with the Gulf Regional Planning Commission and Mdot and also trying to locate some probable providers.

But will it work?

Well, it'll certainly be at least a relief.

If they run three boats.

They'll be able to run 150 cars in an hour's time.

And actually there's some longer term plans, according to the charette, for a ferry landing, perhaps right next to the railroad bridge on the Ocean Springs side and over here to Biloxi to run tours back and forth from the casinos into Ocean Springs.

Will it work?

I think I'd rather see it more pedestrian oriented rather than vehicles.

I think you could get more people on it and have a, off site parking destinatio at both arrival and departures.

I think it'd be a little more functional.

I wouldn't want to see a automobile.

Realistically, for for yo and all of you who are impacted by these bridges, Mayor Longo.

How long's it going to be?

And how frustrating must life be for all of you right now?

Oh, it's extremely frustrating knowing that if we get started tomorrow, it's going to be a long time.

We've begun the demolition of the old bridge, but, you know, we'r we're a world apart over there.

Separated.

Without that bridge and, it's very important that we get started on it as soon as possible.

So you really feel like you're not connected to the things that are going on over and over here?

Well, it is.

It's a long trip.

You know, a 15 minut drive to pass Christian before.

Now, it can be a 45 minute drive, 30 or 45 minute drive with traffic and the roads the way they are.

Billy Scully, do you feel like you're left out?

Somewhat.

We missed the Bay Bridge by Saint Louis.

Pasteur bridge?

Really?

Probably more than we miss the Biloxi Ocean Springs.

And like Mayor Longo said, it isolates you a little bit.

Connie Moran, you've taken a lot of heat.

Because of your stance on the bridge.

You.

They wanted a six lane bridge.

You didn't.

Eventually it' going to be a six lane bridge.

It's going to be a ten lane bridge.

Six driving lanes and four breakdown lanes.

We thought that we could do with four driving lanes and two breakdown lanes, especially since in Biloxi, you come down to a crashing halt with three stoplights and going into a four lane highway.

So we thought it was overkill.

Our chamber of Commerce passed a resolution against it, but at the end of the day federal highways that have got to do as they like.

However, we did get some concessions, and right now we just want the bridge to go forward.

And we're sorry that Mdot had to repeatedly change the RFP request for proposal.

And hopefully we're looking at the next 2 to 3 months we'll be able to award a contract.

We're ready to get on with it.

David, selling.

How's Biloxi feel about the resolution?

We're okay with the resolution.

I think if you look at the the research and empirical, data and, traffic counts, and look at the growth history and, anticipate the future growth, I think it needed to be the, three lanes.

Richard rose, is this going to work for the Iberville?

I think either way, works for the approval.

The approval right now is had a tremendous amount of retail growth because of people being unable to get to, the eastern part of Bilox and to the, to their peninsula.

So we've gotte a tremendous amount of an impact without the bridge.

And of course, once the bridges is rebuilt, our retail probably will suffer as well.

How about to for Pascagoula and for go shake?

Well, you know, Pascagoula, certainly draws, some of the residents and citizens, tourists, that, come to Biloxi.

Gulfport.

Not having that bridge, being able to access our people, and spend those dollars in Pascagoula certainly has an impact.

So as soon as we can get that back up and running, I thin it's going to be beneficial for for all of our community.

Mayor Pope, is this a realistic solution?

I think so, but we're not adversely affected as some of the other cities I have.

Back during Camille, when Camille came through, we didn't have the interstate.

It would really created a problem for us then.

But we've got, the new Pascagoula bridge is one of the mos beautiful bridges in our state.

We were so glad to have it.

And, but we just haven't been as adversely affecte is as the people of blocks here in Gulfport to this particular area.

But do you all over there.

Xavier Bishop do you feel like you're cut off from the rest of the activity?

No, not at all.

I think one of the things that the storm has done is to accentuate how we're all in this together how we all tie tie in together.

Not just in terms of our needs, but geographically.

I mean, we're talking about the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and that includes the cities from Waveland all the way east to Pascagoula and Moss Point and everything in between.

So I'm very much interested in what goes on between, those two destinations, you know, whether the relates to the bridg or the water or the roadways or, or the infrastructure in your town of Gulfport, they want to build a three ten foot up there in the air.

I'm going to stand for that.

Well, the the Transportation Department has agreed to take a second look at it, and we appreciate that.

Why don't you want it elevated?

It's elevated out here.

Well, and you don't want it elevated out here.

But, you know, we don't wan the area impacted under the the, under the interstate and and kind of segment segmen the the city or downtown area.

So we're hoping that the Mdot will take a secon look at it, which they promised.

And, they're going to build the northern section and maybe they'll they'll reconsider and put it at grade with some crossings on it.

We're and with the dynamics changing with the maybe the CSX railroad moving, with the port, with their, improvements they're going to make, it might make a whole lot of difference from.

Mayor Marion would be happy to negotiate.

Yeah.

We we had a hard at negotiate for us.

I wonder how you all, all of you mayors, how do you how do you feel about the volunteers?

Outstanding.

We'd like to talk about them.

Tommy, it's made a a world of difference.

We couldn't.

