Background

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE BACKGROUND SECTION IN A PRINTABLE FORMAT (*.PDF)
Early in the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina – the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States – made landfall in Hancock County, Mississippi. Her 130+ mile per hour winds drove ashore tidal waves a world-record 35 feet high and pounded the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast for eight hours. When the storm finally abated, more than 200 of our neighbors were dead and many more were missing. All communications were lost, the entire 75-mile beachfront was devastated and the destruction from wind and rising water extended more than 50 miles inland, and the lives of more than 400,000 survivors were changed forever.

Katrina was an extremely powerful and deadly hurricane that carved a wide swath of catastrophic damage and inflicted large loss of life. It was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the United States. Katrina first caused fatalities and damage in southern Florida as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Having reached Category 5 intensity over the central Gulf of Mexico, Katrina weakened somewhat before making landfall, yet the damage and loss of life in Mississippi were staggering, with damage continuing through Alabama, Georgia and the Florida panhandle.

Because the storm sat in the Gulf so long at such strength, the winds pushed a record amount of water inland, and most of that surge had no place to go except into the shallow waters of the Mississippi Sound and then ashore. Katrina is also credited with causing wave action on Lake Pontchartrain, which breached a levee and caused massive flooding in New Orleans. Damage assessments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross reported 60,000 housing units were destroyed in south Mississippi and another 55,000 homes and housing units suffered major or severe damage, displacing more than 150,000 people. Many Mississippi Coast neighborhoods – especially those on the Gulf of Mexico or near one of our many bays, rivers or bayous – had literally washed away.

EFFECTS OF HURRICANE KATRINA

Katrina’s effects are being felt in all areas of life. The storm not only left families temporarily homeless and dependent upon FEMA and the American Red Cross for survival, but she left entire neighborhoods unsure if they will ever be able to rebuild. The storm destroyed thousands of historic and cultural buildings and artifacts, wiping out much of the three-century history of the Mississippi Coast. Most of our tourist attractions were damaged or destroyed; putting a temporary halt to what had been a remarkable record of tourism growth. Businesses, schools, local government, libraries – all were impacted, and the area’s infrastructure suffered unimaginable damage.

Over 50 million cubic yards of debris were collected within the first 10 months after the storm. By comparison, 25 million cubic yards of debris were collected after the San Francisco earthquake that leveled that city at the turn of the last century.

RECOVERY, REBUILDING & RENEWAL

But Katrina also presented South Mississippi with an historic opportunity: rather than simply try to rebuild what was lost, South Mississippians have the chance to start from a clean slate and build the kind of community they could only dream of before the storm. Katrina also tested state and local leadership, both public and private, and history will show that Mississippi’s political and community leaders acted with distinction.

Quick action by the Governor and Mississippi Legislature approved the movement of casinos as much as 800 feet inland, thus saving thousands of jobs. Almost all of the 12 Mississippi Coast casinos were destroyed or badly damaged by Katrina because the floating barges were washed ashore, thus eliminating more than 15,000 direct jobs and another 25,000 jobs indirectly tied to the gaming industry. By allowing the casinos to move ashore, the casino owners were able to rebuild and get insurance coverage they could not have gotten in their previous location. Three casinos immediately went to work to renovate their high-rise hotels, move their gaming operations into what had been ballrooms, and were reopened by December 31, thus bringing more than 3,500 jobs back online.

Within days of the storm and amid the shock and devastation left behind, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour gathered together local leaders to create the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. Barbour invited businessman Jim Barksdale, a Mississippi native who helped launch Federal Express and Netscape and is currently chairman of the Barksdale Reading Foundation, to serve as chairman. Barksdale, who was a financial supporter of Barbour’s opponent, incumbent Governor Ronnie Musgrove, accepted the chairmanship and donated $1 million of his own money to fund the commission. The Knight Foundation, working through the Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi, added another $1 million to the planning group’s coffers to ensure the commission’s work was entirely privately funded and would draw no monies away from the recovery and rebuilding effort.

Barbour and Barksdale challenged the commission to do more than just plan how to rebuild south Mississippi; he wanted them to use the “clean slate” Katrina left behind to build communities that could be models for the rest of the nation. With that challenge in mind, the Commission went to work just two weeks after Katrina with instructions to have a final report and recommendations ready for implementation by December 31, 2005 – or less than 100 days from Katrina’s landfall.

The Commission called upon more than 500 volunteers to work on 20 organized committees. These volunteers invested more than 50,000 man-hours researching, listening to and debating alternatives.

The Commission staged a six-day Mississippi Renewal Forum where planning specialists from around the world joined local leaders to generate designs and proposals for community renewal. A series of public forums solicited citizen input and helped refine the recommendations for rebuilding infrastructure, housing, health care, education, tourism, land use, small business and a host of other issues. Specific responsibilities were assigned and funding mechanisms determined.

Since local governments have the most opportunity to initiate action and share the most accountability, municipal and county government leaders took an active part in the “charrettes” (architectural design brainstorming sessions), planning and public forums. As part of the process, following the completion of the report on recommendations from the Governor’s Commission, each of the Mississippi Coast’s 11 municipalities formed their own local citizens’ commission to study the recommendations, add their own, and plan the implementation of their own recovery and renewal.

