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Wednesday, December 7, 2005
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HANCOCK COUNTY
Regardless of trials of recovery, it’s home
Those rebuilding still have some questions
By RYAN LAFONTAINE
rlafontaine@sunhorald.com
HANCOCK COUNTY — Doris Felder, 54, has lived on Farrar Street since she was a toddler.
Her two children grew up on this narrow road, riding bikes to school and walking to the beach in this quiet neighborhood in Waveland, a small town of about 6,670.
Felder’s two young grandchildren had begun making their own memories here, until Hurricane Katrina pulverized their town, thier steet and more than 50 years of family history.
There were several dozen homes on Farrar Street on Aug. 28; now, less than five houses are still standing — on the north end of the road — and they will likely have to be tom down.
'Hie scenery is the same on just about every street south of the railroad tracks in Waveland and Ray St. I/iuis, stuffed with overturned cars, toppled homes and shattered memories.
The county looks as if a bomb was dropped on it. More than 50 people here were killed, and nearly 4,500 FEMA trailers are occupied in Hancock County, more than in any other county in Mississippi.
A hundred days after Katrina, so many questions linger: Will people come back? Will the town recover? Will the economy survive? And, could something like this ever happen again?
Those questions are serious for the hundreds of people still grappling with whether to rebuild.
“1 don’t know how long it will be before they even let us rebuild, and it’s scary now, to think what the next hurricane season might be like,” Felder said. “I do want to go home, though.”
Felder and her husband, John, are living in Covington, I a. Her daughter and two grandchildren, who lived next door on Farrar Street, also moved to Covington.
Felder’s 26-year-old daughter, (linger
JOHN FITZHUGH/
Doris Felder takes her grandson, Davis Scharp, 4, to his mother’s store, Uptown Interiors in Bay St. Louis, after picking him up at sc store is across Dunbar Avenue from a disaster relief distribution center, background.
Scharp, had moved away to follow her husband’s job with the CSX railroad company.
About five months before Katrina crashed ashore Aug. 29, the Scharps moved back to Farrar Street, making the destruction even harder for them to cope with.
Backyard cookouts with family, adult dinner parties with old childhood friends, and watching her own children play in the neighborhood where she grew up; all of it washed away in a day’s time.
“Having everything back for a few months,” Scharp said, “was almost worth losing it all.”
Since the storm, she has remained
optimistic about the future, even using her upbeat presence to talk her mother into becoming business partners, a merger the two were pondering even before Katrina.
“Can you imagine opening a business in this town, right now?” Felder asked.
llie mother-daughter team has opened Uptown Interiors on Dunbar Avenue in the Bay, selling lamps, furniture and other household items in one of the few stores operating here, and one of the only new businesses to open since the storm.
“I’m a little nervous, but I tend to buy (store merchandise) that I like, so in case it doesn’t
work out, I’ll at least have some n furniture for my own house,” Scharp: The Felders and Scharps, and so m families, are trying to pick up the piec Scharp is moving into a small renta Waveland with her two children, anc railroad is back and running across her husband will remain in Meridij he recently was transferred. Meantin will remain in Louisiana.
But, both women want to return new houses, if not on Farrar Street, t other place in Waveland, because, F( “It’s still our home.”
WAVELAND
Talking with Mayor Tommy Longo:
Q Is City Hall back?
A No, our city hall is gone. Initially, I put up a Quonset hut. We operated out of that until we got a trailer complex built on Coleman Avenue that has all of our administrative offices in it.
Q What city services are back?
A All city services are back, to some degree. They're just not total. Our regular police station north of the railroad tracks on U.S. 90 is open, though not in its original building, which was destroyed. And we have a police substation on Coleman Avenue, in the administration complex, that’s open.
Our main fire station north of the railroad is open. Our station south of the railroad tracks is open. Both of these are manned 24 hours a day with fire companies and trucks.
Trash is being picked up on its regular routes now, for a couple of months. Water and sewer is restored north of the CSX railroad. And every day we’re adding water, sewer and power to streets south of CSX. Gas we have rebuilt from (Mississippi) 43 down (Mississippi) 603 to (US) 90. And we're rebuilding the gas infrastructure in the city south of (US) 90. And animal control and the animal shelter in Wave-
A city-by-city update on recovery
BAY ST. LOUIS
Talking with Bay St. Louis Ward 2 Councilman Jim Thriffley:
Do you have City Hall back?
A City officials were open for business at the historic L&N depot on Blaize Avenue within a week after the storm, but city and county offices in the same rooms were confusing to the public, so we moved to trailers on the depot property a couple of weeks ago.
Q What city services are back?
A To my knowledge, everything, 100 percent across the board. Cable TV. (Natural) gas is not 100 percent, power is available to those who can get it, meaning those whose homes have been rewired and are safe to have power turned on.
What are tax collections like?
A Property tax bills were to have gone out on Dec. 1. Payment is due by Dec. 31-on anything that was on the rolls as of Jan. 1, 2005. Sales tax is way down.
DIAMONDHEAD
Talking with Chip Marz, general manager of the Die Country Club and Diamondhead Property Owners A;
QDo you have City Hall back, or, in this case, trative offices?
A They've been back since less than a weel hurricane. We didn't open right away becau 20 folks staying in here.
What services are back?
A Any home that has the ability to accept water and electricity has it. The homes on the sout power is down that way but water and sewer i available.
What are tax collections like?
A Our version of property taxes is an annual a usually paid on a monthly basis, of $60 a m nately for us, it’s tied to the land. If you own property, you pay as much as one with a million-dol
n What is the city budget status?