We would not be where we are today if it wasn't for the volunteers and the faith based groups that we have in the cit of wave one and Hancock County and in the coast.

But, in, in Waveland.

We had one group that in the first month had, gutted and, done the mold abatement in almost 500 homes in, in the city.

And, and they just keep coming and they just keep coming.

Yeah.

Randall Patterson, he's gotta gotta feel pretty good about that.

Well, certainly.

You know, we can't say enough.

Thank you to all the people that come in from out of town and try to get around and thank them personally when I see them, but I've been more impressed about the attitude.

Once they come, they are so upbeat and, and they kind of like the way the citizens of Biloxi and the whole Gulf Coast has responded to this thing, and we just can't give enough thanks to all the people who are down here helping us right now.

Brian Sanderson is here from the Governor's Office of Recovery and Renewal.

One of the thing the governor's very enthusiastic about is what he calls the Katrina cottages.

Do you think that's a reasonable solution for some of these?

It will certainly, go a long way to help a lot of folks who are in FEMA trailers now and 41 days outside of hurricane season, these FEMA trailers.

You know, I've slept in my grandmother's when a when a strong thunderstorm comes, I can't imagine.

What will happen even in a category one storm, much less something that we saw in Katrina.

So the Katrin cottages, the idea behind them.

There's not one designed that, that would fit every every homeowner.

But, the idea is to provide them something safe in lieu of the FEMA trailers.

And in future disasters, the cottages would be used on the first day instead of the trailers.

So it's a pilot project.

And, we think hopefully about 20,000 Mississippians will will reap the benefits.

Now, what do y'all think about the cottages?

Connie Moran?

Well, I think it's an idea whose time has come.

The Katrina cottage is small.

It's 308ft, but it's higher ceilings.

It has a nice porch.

It has a, fairly large room.

And you can you can live in it.

It has a, kitchen and, shower and bath, and you can four bunk beds and you can turn around in it and live in it, and it's and it can be attache to foundation to hurricane code.

And instead of having 20,000 trailers at the end of the day, which are going to go on the trash heap, you have something that can add value to your property.

People can put that in the back of their property as they rebuild.

Matthew, what is going to happen to those trailers?

How many of them are in Pascagoula right now?

We've got about 5200 trailers in the city of Pascagoula, 35,000 plus down here on the coast, or the 37,000 plus, or are they going to become projectiles the first time a storm?

Well, we you know, we hope not.

We have, we have going to Washington ask, our federal delegation to assist us with, federal dollars to, help us build a post storm facility, in, in the city of Pascagoula.

We do not have a Red cross certified shelter, because of our elevation.

And so we've got to look long term as to how we assist our residents.

Get these folks out of these FEMA trailers.

And I think the concept that Brian mentioned, is, is a wonderful concept.

And, especially for our more tenured, residents, we've got to come up with a plan.

We got to do it quickly.

Mayor Bishop, how is it in Moss Point?

How many trailers are down there right now?

Well, we have, over 1000 trailers currently in the city and I think we've pretty much, met the basic housing need of most of the citizens there.

I applaud any viable alternative to trailers simply because, while they may serve admirably as a short term solution, we're obviously looking over the long haul and trying to meet the housing needs of the residents here on the coast, and the trailer just won't be able to do that.

Anyone els have thought about the trailers?

You want them out?

Yeah.

No, that's.

Okay.

Right now, I mean, you know, this is it.

You have to use them right now.

We're grateful for them.

I mean, people would be, where would they be?

You know, they they would be on the streets.

Some people over in your area are still living in tents.

We were over there a few weeks ago, and there's some peopl who were camping out in tents.

You mentioned the faith based and some of those or some of the faith based organizations that clearly we could not have started our recovery without these folks.

And they have.

They've been instrumental, in the recovery of the folks in the city of Pascagoula.

I noticed this morning, there was a church man from North Carolina, at the end of my street.

And, that to me, it's just been overwhelming.

That's been the, my minister said this is the biggest Christian revolution since Christ walked on earth.

And I agree with him.

Connie Moran, you had a thought.

Well, not only for people who own their own properties, but, of course, peopl whose apartments were destroyed.

Right now, they're living in egg sizes, just clusters of small FEMA trailers where FEMA comes in and puts in the infrastructure, road, water and sewer.

And we and that leads to trailer parks.

And I think what we'd like to see is more neighborhoods with cottages than trailer parks.

And our city's lakes.

Did a story last night on their newscast that we saw in the hote about, security in those parks.

A lot of people are very afraid in those parks.

If you had that, we've had more drug arrests.

Since these exits, these FEMA trailer parks have, popped u than in our history of our town.

It is, it's a I'm sure it's probably true in every sense.

I think the same thing in London.

Yeah, there's there's not enough FEMA regulations.

Again, they don't allow you to know who the sexual predators are.

They don't tell you the criminal histories of any of these people.

And, I had a very, tough debate with FEMA people, that came to our town a few weeks ago.

They were fixing opened up a trailer park there, on what's called the best port property.

They don't release any information.

And, they were very hard nosed about it.

And I think it's a that creates a, a dangerous situation because it's across the street from warrior, from, the Abbeville High School.

