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Blasted by Katrina, Biloxi struggles to rebound

Posted on: Monday, 28 August 2006, 11:47 CDT

By Matt Daily

BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) - The clean-up is mostly complete and business is brisk at the beachfront casinos, but a year after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Biloxi is still struggling to get back on its feet.

The most damaging storm to ever strike the United States crashed ashore a year ago this week, bringing a tidal surge more than 30 feet high to Biloxi, killing more than 50 and ravaging entire neighborhoods on the peninsula that hugs the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico.

A year of uncertainty over new building codes and the anemic local economy have prompted long-time residents to considering leaving the city, especially since government funds to help rebuild houses have only trickled in.

"We have a lot of people who are still stressed out, lost everything, don't know what to do," Mayor A.J. Holloway told Reuters from the front porch of his home.

Most of the pre-storm population of about 50,000 has returned, city officials aid, and the state government has recently begun distributing federal funds to rebuild homes.

But so far, only 136 permits for new homes or total rebuilds in Biloxi have been approved. That would replace only a tiny fraction of the 6,000 homes and businesses destroyed.

The wide, white sand beaches draw few visitors even on a sunny day, and the tourism and commercial fishing industries that were once the backbone of the local economy continue to struggle.

"Not a lot of boats are left here because (the cost) of the fuel is so high and the shrimp price is low. We work too much for no money," said Hung Lai, a 67-year-old immigrant from Vietnam selling fresh shrimp on a pier in the marina.

Lai said he had tried to sell his 72-foot (22-meter) fishing boat "Tiger Shark" for $80,000, but had been forced to drop the price several times.

"We'll sell this now for $35,000 cash," he said.

On a weekend afternoon, a boat offering shrimping trips draws only a handful of tourists to its entrance under a bent street lamp that still rests on the shell of a nearby building gutted by Katrina.

With business slow, ship captain Corrie Eleuterius is happy to take even a small group through the waterways and bays he says are still clogged with trees and debris despite efforts to clear them.

"If they had hired the shrimpers to clean them, it'd be done by now," he said.

BETTING ON CASINOS

Mississippi loosened casino restrictions in the aftermath of Katrina, allowing more land-based facilities to help replace revenues lost when the storm ravaged the giant floating gambling barges that once dotted the coast.

Tax receipts from the casinos, which contributed more than a third of Biloxi's $50 million in annual revenues, have rebounded to pre-storm levels in recent weeks, and the city is hoping to more than double the number of gambling houses to 20 facilities in the next decade.

More important are the 15,000 jobs the casinos generated before the storm. Nearly 10,000 of those jobs have returned, and the re-opening of the Beau Rivage scheduled for the August 29 anniversary of Katrina will add more than 1,000 to that.

Blackjack dealer Kathy Juanico returned to her job in the Grand casino in July after months of working for a friend's seafood business.

"Oh God, I was excited to get back there," Juanico said from her east Biloxi home.

Juanico and her husband George restored their home with the help of a federal loan. But the hurricane wiped out the houses on either side of it, and the fears another storm could strike the city are a constant worry.

"I'll move next time," George said.

The chaotic real estate market has hampered investment, with land prices jumping to $125 per square foot (0.09 sq meter) -- a tenfold increase in the poorest sections -- before retreating in recent months.

Three couples gathered on the porch of a destroyed bungalow said costs to rebuild had soared, and they hoped to sell their plots as a package to a developer looking for waterfront views -- a feature they now had since Katrina washed away the single row of houses that had stood between them and the Gulf of Mexico.

"Put the money in front of me and I'm gone. I don't think it will ever be like it was before," said Wayne McClendon.

(Additional reporting by Peter Henderson)

Source: REUTERS

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