KATRINA - Two Years and Counting for Rebuilding

KATRINA - Two Years and Counting is posted on The Local Voice website in my column section called, Local Chaos.
Please check it out.

Katrina made landfall on the coast of Mississippi the morning of August 29, 2005. 
At 10:00 a.m. Hurricane Katrina made its third landfall near Pearlington, MS and Slidell, LA with sustained winds of 120 mph. 

Katrina - NOAA images:



Also at 10:00 a.m.,
while at a Medicare event in Arizona, President Bush said,
"I want to thank the governors of the affected regions for mobilizing assets prior to the arrival of the storm to help citizens avoid this devastating storm."

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Aug. 28 at 12:19 GMT
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Aug. 27 at 20:21 GMT
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Aug. 26 at 16:00 GMT

MS Gov.'s Associates PROFIT from Katrina Recovery

"Mississippi Governor's Associates Profit From Katrina Recovery"

This “hot off the presses” puts it all together about how Barbour and Co. have profited off Katrina contracts…And note this isn’t Mother Jones or any other left leaning publication but a major financial news service.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=home&sid=aG1fHyzJA56A

WHERE IS THE FUNDING?

Katrina relief funds are shrouded in red tape and plodding along at a snail's pace.

Celebs and others raised $30 MILLION for Katrina victims to rebuild. WHY has only approx. $1 million been spent?
Gov. Barbour is "in charge" of the bankroll they raised for the fund he set up called, Hurricane Recovery Fund.
Gulf Coast Community Foundation is the agency that began managing the distribution of funds in January 2006.
Distribution should have begun July 2006. It only began earlier this year.

REASONS for snail's pace and shroud:
1. Committee members had to create a process to spend and track the money.
2. Some money is on hold while organizers of rebuilding projects look for other funding sources.
3. Case managers helping victims through the application process are overloaded.
4. The Fund wants to distribute in a "responsible" way - or play the wait and see what victims' unmet needs are game.
5. MEANWHILE, the money is being INVESTED and earning INTEREST. (Which SHOULD create MORE money for VICTIMS)
6. BUT, "expenditures" – administrative costs of managing the fund and sponsoring the concert in the beginning have to be paid.
7. ONLY $5 million is for homebuilders to rebuild... and it can ONLY be for BUILDING MATERIALS.
8. Other "monies" will be for COMMUNITY and DAY-CARE CENTERS and AFFORDABLE HOUSING.
9. LONG TERM RECOVERY COMMITTEES determine needs.
10. The FUND prefers VOLUNTEERS for the REBUILDING projects that they fund-as more time passes, this is not too realistic.
11. TIGHT REGULATIONS create problems with recovery. Example: Jackson Co. has over 3,000 open cases of people who NEED HOMES!!!

Speaking of TIGHT REGULATIONS, a Pascagoula man who co-owns his home with his niece "lived" in Georgia with his dying father 6 months PRIOR to Katrina. His home was destroyed. He was DENIED fundiing to rebuild because he hadn't been livig in it!!!
To add to this disgusting scenario, Bill Richardson who was appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour to oversee the fund said in reference to the Pascagoula man, "We have a very fair, easy-to-follow, accountable method. We're not going to give money to any project that does not have a clear (property) title, or to any project that wasn't owned and occupied and damaged by Katrina."
All I can say to that remark is that the "rules" for approval are as dumb as his use of grammar. According to Richardson, Katrina herself would have to own and occupy the home.

WAVELAND, MS - Volunteers desperately needed

HELP REBUILD HOMES AND LIVES

Rebuild lives by rebuilding homes in and around Waveland Mississippi. Volunteers are needed, both skilled and unskilled for this effort. If you have a trade and can give us a week, two weeks, a month, any amount of time, we can certainly make your donation of skills and time a good experience. We survivors are and resilient and gracious, we just are not strong enough to do the physical work alone.

Camp type housing can be provided as well as cooking facilities and sanitation. There are no housing costs for Long Term Volunteers.

Please contact:
Kathleen Johnson, Katrina Relief, 228-466-4630.
Waveland Citizens Fund
700 Tabor Street
P O Box 837 -( for mailing )
WAVELAND, MS 39576

Volunteer Application Forms for Katrina Relief

SKILLS

Construction Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator, Administrative Assistant, Case Managers, Urgent: Office Manager, Urgent: Office Assistance, Unskilled, Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, Roofers, Sheetrock: Hang, tape and texture, Floor Tile specialists, Roofers, Concrete finishers

LIVE OAKS - SPIRITS WITHIN

I have begun a new series of computer altered photographs which focuses on the wonder of survival that I saw in Live Oaks all along the Mississippi coast. Some were so stripped of leaves and branches and I was in awe that they were clinging on to life. Of the trees left, some looked like they might not make it, but most were showing signs of renewal. Tough spirits, they are! Photos were shot Nov. 05, Aug. 06, and Feb. 07.

KATRINA ART - A Way to Grieve and Heal

KATRINA SPEAKS

a mixed media collage series consisting of layers of different handmade papers, photographs scanned and altered in Photoshop, and lines of my Katrina poetry printed on clear acetate on canvas. Photos used in this series were taken in Nov. 2005 within a small area of Ocean Springs. Project consisted of 12 pieces.

MODULAR HOMES for the COAST

This is a copy of a letter I sent to the Biloxi Sun Herald

I am writing in reference to the July 31st. story, "County rejects modular home."

MODULAR homes are NOT MOBILE homes. Modular and Mobile are two different words with totally different meanings.

I would like to challenge all of those posting negative remarks in the comment section of the story and all CITY "LEADERS" to go to "GOOGLE" then click "Images," then type in "Modular Homes." DO YOUR RESEARCH. Educate yourselves instead of causing more problems than is necessary. Then create some guidelines as pertains to DESIGN and STYLE and let modular homes be included in site built neighborhoods.

I am in agreement that Mobile housing/TRAILERS should NOT be put into a neighborhood of site built housing. TRAILERS are cheap boxes made with cheap products which decrease in value.

Modular homes are an important piece of the puzzle for accomplishing the rebuilding of homes along the coast. There are many, many types of designs and styles of architecture for modular homes and THAT is where to begin in solving the issues of Modular Homes in site built neighborhoods. People just need to pick the style that blends with the environment.

As for covenants??? Katrina has changed the coast in ways that those covenants nor their creators could have forseen. NEW IDEAS are what is needed now. What's wrong with getting yourselves up to date and educated and then make changes in those outdated covenants to include MODULAR HOMES?

Now, quit bickering!

Katrina's DOUBLE EYEWALL

Dr. Keith Blackwell is a hurricane expert and professor at the University of South Alabama. His research has focused on Katrina having two eyewalls and explains how this is responsible for such devastation all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Microwave satellite technology is the latest way to look inside of a hurricane's storm clouds and Dr. Blackwell used this incredible technology to study Katrina. This amazing way of being able to look down through the hurricane's clouds and to see the actions of the eyewall's developement led him to discover a second and extremely potent eyewall. This second eyewall extended the severe hurricane winds much farther out from the storm’s actual center.

I had voiced my opinion on many ocassions that I did not see how, given the tremendous amount of devastation that Mississippi suffered, and not just along the coast, that Katrina had been just a plain ole cat 3 at landfall. There was just too much catastrophic damage and the varying damage was just too widespread.

This report explains how and why this cat 3 hurricane did what it did, thus creating the biggest natural disaster in America’s history.

For an extraordinaryly interesting read, please download the pdf document at the link below.
"Hurricane Katrina and Double Eyewalls"