This is great! I'm glad to see a lot of biulding movement. I'm happy to say that I will be down there helping in July. I'm looking forward to it a lot more now

I should hope there would be a housing boom. I also hope their will be a gas station boom, a grocery store boom, a drugstore boom, a restaurant boom, a bank boom, a school boom, etc. There has to be. Everything's gone. You can count on one hand, the houses being rebuilt on the coast.

Way to go Waveland!

Mary, your help there will be greatly appreciated. Hopefully there are others willing to give up a little of themselves to come down and roll up their sleeves too!

Our family will be there again in 2 weeks!

In the suburbs and in thecities and towns of mississippi and louisiana, those individuals with pride and ambition are rebuilding without complaining about whatthe "government" has failed to do for them.
I've been injackson, harrison and hancock counties decontaminating mold from structures so real people can get back to their lives.

news media should be focusing on the real people of the gulf coast not the whining politicians and slum lords of new orleans.

While it is good that new construction of homes is picking up it is clear from photographs that some of the same construction mistakes are being repeated. The principal mistake being wood frame construction.

Using wood as the main building material while being cheaper is only setting the area back up for major hurricane damage again. This region should have changed the building codes like South Florida did to build stronger homes by using cement instead of wood.

Poured cement walls are far more resistant to hurricane force winds then wood frame. In fact there is no way a wood frame home could ever withstand catagory 4 and 5 winds. So the question is why use wood ?

Mark Duncan

And, the liberal news media and press have been praying for and predicting, for at least two or three years now, a housing bubble bust...and what we are getting is a housing boom! It must depressed them so!

Our house was not only under 12 ft. water but hit by tornado (took the top floor) before the wind driven water. This past month we have started to rebuild and all of our neighbors except two (elderly and decided to move a bit further north)are working on houses now. One of the two houses put on the market has already sold and work has been going on there the last two weeks. The sound of construction is music to our ears.

I hope that this hard hit area would consider building back with concrete block. Florida is the hot-spot for hurricanes and 90% of all residential construction is with concrete block. They need to consider rebuilding with materials that have been proven to withstand the storms.

Mark Duncan asks why use wood?

Wood is ductile. Settlement of the soil
under load is a big problem, and the groundwater
table is shallow so deep foundations are a
challenge, not to mention the lack of bedrock.
Concrete would probably crack.

I hope and pray that MS has stiffened its coastal building codes so the next Katrina (and there will be one) has to work harder to tear everything down. The AL gulf coast revised its building codes several hurricanes back and it's pretty obvious which buildings are "new" code and which ones are old. The new code buildings are there. I'm glad our friends West of here are making progress.

My wife Lynn and I just came back 5/1/06 from volunteering for two weeks in Past Christian and Waveland under the non-profit CITIMPACT. Among all the devastation and trailers, we saw new houses and existing homes being rebuilt. I went down as a handyman and RV technician to help the people waiting for their homes to be rebuilt / built maintain their existing dwelling. Thanks John and J.D. for being you. God Bless Mississippi

I like the concrete/wood debate. It is not so much as to whether to use wood or concrete. It is very relative to the substrate in the area, the foundation styles, etc. But the wood framing must be correctly designed with the proper spacing between framing members, the correct size of studs, structural members, etc, and most importantly, the extensive use of metal tie downs, clips, plates and bolts, and planned double shear walls in special areas. In the mountains in California, we have to build homes to withstand a level 8 earthquake with 12 ft. of snow on the roof. These homes would easily withstand most hurricanes, but would drive the costs substantially.

Rebuilding in an area frought with disastors is, well, disastorous. At some point people need to understand that homes built in areas that have a large potential for destruction should NOT be built, let alone RE-BUILT!

Insurance companies are responsible if they accept the liability... I'm guessing they will screw over people if they can get away with it (or long delays for $). Then, TAH-DAH, the Feds are expected to bail em' out. With OUR $. Saving insurance companies big time...

Let them rebuild on their own dime with out insurance if they want to live there again. I don't enjoy sounding heartless, but building in places like this, is more than moronic.

I find it interesting that areas in Mississippi are being re-built, when areas in New Orleans still have dead bodies on the ground. What gives? And I must say I agree with Sean from VA, in terms of rebuilding in disaster areas. Unless the gov't is going to rebuild the levees properly, which it won't b/c it's too expensive, it's seems almost idiotic to rebuild in the middle of a hurricane zone.

and yet they are still building them out of wood, genius

Sean from the rainy flood prone areas of WA writes:

Rebuilding in an area frought with disastors is, well, disastorous. At some point people need to understand that homes built in areas that have a large potential for destruction should NOT be built, let alone RE-BUILT!

