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CAMILLE: 20 Years Late
“We had 85 percent of all our buildings either destroyed or damaged. We were in a state of severe shock.”
Fire Chief George Mixon Pass Christian
TCHIN
Most buildings on Pass Christian’s Scenic Drive were destroyed, above and below, when the eye passed over the Bay of St Louis.
Pass
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Christian are from New Orleans. “They see what a beautiful place this is to live. I just hope they realize also that this is the second worst place in the world to be when a hurricane hits,” he said.
The worst place would be in a house on Cat Island, he said.
The comeback
Laurie Matkin, executive secretary of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, agrees with Mixon that the city stayed in a state of economic shock for at least a decade.
“I will be with the chamber 10 years this month and a lot has happened since then,” she said.
The city’s employment picture is proof of that, she said: Employment at DuPont’s DeLisle Plant is expected to jump to 600; Gulf Coast Pre-Stress at the Pass Christian Industrial Park has 300 workers on the payroll; another 100 work at Gulf Coast Fabrication and Ter Chemicals in the park; at times as many as 500 people are employed at Pass Christian Industries’ downtown garment factory, and 12 more work for Triton computer software business, also downtown.
“Except for Pass Christian Industries and Gulf Coast Pre-
Stress, all of those businesses and industries have come in here since
1979,” she said.
“We have a lot of new homes, the trees have come back, the pelicans have come back, the beach has been refurbished, the harbor
has been enlarged, and the yacht club has been rebuilt and expanded,” Matkin said.
She said 15 to 17 small retail outlets thrive in the downtown area, including gift shops, art galleries, restaurants, banks, service
stations, convenience stores and lounges.
“But there’s no doubt about it, we spent the first 10 years after Camille trying to recover what we had lost and just trying to live from day to day,” Matkin said.