Biloxi

Biloxi, Mississippi
We decided to take a walking tour of Biloxi. There were 20 stops on the tour which pointed out the historical sites of the city. The devastation caused by Katrina was obvious as we walked through the city. There were many buildings that were just boarded up with no signs of renovations in place.
There is a Katrina Memorial on the site of the Biloxi Town Green. The memorial is 12 feet high and that was the height of the water wave when it reached this location. We took a boat ride in the Bay and the Captain indicated that the wave height in the Bay was 27 feet high. The City of Biloxi was under water and the damages sustained will never be totally repaired. The crew member on the boat had a home that was destroyed. The home could be rebuilt, but even being built to code, a 1200 sq. ft. house would cost $9,000 to insure.
The people who lost their homes just could not afford to rebuild them to code and pay the insurance costs, etc. It was less expensive for them to just rent elsewhere. The crew member who owned a house had used it as a rental but if he rebuilt it, he could not charge the rent to cover the costs. He is fortunate in one way that the property is desirable for a casino and he is in the process of selling the lot. It will take time before there is enough money in the area to buy building lots along the coast. The only employers, in the area, are the casinos and the fishing industry neither which pay high wages. The fishing industry is still a large industry in the area, the only thing is that they do not process in the area. After hurricane Camille the processing plants were destroyed in the area and they relocated elsewhere and will not return to Biloxi. The local residents say, if it wasn’t for the casinos, the City of Biloxi would not thrive.
We drove West down the coast to Pass Christian and the further you got away from the casinos the more devastation you saw and less rebuilding.