But you can certainly understand their feeling about people's rights to privacy, but still, what protection Billy Skelly d you have in your neighborhood?

You tell me.

I mean, that's that's what you're trying to find out who's there.

You're trying to find out if it needs to be a red flag on, a sexual predator.

You need to know these things, and you can't get the information.

You end up just having to actually make their arrest after it's happened.

And whoever it hurt you just have to deal with that.

But it's always after the fact.

Tommy, how's the crime situation in Waveland?

Yeah, it's, we've had a pretty good handle on it.

You know, FEMA is FEMA is not set up to respond to, a natural disaster of this, this catastrophic, size.

They're it's an emergency agency.

And they respond.

And as far as transitional housing, in the long term, there's going to be a lot of, lessons learned from this.

And, and, unfortunately, you know, at our expense.

But, I think that if it happened again, a lot of things would be different.

And, I don't know how we could have gotten homes or people in houses.

Homes is a real misnomer, but, into the into a structure without, the FEMA trailers.

We didn't have a building, 1000 square foot left in Wavelan that had two walls left to it.

So we, you know, it worked.

But the transition and putting someone in to something more, permanent that, for the long term that they could build out, like the Katrina cottage or something.

I think in the long run would have saved the federal government taxpayers a lot of money.

And, and it would have been something that was permanent and it would have helped people get back home quicker.

David, what about in Gulfport?

Well, you know, one of the changes a little bit on one of the problems is your you have people who in these trailer parks who who are business people, people who are, yo know, pillars of the community.

Brian Sanderson's grandmother.

Right, right.

And right next to someon who may have a criminal history.

So you have a real mixing in these, trailer parks.

It causes a real problem.

And, we've been ver lucky in Gulfport so far that, the exits are not that large, but, you can see as it gets warmer and more people wanting to get out more, it's going to become more and more of a problem.

We saw, one of the train go by just a little while ago.

Access, CSX has got their tracks, back up and running again, and ABC news the other night got a big piece that said that this was just a pork barrel deal to move that track.

Anybody got a comment about that?

I think that's a yes, sir.

Matt, depending on who's poor, I just like the fuze.

I just light the fuze here.

I guess it depends on what pork you're talking about.

They're talking about the fact that they say some people in other parts of the country say it's a tremendous waste of taxpayer money to buy that right of way over there, and to move highway 90 up and to move the railroad tracks up.

But the the governor believes it's essential.

Absolutely.

It's essential not only to our economic development in these communities, but it's an issue of safety.

We have 90 railroad crossing for 80 miles across our coast.

There's been 90 accidents there since, or, excuse me, 17 accidents since the year 2000.

It's an issue of safety.

And for on a day to day basis.

And it's also an issue of safety of when not when a hurricane.

I mean, it ripped u 38 miles of track from the bed.

And if that happens again, not only will our development be cut, an essential corrido of commerce in the United States will be cut off again.

So multi-million job or dollar job to fix it.

How does the legislature feel about it?

I've hadn't heard a lot of talk about it in the legislature, but personally, I feel that being from Biloxi, w we don't have enough corridors east, west or North-South.

So, you know, my daddy was in, politics back in the 70s.

And his concept back the was to get rid of the railroad and put a four lane highway east and west where the railroad tracks are to alleviate some of our traffic problems.

Can you imagine what it was when highway 90 was closed after the storm?

And the only east west ca that we had in Biloxi was Irish Hill Drive, a two lane drive that parallels the railroad tracks.

So I said, how how importan would that have been for Biloxi to have another four lane, east west corridor?

It's just a good transportation policy decision to have another east west corridor, because highway 90 is a historic highway.

It's a scenic byway, and we need to preserv the character of that highway.

And we need another east west corridor to get people, along the entire coastline, east and west, on to and as far as the the local resident population, to get t and from their employment needs.

And, for instance, Mayor Moran, is it pork barrel?

Absolutely not.

I think Brian, nailed it on the head.

It's a safety issue.

What price for life and clearly for a commercial corridor.

And if we want to preserve highway 90 as a scenic boulevard and really make this into the entire coast into a world class resort area, we don't want to have to expand that to 6 or 8 lanes and have an expressway way right on the beach that I think we're all agree that we don't want to see that happen, but we do really need, another east west corridor along the coast.

David Nicholls, what about th one of the other safety issues is the transportation of the hazardous chemicals that that train carries some of the most hazardous chemicals that's transported in the United States.

And it goes right throug the heart of every community on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

If you had one in downtown Gulfport, you'd take, you know, you'd have to evacuate City Hall, the county courthouse, you know, the central business district, hospitals.

So, you know, I don't want to send the the transportation issues to another area, but there's got to be easier ways to go through that aren't in metropolitan area.

So it would mean that I'm saying Malcolm Jones is here.

He is the chief administrative officer for the city of Pass Christi And I'm glad you could make it.

What are your thoughts about home?

I think they're right on point.

I think it's, a combination of issues.

One is trying to move people from one part of the coas to the other part of the coast.

The other is trying to deal with the hazardous waste.

And the other issue has to do with railroad crossings in general.

We have one of the most dangerous areas for railroad crossing accidents.

And every year, unfortunately, we lose both residents and tourists.

And so we need relief.