Hey man. How about some perspective?

Katrina was the first hurricane in 30+ years to
give the MS Gulf Coast grief. Did you vent with
spittle when FL got hit 4 times in 2004 and
3 times last year? How about when Hurricanes Fran,
Floyd and Bonnie hit NC? Probably not. Why? Because
they weren't Mississippi. But all of a sudden
MS gets hit and you get all uptight
about things that really don't matter to you.

Do you ever hit the "How you can help" button on
this page? Ever think about volunteering? I've seen
fols from Seattle and Tacome in So. Miss., helping
out. I've spoken to them about what the perception of
us is elsewhere, and they detest (DETEST!) attitudes
like yours.

There but for the grace of God go you, into the
rain, Sean from WA.

While it is good that new construction of homes is picking up it is clear from photographs that some of the same construction mistakes are being repeated. The principal mistake being wood frame construction.

Using wood as the main building material while being cheaper is only setting the area back up for major hurricane damage again. This region should have changed the building codes like South Florida did to build stronger homes by using cement instead of wood.

Poured cement walls are far more resistant to hurricane force winds then wood frame. In fact there is no way a wood frame home could ever withstand catagory 4 and 5 winds. So the question is why use wood ?

After reading this comment I needed to repeat it as it was the only sensible thing I had read! Not to mention,living in the state of Oregon with more and more bald mountains from the deforestation. Please re-build with cement and save all of our lives!!!

In response to the post by Sean H.

The people along the coast have usually lived there for generations. These people know the risks but most of them are very attached to the area. If an earthquake destroyed someone's house on the west coast I'm sure that person would rebuild. A tornado destroyed part of several neighborhoods a couple miles from where I live a few years back and all of those houses have been rebuilt. The government and insurance companies help rebuild houses all over the country and the coast just happens to be one of those areas right now. I hope everyone will continue to support the efforts to rebuild the coast.

i am tired of the taxpayers paying time and again for this disaster releif no matter where it is.I would like to see legislation requireing flood and disaster insurance or you will not be eligible the second time around.these are at risk comunities and states and the taxpayers should only be expected to help those who help themselves.I would also like to see all insurance companys who write these policys be held in strict accountability,with the elimination of the small talk and the insurance companys 100 yard dash to rip people off.These companys withold payment long enough to cause these people severe anxiety and desperation a time limit of 60 days to settle a claim is fair for both sides,these settlements would step up the pace of reconstruction and releive the fed of some of its cost as people would have the funds to become self reliant

Q., i agree to disagree...if concrete is done RIGHT...it will be there forever...in leiu of an earthquake...or a person with a bulldozer and a bad attitude....but it MUST be done right

I wanted eveyone of you to know that my family and I pray for you everynight.

Good to see that things are starting to move along. I sure hope that the new structures are being built to revised codes to better withstand storms. Building the same strength of house in the same location would seen like inviting future issues in a storm-prone area.

I'd like to explain to Mr. Millwood of WA state that when LA, TX, MS, & AL supply the nation with virtually all of its energy obtained from off our U.S. shores, it's a necessity, not an option, for the workers who serve that protion of the energy industry to live where they do. It would be difficult for them to live in other states or even farther north in those states and get to work every day. In addition, a fair amount of the seafood the rest of the country enjoys is caught off the shores of these states. It's also necessary these individuals live where they can get to their boats every morning to go out and make their catches.

This isn't about wanting to own beach front property. In that respect your point is well taken, but it's about people's livelihoods and their need to earn a living and support their families

Safest thing to do is move. It's a pond with inadequate walls to gaurantee that water will stay out. why expect any assistance from anyone when you are deciding to stay in an area that will surely get hit again.

I grew up in central Florisa in the 1950's & 6o's and ALL HOMES were built one level with concrete block (CB) with poured concrete corners and tie beams over windows and doors reinforced with steel. The only wood structure was the roof trusses and interior walls. I experienced several major hurricanes back then, and the only damage sustained to most houses was water damage. Back then everyone had terrazzo floors..no big deal. In the 1970's I was a laborer/carpenters helper building houses and apartments in central and south Florida, and noticed that wood frame structures had taken over. I was on the third floor of a newly framed apartment building, and noticed how the entire structure swayed back and forth just shifting my weight. I can remember saying to my friends, "The next time a major hurricane like Donna comes up the Florida peninsula, it is going to be the biggest natural disaster this country has ever seen." Then along came Andrew. Need I say more. I hope the Gulf coast builders are reading this.
Ted Parrish, Warsaw, Missouri