Above:A 360-degree photo shows a rusted boat and other wreckage at Bayou Caddy, a port west of Waveland. (John Brecher / MSNBC.com)
About this project
In the coming months, MSNBC.com will focus its coverage of the Hurricane Katrina recovery on two cities on the hard-hit Mississippi coast.
Though Bay St. Louis and Waveland are far from the media spotlight on New Orleans, the intertwined fates of the people, businesses and institutions in these towns tell the story of an entire region's struggle to recover from the most destructive storm in U.S. history.
Hancock County artists whose work will be included in the Washington, D.C., exhibit.
The accompanying photo may look like a bunch of ragtag artists but if you notice they all have big smiles on their faces. The reason for this is because these artists will have an exhibit of their artwork in a very prestigious gallery in Washington, D.C.
Thanks to a generous patron, the Foundry Gallery in Dupont Circle will host a month long exhibit of work by 26 artists from The Arts, Hancock County. This is an opportunity for these artists to sell their work – not simply display it. Since all but one art gallery in Bay St. Louis was destroyed by the hurricane, finding alternative venues to sell art is critical to their livelihood.
BAY ST. LOUIS – Like hungry alligators, gambling enterprises are rapidly crawling ashore all along the Mississippi coast. Hancock County is no exception, with two casinos due to open by year’s end and a new project that pairs a state gaming company with Donald Trump.
Work is farthest along at the former Casino Magic, which will reopen “sometime this fall” as the Hollywood Casino-Bay St. Louis.
Workers pour the slab for what will be Mary Perkins' new home.
It's been too long since I wrote a blog for all of you. Tomorrow marks the 10 month milestone since Hurricane Katrina hit. What an awesome thought that we have been doing this for 10 months!
In my last entry I told you that I had gotten my building permit. That was on May 1. Well, it's almost July 1, but I now have a slab for the new house. It's been rough going these past two months, getting everyone to come do what needed to be done to get the slab poured. A guy I grew up with -- in fact he lived next door to me -- is in the contracting business. He agreed to help me when the house was being demolished. So he took on the task of setting everyone up to get the slab poured. That included hauling in the dirt, leveling it out, forming up, plumbing, etc. And he did not charge me a dime!! People are wonderful, aren't they!!
An artist's rendering from a Paradise Properties brochure envisions the completed Breezes condominium project.
Two brothers involved in the Paradise Bay project in Hancock County -- the biggest post-Katrina development on the Mississippi Gulf Coast -- were key figures in an Internet stock scam that federal authorities say bilked investors out of more than $12 million, MSNBC.com has learned.
Additionally, one of the men was barred from the franchising business for life after federal lawyers sued him in a fraud case they said cost investors $6 million. The other brother filed for bankruptcy in 2002, and both have yet to satisfy a federal judgment against them of nearly $10 million.
And while the brothers -- Richard S. and Donald R. Kern -- say they have developed numerous real estate projects in Florida, California, Colorado and even Russia, neither they nor their associates would provide specific names and locations of any of the developments despite repeated requests by MSNBC.com.
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. – To the delight of no one, Mississippi’s most feared residents – its voracious flying and biting bugs – are recovering quite nicely from Hurricane Katrina.
Mosquitoes, midges (also known as “no-see-ums” and “flying teeth”) and deer flies have been particularly nasty this summer, making things miserable for work crews and giving the locals something to talk about besides insurance and repairs.
WAVELAND, Miss. – When contractor Dwight Billingsley rushed to the Mississippi Gulf Coast just days after Hurricane Katrina struck, he figured he could use his house-moving equipment and expertise to make some money and at the same time help people in need.
Ten months later, the 45-year-old Pine Bluff, Ark., resident is demoralized, tens of thousands of dollars in the hole and ready to head home after losing most of his heavy equipment and tools to thieves.
“I’m going to finish the house I’m on now and go home,” he says morosely, reclining on the bench of his cramped camper’s dinner table. “It’s all I can stand.”
Almost 10 months after Hurricane Katrina, residents of Hancock County are breathing a sigh of relief after learning that the Army Corps of Engineers will not pack up and leave at the end of the month.
But city and county leaders aren’t quite as consoled, since the financially strapped local governments will now have to begin picking up 10 percent of the debris-removal tab.
Regular readers of "Rising from Ruin" will remember the 71-year-old Lake as the Navy veteran who was simultaneously fighting cancer and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For reasons which were never clear, the agency was threatening to evict him from the trailer it had given him, according to Lake and family members.
Nearing the 10-month mark since Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast, work has begun in earnest to replace the Highway 90 bridge across St. Louis Bay – a vital economic lifeline that carried an average of 17,000 vehicles a day between Hancock and Harrison counties before the storm wrecked the old span.
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