Commission members understood from the beginning that there were certain imperatives that must guide all their planning. Among them were:

Maintain a sense of place. The Mississippi Coast is made up of many unique cities and communities and each one is unique. As one of the oldest settlements in America (the Biloxy Bay Colony was founded in 1699) there is more history and heritage attached to the Mississippi Coast than most places in America, and that must not be lost in our rebuilding and renewal.
Protect and foster our diversity. The Mississippi Coast’s uniqueness comes, in many ways, from the diversity of our population. Our history and heritage has grown over generations under French, British, Spanish, Confederate and United States rule. From the Yugoslavs, French, Hispanic and Vietnamese cultures we have drawn many of our most enjoyable festivals, customs and cuisine. Maintaining that diversity is absolutely essential to maintaining our sense of place.
Affordable housing is a must. The Mississippi Gulf Coast has been a successful service-based economy, built around tourism, retailing and the military. Without affordable housing conveniently located to the major job centers, schools and health care facilities, there will not be a sufficient workforce for these service industries to return to their full potential.
Public buy in is critical. We’ve seen many expert plans produced over the years, but most were never implemented because they weren’t “our plan.”While Katrina gave us the opportunity to start anew and the Commission had access to some of the best architectural and urban design minds in the world, the most important input must be that of the residents themselves.
Katrina was the worst, but may not be the last. In all rebuilding planning, Commission members were reminded that part of their responsibility was to rebuild in a way that would protect citizens and property from future storms.

The Commission’s recommendations and reports from each Renewal Forum (public meeting) along with the housing and community design recommendations can be found on the Commission’s website at GovernorsCommission. com.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

The biggest challenge was providing housing for more than 150,000 South Mississippians displaced by the storm. In June -2- 2006, ten months after the storm, some 103,000 South Mississippians were still living in 38,000 FEMA trailers. Another 10,000 or more privately owned trailers and campers were housing even more residents. Population estimates indicated that at least 40,000 pre-Katrina residents fled the three coastal counties (Harrison, Hancock and Jackson) and at least half of them had temporarily resettled in the next tier of counties (Pearl River, Stone and George). Getting these residents back and working has been a priority.

Homeowners must rebuild damaged homes to the new FEMAmandated elevations, which means most homes will have to be raised eight to ten feet or more – often much more. Recommended design standards take these elevations into account, but they add to construction costs. In areas like east Biloxi, densely populated with moderate- to low-income neighborhoods, the elevation costs can be as much as the cost of rebuilding the home, thus making rebuilding an almost impossible challenge for some residents. Biloxi’s Mayor A. J. Holloway appointed a “Reviving the Renaissance” committee to specifically study housing options and other issues, and contracted with Living Cities, specialists in housing issues, to specifically study the issue of affordable and subsidized housing and make recommendations. Biloxi understands its economy is based around gaming and condo development and to be successful, they must ensure sufficient affordable housing for the thousands of employees necessary to keep those businesses going.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Hurricane Katrina was an international story. The world’s news media were especially attracted to New Orleans, where dramatic images of stranded residents climbing onto rooftops to avoid rising waters attracted some of the most dramatic rescues ever captured on film. Mississippi – the actual site of Katrina’s landfall – suffered far more damage over a much wider area, but without a single large central city, Mississippi has taken a back seat when it comes to Katrina disaster coverage.

Mississippi and Louisiana will be a testing ground for communities across the nation because of the “compression factor,” the need to deal with all the issues facing any community – housing, economic development, environmental impacts, crime, education, urban planning, mental health issues, community leadership, funding – but our community leaders have to deal with these issues all at once. How Mississippi deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – both the rebuilding and the longrange renewal – will be studied by and set examples for the nation’s communities in the future.

But the real story of Katrina is just emerging, and that’s the story of Mississippi’s recovery, rebuilding and renewal.

Conservative estimates are that the Mississippi Gulf Coast will see some $20 billion in public funding and more than $20 billion in private investment by the year 2010. Congress and the President created the Gulf Opportunity Zone (GOZone) which allows investors to enjoy immediate depreciation of investments within the GOZone (which includes all Mississippi counties and Louisiana parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina) for all capital investments made by 2008. By June 1, 2006 more than 8,500 condominium rooms were under construction and four new casinos had begun the application process.

The tourism committee of the Governor’s Commission set a goal to make the Mississippi Gulf Coast a Tier1 Destination by 2010, offering more than 30,000 first class hotel rooms, more than 600,000 square feet of exhibit space, increasing our air service and offering multiple major destination attractions. Current hotel/casino plans will easily exceed the 30,000 hotel rooms and expansion of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum and Convention Center, along with planned exhibit space in several of the new hotels, will provide the necessary exhibit space. The Gulfport- Biloxi International Airport is already undergoing major renovation and expansion and, as a result of two “air service summits” held in March 2006 and April 2007, air service to and from our local airport will meet and exceed Tier 1 standards well ahead of schedule. Prior to Katrina, the Mississippi Gulf Coast was the third largest gaming destination in America; with the additional mega-resorts already planned or underway, this gaming market will be second only to Las Vegas by the end of the decade. And the announced construction of INFINITY® – a world-class science, technology and visitors center outside the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County – will house, among other exhibits, a national hurricane exhibit on the spot where both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Camille (1969) made landfall. Along with the Frank Gehry-designed Ohr- O’Keefe Museum of Art, INFINITY® and world-class gaming and vacation resorts will provide the destination attractions necessary to meet our goals. Tourism development is absolutely critical in generating the tax revenues necessary to fund our ambitious rebuilding and renewal plans.