And I think it's no different from any other metropolitan growing area.

We're going to be rapid growth now, so we need it more than ever.

We're gla that you could come and join us.

And sorry you couldn't be here off the top, but let me get a little thumbnail on what's happening in parts Christiana right now.

Well, we're moving ahead.

We lost a lot of homes there.

We probably lost 70% of our habitable homes.

All of our, all of our downtown district.

Completely.

But the rebuilding is beginning.

It's slow.

We think we've issued, about 800 building permits, many of which are in the areas where the flooding occurred.

But it's a slow process.

We're getting all of our city buildings back up and functioning.

We lost all of our buildings.

The public buildings, except for our fire station.

We're living out of mobile home trailers now, providing city functions, but we're providing them.

And, we're just trying to get our plan together to move out our biggest issues right now we're trying to create funding, methods for operating expenses.

And I ask some of the other mayors, about the charette, but was what happened realistic and and will it happen down the line?

The charette was a good plan.

Now we're trying to find way to implement that into our city.

We want to see the smart code adopted in our town.

We want to make it work for our town.

But we have some unique features like every city does up and down the coast.

We want it to, protect residential property at the same time encourage economic development.

So we want to keep that balance.

We'd like to have a better downtown economic district than we did before.

But at the same time, we want to protect property rights and try to help people with, the residential growth.

So we are looking to try to implement, as much of the charette plan as possible, but we're also trying to find the dollars to make it work.

One of our big plans that came out of the charette was the expansion of our, harbor.

And next week, the secretary of state is coming down to the coast to meet with our local official to talk about that very project.

It will take a tidelands, lease.

We hope that that will be, possible.

And, today, they're opening, a little, satellite offic for the Home Depot Corporation.

So we're excited about that.

One day at a time.

One day at a time.

They with us?

All right, let's talk a little bit about this is the headline in, this morning's Biloxi Sun Herald.

It says trade mission to here.

The U.S. used to send go to trad missions in Mexico and Honduras.

And all of a sudden they'r going to come to the Gulf Coast.

The commerce chief is coming down here.

Wow.

What do you think?

Excited.

Very excited.

And, I think the congressional tax package that Congress, put together i just what we need to encourage the private sector reinvestment on the Gulf Coast, the accelerated depreciation, the tax exempt bonds, the tax credits, the business carry back, carry forward, loss, it's exactly what we need.

It's a terrific incentive.

And at the end of the day, we're all going to come back with that private sector reinvestment.

And, it's difficult to come in a post home environment.

They have to experience in the kind of storm that we experienced in that that tax incentive package, I think, is going to get the kind of development that we need.

You're seeing a huge investment from the casino industry in this area What what about the rest of you?

You some of you don't have casinos.

What do you want.

What do you wan to bring the Moss Point mayor?

Well, there are some, aldermen within the city who are interested in pursuing the idea of bringing casinos to malls.

Point.

There are some citizen who share that, desire as well.

Personally, I think that given the proliferation of casinos along the coast, there has to be communities that offer an alternative.

Both for the residents along the coast who don't wish to live in, those communities.

But perhaps more importantly, for the visitors who wish to come down to the coast and not necessarily, take part in that form of recreation.

And I would like for most point to be that exception, to be that alternative, a place that accentuates the natural environment, a place where you, will not find, an obstruction to access to the natural environments by casinos or high rise condominiums.

And so, so consequently, I think overall, a balance is what we're trying to achieve here on the coast, where you can have a variety of environments in which to live, but also in which to recreate.

Anybody else want to weigh in on that?

Richard?

Well, the Iberville, the city, the Abbeville has been, begging for a casino for number of years and gone through a lot of hoops with, gaming, environmentalists, etc., and what this has done to our little community of 8500 people and our waterfront is stretche no more than probably two miles.

We have finally, have an opportunity, to have all of these developer, casino and condominium developers coming to tow and begin looking at assembling, 8 to 10 acre, lots for, their, their gaming.

And as it stands right now, we we actually have possibility of 3 to 5 casino operators in the Abbeville, in the nex 18 months looking at coming in.

I mean, they they are they are in town and they are, they are moving very quickly.

And how many more will be in Biloxi?

I think in the next ten years we will probably see about six, maybe topside.

Eight.

And what about Gulfport?

Well, right now there's on we'll probably open this summer.

And, we're we're looking at probably an area for three, maybe five casinos total.

And in the, downtown Gulfport we're we're also concentrating on our commercial areas along the beachfront to make them much, higher density than they once were.

And that will help us get going back to our.

Our mayor of Bay Saint Louis was unable to be here today.

But what's going to happen further on down?

Well, in Waveland, our residential beachfront is going to remain residential beachfront.

But, you know, we've talked about the volunteers and how they've fallen in love with our area.

And, and early on, we realize that that's that's really a built in, economy for the future.

A lot of these young people are going to come back in the future, and we want them to come back and show their, their families where they worked and help rebuild.

We in falling in love with ou area, we've we've made contacts around the country and and selling our old downtown and selling our area.

And we've been we've been fairly successful.

First thing we had to do was, we had a $15 million Lowe's development that was quite frankly, concerned about building.

