The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina brought the focus back to New Orleans, but Gulf Coast communities in Mississippi still struggle to get attention and help for areas swept away by last summer's deadly super storm.
"We have been so overshadowed. In Mississippi, we have total neighborhoods that have been just completely wiped off the map," said Cynthia Seawright Wright, who lives in Ocean Springs, Miss.
"We are still living in trailers that are meant for you to live in for a few days," said Darneice Williams, who is raising her granddaughter Brianna with her son serving in Iraq. He can't come to Mississippi because the Army doesn't want him "injured" trying to rebuild, she said. Meanwhile, Williams said she was diagnosed with severe liver damage from drinking dirty water in the FEMA trailers. "I need to talk to someone, I need psychological help. I cannot get it. I don't know what to do," she said.
Statistics (Statewide)
Mississippi residents are among the nearly 750,000 households who have been displaced from the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Current estimates show that of the 47,000 Mississippi residents, who fled their communities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, only 27,000 have returned to rebuild their homes in communities that have not fully recovered one year after the storm. There are more than 101,000 Mississippi residents living in temporary FEMA trailers. According to the American Red Cross, 47 counties in Mississippi sustained hurricane damage to single family houses, apartments, and mobile homes, but the majority of the damage occurred in the coastal counties of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson, where more than 64,000 homes were completely destroyed and over 70,000 homes damaged. As a consequence, each of the Mississippi coastal counties have experienced a significant population decline, while counties located further inland now have an influx of displaced residents.
(Monique Harden, "HUMAN RIGHTS AND MISSISSIPPI’S DISPLACED RESIDENTS," in Envisioning a Better Mississippi: Hurricane Katrina and Mississippi -- One Year Later.)
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State Farm Insurance Scam
Hundreds of homeowners on Mississippi's Gulf Coast have sued their insurance companies for refusing to pay for millions of dollars of damage from Katrina. A judge who presided over the first Katrina insurance trial ruled this month that Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. must pay for damage caused by wind but not from flooding, including storm surges. . . .
The Rigsby sisters were both eight-year employees of E.A. Renfroe, a firm that helps State Farm and other insurers adjust disaster claims. Although they weren't State Farm employees, the company issued them computers and business cards that identified them as State Farm representatives. They also had confidentiality agreements with State Farm.
"We have always been proud to work with State Farm," Cori Rigsby said.
The sisters say that pride faded, however, as they began to suspect the company was pressuring engineers to alter their conclusions about storm damage so claims could be denied.
Kerri Rigsby says her suspicions grew in November after finding a handwritten note attached to an engineer's report that read: "Put in Wind file -- DO NOT pay bill. DO NOT discuss."
She said the engineer's report, dated Oct. 12, concluded that Katrina's wind caused most of the damage to a Biloxi policyholder's home. That should have been good news for the policyholder, she noted, since State Farm's policies cover damage from wind but not water.
But when Kerri Rigsby pulled the policyholder's file, she said she found a subsequent report based on a second inspection of the home Oct. 18. This time, the same engineering firm concluded that water caused most of the damage, according to the report, which the AP reviewed.
"The policyholder did not get a copy of the one that said wind," said Kerri, 35. "He should have gotten lots more money."
(AP)
Statistics (Biloxi)
Listen to the numbers cited by city officials, and one gets the impression that Biloxi is roaring back:
- In the first quarter of 2006, the city’s three newly reopened casinos took in revenues equa to 70 percent of the total revenues of all nine casinos operating pre-Katrina.
- By July 1, five casinos had reopened, with three more due to come online by the end of September, including Beau Rivage, the city’s largest.
- Foxwoods, the nation’s largest gaming company, and Golden Nugget Casino have acquired significant land to build new resorts, with condominium developers close behind. Mayor A.J. Holloway has predicted that as many as 20 casinos could dot the coastline by 2010.
Walk the East Biloxi neighborhoods ringed by the casinos, however, and it is immediately apparent that its residents are not benefiting from such reconstruction. Here, in the city’s oldest, most diverse, and poorest community, there is a palpable lack of activity:
- With limited resources and little access to capital, most homeowners in the neighborhood cannot afford to rebuild on their own. Conservative estimates put the increase in labor and material costs at 20 percent and the price of elevating to anticipated new FEMAheight requirements at $25,000 or more per house.
- For the 51 percent who were renters, affordable intact units are scarce; the Housing Authority has only 35 percent of its pre-Katrina units operating, and private coastal rents are up 30 percent overall.
- Twenty-two percent of the households living in the floodplain on the Biloxi peninsula had incomes less than 150 percent of the federal poverty line, yet because of eligibility requirements, all were barred from applying for the first round of grants from the governor’s homeowner program funded by CDBG monies.
(Oxfam, Forgotten Communities,Unmet Promises: An unfolding tragedy on the Gulf Coast)
Black Men Die In MS Gulf Coast Jails
MOSS POINT — Two Moss Point police officers have been suspended because of "ineffectiveness" in the wake of an alleged jail suicide.
Moss Point Police Chief Demetrius Drakeford would not identify the officers.
He said one would be suspended for three days without pay. A second officer will be suspended for two days without pay.
Drakeford said the suspensions came after an internal investigation into the hanging death of inmate Billy Ray Evans. The investigation determined the two officers erred in their duties the morning of Evans' death.
There was no jailer on duty when Evans died. The Moss Point Board of Aldermen is backing Drakeford's call for more personnel at the jail.
The FBI and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation also are looking into the death and will forward their findings to a grand jury if they determine the Moss Point department was at fault in the death.
A second alleged suicide in March also has drawn publicity. A civil suit has been filed in that case.
(AP, August 6, 2006)
GULFPORT — The death of a Harrison County inmate was ruled a homicide on his death certificate, according to a published report.
The Sun Herald obtained a copy of Jessie Lee Williams Jr.'s death certificate and it shows the immediate cause of death was massive brain swelling and herniation with underlying conditions of subdural hemorrhage and blunt injuries to the head.
Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove signed the certificate Monday, ruling Williams' death a homicide "by means of blunt injuries at the hands of another," the newspaper reported Thursday.
Williams, 40, was arrested on misdemeanor charges Feb. 4 and died after life support was removed two nights later.
Witnesses have told The Sun Herald an unidentified jailer antagonized Williams on Feb. 4, assaulted him while he was not handcuffed and tortured him while he was subdued and restrained.
A jail officer has been placed on leave, the sheriff's department said.
(AP , March 10, 2006)
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