Non-Government Organizations like Living Cities, Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together USA have set up semi-permanent headquarters on the Mississippi Coast and are aggressively working to build or rebuild affordable housing in the most damaged areas.

RECOVERY, REBUILDING & RENEWAL: THE PROCESS

Biloxi, one of the hardest hit communities, is typical of the local response to the Governor’s Commission. Biloxi Mayor A. J. Holloway appointed a “Reviving the Renaissance” committee to develop recommendations for rebuilding Biloxi. That group also worked with Living Cities, a national organization specializing in rebuilding cities, to develop a plan for residential and commercial redevelopment of the low-lying East Biloxi area (devastated by 30-foot tidal surges) in a manner that maintains a sense of place in this old, culturally and ethnically diverse community yet protects the area from future devastation. Those completed reports are now ready for implementation and can be read online at the City of Biloxi’s website (www.biloxi.ms.us). Each of the Mississippi Coast’s 11 cities formed a local planning committee to conduct public meetings, solicit citizen feedback, review the Governor’s Commission recommendations and make recommendations to their local officials for implementation. To -3- follow the progress of these local planning organizations, visit the individual city websites.

Among the hardest-hit areas was low-lying East Biloxi. Following the model of the Governor’s Commission, Biloxi mayor A. J. Holloway formed the “Reviving the Renaissance” committee, challenged to develop plans to “revive the Renaissance” that Biloxi was undergoing before Katrina. The plan (available on the city’s website at www.biloxi.ms.us) addressed such issues as housing, transportation, tourism, education, culture/history, seafood and military/government. Working with the national organization Living Cities, the Renaissance plan creates a vision for a “new” East Biloxi that will incorporate the best “new urbanism” concepts while maintaining the unique character of Biloxi. The Biloxi City Council unanimously received the “Renaissance” plan.

(The new East Biloxi as envisioned by the Biloxi Renaissance Committee and Living Cities)

In Gulfport, citizens groups have been at work with the city administration and the Main Street program to develop plans for the rebuilding and renewal of that city. Following several public meetings, the city's aim is to begin the redevelopment with the Gulfport harbor area, creating an entertainment and retail center that will be the focal point of downtown Gulfport. For more details on Gulfport's plans, visit the City of Gulfport website and download these files at

http://www.ci.gulfport.ms.us/NEWS/SMARTCODE.pdf and

http://www.ci.gulfport.ms.us/NEWS/GPT-SmartCode-3-6-draft.pdf

GULF COAST BUSINESS COUNCIL

To help provide strong and efficient leadership to the implementation of our recovery plans, the Gulf Coast Business Council has been formed. The group of more than 150 CEOs is taking a proactive stance in shaping public policy by studying and championing solutions for issues from infrastructure to insurance.

The council brings together leadership talent from Mississippi’s three coast counties (Harrison, Hancock and Jackson) and works directly with elected public officials from those counties. Most of the council’s leadership also chaired key committees on the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal and held leadership positions in Momentum Mississippi, the state’s strategic development plan, thus assuring continuity between and among the plans. Several Council members worked with the Governor and Mississippi Legislature to approve a bill allowing Coast casinos to move up to 800 feet inland, thus giving casinos the incentive to rebuild and return thousands of jobs. Three casinos were reopened by December 31, 2005.

In its first year, the Gulf Coast Business Council has:

a. worked with the Mississippi Legislature to unanimously pass a bill revamping the state wind insurance pool, spreading the risk statewide. As a result, personal homeowner insurance which was either unavailable or had seen premium rates increase 400% became available at “affordable” rates usually double the pre-Katrina level; the commercial insurance rate increase dropped from as much as 800% to an average of 380%;

b. created the Renaissance Corporation, a non-profit organization designed to secure grants and other funding for homeowners and builders to offset the “new” construction costs of site elevation and insurance. The goal is to expedite the availability of “working class” housing for families with incomes 80-120% of the market’s median family income;

c. hosted two airline service summits with representatives of the nation’s major airlines. These summits have already produced additional airline service with many more flights and additional new airlines committed to serve the Gulfport- Biloxi International Airport;

d. conducted multiple “beach summits” with all stakeholders in the beachfront to finalize plans and coordinate the recovery and cleanup of Hwy 90 and the beachfront;

e. adopted a goal to become a Tier One tourism destination by 2010, created the GCBC Tourism Initiative and launched a multi-faceted program to achieve that ambitious goal;

f. worked with our federal delegation to extend the Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone incentives through 2010, thus giving developers the needed time to complete new projects.