They were worried about, being viewed as taking advantage of a depressed area or, the situation.

And, and they will be opening in June.

We have a Home Depo that will be a new development that will be opening, in late June or July.

So you may not need a casino.

Well, well, w may not, you know, we may not.

There's got to be an alternative.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having one if you have beachfront to put it.

But if you don't, you got to find another way.

Is it a good idea to merge your two cities, you and Bay Saint Louis?

We have we have always, Eddie doesn't need defending.

We, he's a he's a dear friend, and we, we have been for the last ten years, merging the, the resources and the departments that were obviously, in everybody's best interest.

And we're going to continue to do that.

We've done that in, in communications.

We've done that in, some of our police, agencies.

There are we've done that with solid waste.

We've done that with waste water.

And it's nothing new.

There's always going to be a city of Waveland.

We were founded in 1887.

There's always going to be a city of Bay Saint Louis.

There's not going to be a bay.

Lake is not going to be a bay wave or.

But but the governor, Brian believes that the consolidation of a lot of the resources i vital down here is absolutely.

And and we saw that two days ago when the governor signed here in Gulfport, the, water wastewater bill that, Randall Patterson helped helped usher through the house and in the in our friends in the Senate.

And I think we'll look back in ten years and perhaps sooner than that and see that, countywide at least a countywide approach and in some respects a regional approach to water and wastewate and storm water and solid waste in the six county are will truly transform, the area, not only on economic development standpoint, but for the health and safety of the residents who live there.

Everyone deserves to have safe drinking water, sanitary sewer systems, not just those that live in the city who have, that infrastructure, but everyone.

And that's what's going to bring, the new development here that we want and had to be one of the really important things that came out of this legislative session.

Well, I wasn't on the committe that actually made a decision, but I went to all the meetings.

I wasn't a committee.

I wasn't picked by the speaker to sit on that committee.

But I went to every meeting, and, Jamie Frank from North Mississippi, he was the chairman, and he made sure all the coast delegation was invited to every sit down that they had.

And they met.

And at the beginning, some of the municipalities had problems.

And then the we wanted to make sure that the local entities were happy with the, with the outcome of the finished product.

And then the supervisors had some questions and they just kept meeting and critiquing the pla until we finally got something we think everybody can live with.

What's the plan going to work further down the coast or further to the east?

Do you like the idea?

Can you get I think I think very much is going to work.

There's $600 million that's going to be made available, in Jackson County, our wastewater authority, which was tremendously impacted as a result of the storm.

And I think you're going to see more development in the more rural areas, throughout all of our coastal counties as a result of this.

And so I think it's going to be a wonderful opportunity to for additional investment.

There's still some areas down here that are still having to boil their water.

Right.

Are you all water is okay in your towns.

Yeah.

But some some of the smaller communities are still, still having problems getting up.

It's got to be really tough for Connie.

What what about your city?

What do you think?

Well, I'm very pleased with the legislation, and I appreciate the efforts of Representative Franks and the delegations.

There's also $400 million that's available to the municipalities to rehabilitate their existing older water and wastewater systems, and that's key for us, and I'm sure it is for other municipalities as well.

And the 600 million is not only for the unincorporated areas, but also to expand new water and wastewater systems within the municipalities.

But I think it makes sense to work on a regional basis, especially for things like stormwater management and relocation of wastewater treatment plants.

We surely really like to get those up north and out of harm's way of storms.

How many, millions of dollars, doctor Beth Sewell, how many millions of dollars is it going to take to get al the schools back up and running?

Do you have any idea all the schools are up and running now?

I mean, up, up, up, as pretty as they were.

Let's but we have received 222 million for restart funds from the U.S. Department of Education.

And then we have city receive around 55 million for displaced student and expect to receive, you know, probably another 15 to 18 million lower.

We are very pleased with the amount of money we've received, bu it is nowhere near what we need.

The tax bases are gone.

When you think about a school district, that depends on 45% of their budge coming from the local revenue, the tax base is not there.

You know, we're lookin at some serious issues for them.

We we have students, like I said, that are displaced throughout the United States.

I believe that all 50 state were eligible for receiving part of the the big pot of money for the displaced students, and I think only one chose not to.

We do have another 600,000 that will, be able to distribute to schools for homeless students.

But, you know, our, our needs are are great.

And and as days go on and the time limits on the money that we have received runs out, you know, we are faced wit some critical issues down there.

So what are your solutions?

I mean, you're looking at laying off a great many teachers.

Well, we're hoping not.

You know, we're hoping that, in some districts attrition and through retirement will take care of that.

Some of this money right now can be used for salaries, which is a tremendous help for those districts.

And then we're hoping that the, student population will be back, you know, shortly after or maybe into the fall, and then that will bring some, you know, their revenue back.

But if the solutions aren't found soon and if building doesn't start soon, you're not going to have a tax base in a yea or so that you need to run them.

That that's going to be a difficult issue.

And, you know, it's one one that a local superintendents are battling with daily.

And, you know, they're going to have to, you know, make some decisions as to what's in the best educational interest of the children in their district.

Tom, tell me the the status of things.

You're operatin in a lot of portable classrooms, rough situations for some of the kids, but.

