One Indiana Student's Experiences in MS

Our HQ is the Mississippi Center for Justice in Biloxi. We drove down on US 90, but then had to detour north to I-10 because the bridge for 90 is out (I might have some pics later...). The damage in this area is severe, even months later. It looks like F3 damage on the Fujita scale. The beachfront homes are essentially all destroyed, although a few sturdy structures remain. There is also significant damage moving inland among low-cost residences that could not take the wind and storm surge. The Casinos along the shore are about 50% intact, which is to say that the bottom floors are blown out, leaving the stuctural supports alone in place, and tha the top halves mostly have subtaintial damage to the roofs, with some collapsed walls. This is on average, some are slightly worse or better. Some are mostly repaired and operating (a good thing, since the casinos are apparently the best source for employment in this area). The local rebuilding priority appears to be clearing out the beaches of debris, so there is heavy equipment sifting through the sand. It seems like an odd priority, but I guess it's important so that the casinos can be rebuilt.


The priority for the MSCJ is to get the public aware of the emergency aid funding of the state. Apparently, MS got X$ in federal disaster relief money, of which 75% had to be spend on low-income families that had lost their homes; Congress later docked the cap to 50%. But, there was a provision in the act which allowed the state discretion to drop the caps "for substantial need" or something like that, so the governor has decided that the money will be spent regarless of income, and will only be eligible to homeowners who had homeowners insurance (but not hurricane/flood insurance) and who did not live on a floodplane. OK, I can understand holding back on the peope living on the floodplane, but the requirement that it only go to people who already had homes and could afford insurance is a bit crackheaded. This is a middle- and upper-class recovery bill now that is leaving the most vulnerable to rot. So, the "plan" is basicly to go out and get people to know that this is happening so they bitch to their reps and get the plan stopped before it's too late. They have until the end of the week. Yes, not a very good plan.

My assignment for the week is unrelated, though. Our job is to head out to the local courthouses and find notices of property forclosures. We copy down the info and bug the tax recorders to give us the addresses of the people being foreclosed on. The idea is for US to mail them to let them know what's happening. Why us, you ask? Because in this state, all due process requires is a notice on the bullitin board and an ad in a newspaper, so a lot of these folks probably have no idea. Also, there is a moratorium on foreclosures in MS right now, but in order to prevent it, the person being forclosed on has to file some documents--and they're going to have a hard time doing that if they don't know they're being foreclosed on! So, we identify who these people are, and then we try to get them the information they need to keep them in their homes.

Our second day of work was much better than the first. We got an early start, skipping stopping at HQ competely and just got out there at 0900. We finished up one county before lunch and did another afterward. That county was rather interesting, since thier "courthouse" has actually a large park of air-conditioned trailers; apparently thier normal building was heavily damaged in the storm. We took part of the afternoon to take a trip out to the US-90 bridge. It was collapsed on the west side; each segment in that area had broken free and fallen at one end, with the top of the other side propped up against its support. It had the appearance of a concrete-and-rebar accordian. Think "True Lies," only worse.

collapsed_US90_bridge
Originally uploaded by shn_gulfport.

On Wednesday, we finished up our last county, grabbed a newspaper for the other group, and then went back to the center to record all our data and compile it with the other groups. We got kicked out of the center around 5, which was definitely a good thing because I knew we were working harder than we had been on the previous days.

On Thursday, it was reassignment time. I worked a bit with Sue (Chicago-Kent, with the other group on the project) for a bit on compiling the data and then did some clerical work for an apartment survey project. The letters were ready to go out friday morning. Hopefully, we kept a few people in their homes.

at_work_MCJ
Originally uploaded by shn_gulfport.

I've got a couple.

Pictures of Mississippi and Louisiana

The graffiti sums up the overall attitude of the people I met during the week. While I had an amazing time in terms of who I met and what I saw, most of the people I met with weren't those that the MCJ were directly serving. Not that they weren't affected; it was hard to meet someone who hadn't been affected by Katrina in some way. But many of these people had opportunities and resources that weren't available to all. I'm hoping that some of you who had the direct contact will share some of the stories from people that you met, and people that you spoke with.

Thanks for the experience. I hope that we were able to help.