Well, the fact is, we're back in school.

I've been back in school since November, which was a remarkable feat in itself.

Being that most people, if you looked at, you know, what happened down here in September, you would have thought it'd be a year.

But we were back in school.

All school districts are bac in session by November the 7th in all types of ways, with portable classrooms.

There have been over 500 portable classrooms put in the school districts down here.

Some schools are running split shifts.

They're having schools.

It's not normal school.

But the education, the th the academe, it part is normal.

They're making their as normal.

We can of course, when kids leave the school, that is a safe haven that.

So when they leave school they got to go sometimes to trailers with a lot of people, and, you know, our concerns, of course, is to we've got some strong school districts in the state down here, as you know, and they are still the strong school districts.

But we nee we need to keep this out there.

And I'm glad you're doing this today because we we need to keep it alive.

We have a website wher we put, Katrina media library on where people can go to w w w dot GCI called and look at i what these people have overcome and they did know and understand that you have to get the schools on to get the community back.

And everybody's working so well together.

The community, the cities, the school districts, all the services.

And it's just been a remarkable feat.

Mayors, let me get Malcolm Jones in on this, too, since he's way over here afar from all those guys.

How about pass Christian?

We actually were told by the tax assessor that we've lost 50% of our tax base.

And a great part of our, school district over there is courses within the city and without the city.

So it will greatly impact th Pass Christian School District.

You know, we had a great return on our school district in the sense that we had 70, 70% or better of the children return almost immediately.

But as she pointed out, we expect a big return.

Even more so after the summer for the term coming up in August.

So, we're trying to prepare for that as well.

The school system is up and functioning.

The most portable buildings are there, the teachers are there, they're doing their job.

But, creating the the source of funding for the operating expenses is going to be the key, because it's not just abou providing buildings and busses.

You got to have the money to pay the payroll and keep the lights on.

So we're hoping to come up with ways to try to create and fill in those gaps, but it's really the operating expenses we're going to need the most help.

As I say, both in the cit and in the funds that we send on to the school district for that.

But let me go back to our, mayors and how how are the rest of you feeling about this?

Who's who's nervous?

Tommy?

What?

Loss, loss of tax revenue.

Loss of tax revenue?

Certainly.

We were in Waveland.

We brought in, a little less than $1 million in, in property taxes.

So that's, you know, that's a lot to our budget, but our, our lifeline was our sales tax revenue.

And again, we're working real hard to, build that commercial infrastructure and attract new, investment.

And that's, that's where it's going to come from in the long run.

475 new housing starts in February.

550 in March.

The houses in the property are building back.

They will build back.

But the commercial, attraction, we need to keep attracting commercial development.

We are.

But what are you telling your school superintendent, Billy, about redevelopment?

We've had we've had many, many of the businesses that were washed ou or blown out south of the CSX.

We've had them relocat in different areas of our state and and staying within the city limits.

So we're very pleased about that, especially restaurants.

And, and, hardware and several different other businesses.

We feel like that some of this will, continue to come back.

And I think the schools or just like the city itself, we know there'll be some adjustments and some shortfall in budget.

But we're doing our bes to try to get prepared for it.

But how?

We're how are Gulfpor and, Biloxi, what we're doing, we're in probably a little bit better shape than most of the other cities that the our sales tax is up.

We lost about 25%.

And our, valorem, our businesses and homes that were lost and, but, our sales taxes is going up.

And so we're trying trying to balance it all out.

We lost about 8 million in gaming with casinos.

And in Biloxi we feel pretty goo where we at at this particular point in the recovery we're back to approximately 70% of our gaming revenues with just three casinos.

We think that's going to continue to get strong as as the, ones under construction come back.

Sales tax are down about 25%.

We expect that again to, come back as well.

And the, is going to be a problem for everybody next year.

Click the oh five taxes in oh six.

So everybody pretty well got hold on.

They have a lower taxes a property taxes this year.

But next year it's going to be different.

You know all that broad land, unimproved land.

Now that had improvements in oh fiv that won't be on the assessment.

And receive those revenues.

It'll cause a big problem which comes in at oh seven.

So it's going to tighten up a little bit for everybody.

And well, we just got to watch, same same thing in in the Iberville.

Richard.

Well, in the Abbeville, our retail has been great to us.

We're over 50%.

And our sales taxes over the same time last year.

And we see the of course, the ad valorem is going to affect all of us this time next year.

So we're, you know, trying to make sure we've got enough money put aside to prepare for those, for those losses.

But with we're very fortunate to Abbeville that most of our retail was along the 18 quarter.

And, we feel, very strong that we're going to adopt many of the charette concepts.

And with, a lot of casino developers in town, I think the Abbeville, if I can boast a little bit, I think the average is going to be the future hub of retail sales in South Mississippi.

Well, because we have to fight with Connie Moran.

That's all right.

We'll do it Yeah, I'm going to go get him.

Tax situation.

We also the school situation, our schools were the first to reopen.

Although we did lose a wing of one school and a roof off of another.

And we we have some of the students in FEMA classrooms, trailer classrooms.

But we're very proud of our schools.

And even our students scored higher on their state scores than last year.

So, the teachers have really been working well with the students, and they're very motivated.

Sales tax.

We're up about 40 over this period last year, but we expected about a one third decrease in our Avalon tax.

How about we hope it'll offset.

How about in gosh we're we're extremely lucky.

Our mall is is doing an outstanding business.

Our mall wasn't affected much by the storm.

We capitalized on a lot of people coming over from Harrison County, Lowe's, several of our business places, our sales tax at Real Healt at this time, our school system, we're part of the Pascagoula School District.

We only had one small school.

It was it was hard in our affected, in our city.

And contrary to what Mayor Moran said, we have some excellent restaurants open in our city that you can dine out.

So we'll be over there later.

All right.

Mayor Rivera, what about Pascagoula?

Well, we're we're very optimistic.

Our sales tax, like, most of our other sister cities, is up, about 60% right now.

We know that that's not going to last, obviously.

95% of our city flooded.

So all of our residents are are going out and making those purchases.

So we recognize that that's not going to last.

We anticipate, losing probably about 40% of our loan tax, and that's about 5050 between sales tax and have the loans in the nex year.

You're going to have some.

This year is going to b difficult for us.

So we've got we've got to monitor, all of our expenditures.

And in Moss Point.

Well like like everyone else probably we're, we're holding our breath sales tax are up ad valorem.

It's going to be questionable for next year, school enrollments at about 95%.

But overall, we're doing everything we can to, lower our expenses and and increase revenue in the years and and the months to come.

We are on this beautiful, Thursday morning out here looking across the bay.

We are about five weeks awa from the official start of the of the hurricane season, which the hurricane forecasters are saying will be every bit as dramatic as last year.

But what are you going to do, Tommy?

Longer?

What are you going to do?

We're, we're looking at, and we have been looking at our evacuation plan, and that's the one thing that that's going to make a difference, is that we're just going to have to evacuate our people earlier than we usually do.

We have a very seasoned population.

You know, it's our first Katrina, but it's certainly not our first tropical storm or hurricane.

They're not going to stay here and try to weather it in a FEMA trailer.

We'll get them out.

And, are you going to make them or are you going to make them leave?

Is that what you're going to do there in Long Beach?

Or if you're in one of those trailers, certainly you're going to be taken out.

Is that the same thing?

And yes, same thing all the way down the line.

What do you have?

Absolutely.

We're going to need, a lot of help from, the federal governmen to try to put these people out, to take these people out of these trailers.

Where are you going to take them?

Well, you know, in the past, we've always we've always opened up, or should have, say, the Harrison County School District and another local school districts have opened up schools.

Well, with many of the schools severely damaged, you can't take people to a damaged school that is currently closed.

And we're operating out of trailers.

So I don't know where all these people are going to go.

And hopefully the Harrison County, Emergency Managemen Agency is developing plans to, along with FEMA and Mema to try to get these people in a safe location.

Otherwise we will the high school that we do have th the the Abbeville High School, we'v always had open it up ourselves, without the assistance of Red cross, because Red cross will no open up a Red cross evacuation.

Pre-storm.

South of Interstate ten.

So we're like the other cities.

We're probably going to have to open up the schools and where will you take them?

In Biloxi.

Where will you go?

Well, we'll activate the shelters, that meet the criteria for Red cross.

How many of them are left?

We've got two that that meet that criteria right now.

We're going to try to have four for the upcoming hurricane season.

And the resident population on the coast, they've become pretty educated on this evacuation.

And, you know, in the event of a storm, they go the opposite direction of the storm.

They usually, have some kind of relationship with a friend, family member, and they make accommodations, until the storm's through.

What about in, in Moss Point and then gotcha in in Pascagoula?

Where where are they going to go?

Well, we're certainly going to we're going to have mandatory evacuation, in our city.

And, just like the other cities we're going to have call on family and friends.

We've got, again, 5000 people in FEMA trailers and, which just not acceptable will leave them there for their own safety.

So we're going to call on family and friends and, exactly go the opposite direction.

And you a little bit better job of getting a more early evacuation for our citizens.

And I think that, all of us, including my family, will be a little more cognizant of of the storm.

It's likely that you're going to evacuate perhaps several times.

I don't think it will be a big problem at all this time, getting people to evacuate because we've never had a strong storm.

Of this magnitude.

And people realize how destructive it can be.

And I think all you have to do is ask them to leave.

And, of course, we're very fortunate in our county.

We've got three county schools, north of the interstate, and they use the shelters.

But, I firmly believe that people will find a place to go after Katrina.

And in Moss Point, it'll it'l depend upon the circumstances.

We'll take our lead from the county and the emergency operations manager there as far as evacuations go.

But depending upon the severity of the storm, we'll have some pre-storm shelters, which we can use.

But if the, storm is a level three or higher, those facilities cannot be used in the city, and they will have to be, evacuated.

Furthermore, mayors or the governor's, very, very concerned about all this is.

Absolutely.

And, just last week, he kicked off the state Stay aware, Stay Aloft campaign in coordination with Mema and, in disaster relief agencies.

And, so, you know, it's a media it's really a media campaign more than anything right now, getting the word out to prepare your kids, to prepare your evacuation, your own evacuation plans.

And we know, there are many folks on the coast who do not have friends and family that they can go stay with, and they don't have enough money to afford a hotel room.

So we're working very closely with the county EOC and Mema to find appropriate safe places and transportation routes.

Still not enough hotel room?

Absolutely not.

Where were you go, Randall?

Back to Meridian.

Well, I've got family members in Meridian and other areas in North Mississippi.

But when all these trailers started arriving I had some concern about that.

I was thinking that maybe mainland FEMA was going to try to evacuate all these trailers.

But I've been told lately tha the trailers are going to stay.

They got them kind of anchored down, and I had some real concerns about getting all those trailers on the highway in the midst of the traffic jams.

But they said, the people will go and the trailers will stay in, and we'll just pray and hope for the best.

But you're still going to have a traffic jam on the highways getting them out of here, correct?

I we're almost out of time, Tommy.

Long ago in Waveland.

How much more is land worth now than it was a year ago?

It's up.

It's up about 25%, actually.

And, and property is selling.

That's our one thing that we talk about is, the property's going to sell.

There's going to be somebody there.

It's just.

Whose is it going to be, long Beach.

How much is the land worth?

I don't know the percentage, but it's up.

I can see different, advertisements that I don't know, which somebody told me in your area, if I wanted to buy an acre of land, that would cost me $1 million.

Is that right time?

Well, if it's on the on the beach, you know, highway 90 would go through that.

I can say you want a lot cheaper, though, if you want to move, but we may talk about that.

How about in Gulfport?

David Nicholas Pric the land value is up on the land and we entertain developers every day.

Looking to develop on the Gulf Coast.

One time, two time, four times.

How much more?

Probably up 20 or 30%.

This.

This, I guess, give you an example.

Just what's going on?

How crazy this real estate market is right now.

One block from this site where we're sitting and a, developer came in and bought a square block, city block area and paid $48 a square foot.

I give you a comparison of just how high that is.

Boulevard paid $32 a square foot ten years ago.

Years ago, that was more than they paid on a per square foo basis for Bellagio in Las Vegas.

So that's the kind of price and that's going on down here right now.

It's a it's a frenzy.

And the real estate market, everything along the water perimeter is just same and same in the Abbeville up 2 or 3, maybe even four times what it was before along our waterfront.

And the housing, of course, has gone up because there are so few homes available.

And it's a seller's market.

It's a it's a mayor Moran.

And in Ocean Springs, I'm told it's four times I haven't heard that figure, but it could very well be quite high on the waterfront.

I live close to the beach.

In fact, my old home was the last one that survived on my street, and I recently had it appraised and it went up 25 to 30%.

How about gosh, I'd say ours is probably up about 25%.

They are again, we've got a lot of land, a lot of peopl that are interested in our city.

We're having a lot of contacts.

And the mayor talking about $1 million an acre.

I looked at one lot on Belle Fountain Beach that had a big sign, said $1,500,000 firm, no negotiate.

And so that's the value of land in my city and in Pascagoula.

We're starting to see, increases, on the southern part of our city.

We lost a lot of the homes there.

So, they're selling quickly.

The signs don't stay up very long.

And same in Moss Point.

Ditto in Moss Point.

Property values are up.

I estimated probably about 25.

But where does this leav the poor and the disadvantaged and the people who can't afford to rebuild their house?

If this is this is a this is going to be the downside.

And I don't know where it leads, because you would have to find affordabl housing and make plans for it.

And, that, again, is a hard thing to do to locate it and to get it, implemented.

Mayor Moran, from the charrette, some of the architects were focusing on that issue and how to translate, manufactured housing or former trailers into higher quality homes or cottages built of stronger materials.

Hardy plank, and still be affordable.

So I know right now in the governor's Office of Recovery has been talking with a lot of the manufacturers to do that.

And we're looking also in Ocean Springs to as an infill opportunity to bring a lot of those affordable homes in.

But you have a tremendous problem there in Gulfport and in Biloxi housing people who are going to run the casino industry.

That's true.

But we have we have ha a number of developers come in recently who were wanting to do some low income development, that, or medium income development that'll help ease that market.

But that that's something across the because that's the biggest problem getting getting people in affordable housing.

Now it's going to be the toughest challenge for for all of us that probably the tax credit deals will work on the multifamily apartment housing with the single family, individual owner occupied propertie going to be much more difficult.

We're just going to have to try to get as much money on the table as we can with, funds, Cdbg funds, the the Governor's Home Loan Assistance Program, and hopefully with insurance proceeds, FEMA money blended with those that can get the housing arithmetic back together.

I have, greatly appreciated having you al come to spend this hour with us.

Thanks again to all of you and John.

Back to you.

Thanks, Jane.

It's good to hear the real story on how things are going from people who live it each day.

We'll keep up with the progress on this program, on MPB radio each Tuesday morning and on our website at MPB online.org.

On our next episode of Beyond Katrina, we will focus on the science of hurricane prediction and recovery.

We will also update you on tourism so that you can prepare for the popular summertime coastal activities.

You won't want to miss that and more on our next program.

Once again, man thanks to all the city officials and businesses on the coas who assisted us in this program.

For all of us at MPB, I'm John Johnson.

See you next time.

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