Magnolia Marketplace

So the Saints won the Super Bowl, Drew Brees won the game’s MVP, and according to various national media outlets, poverty, corruption and every other scourge on New Orleans is gone forever, or at least that’s what the hours of pregame coverage yesterday seemed to imply. And if there is anybody north of Memphis who is aware that Hurricane Katrina did her worst damage in Mississippi, I’d like to meet that person.

Moving on.

Toyota announced yesterday that it will unveil its plan of action for dealing with the problems that have arisen with the Prius’ antilock braking system. This is the latest blow in the wave of recalls to hit the company the past couple of weeks.

We have a message in to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America folks in an effort to get a few details on when they’ll make the announcement, and what exactly it will entail.

When we hear back from them, we’ll post what they have to say.

UPDATED AT 10:52 A.M.: Still no word from the stateside Toyota folks, but Kyodo News in Japan is reporting that about 300,000 Prius hybrids will be recalled. Details are here.

UPDATED AGAIN AT 12:53 P.M.: Magnolia Marketplace just heard from Mike Michels, spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales USA. He did not provide a timetable for when Toyota would issue its Prius solution, saying only that it would be “early this week. Otherwise, there’s nothing to report,” he said.

I meant to post a reminder this morning, but the official server of Magnolia Marketplace was late to realize that the Labor Day holiday did not stretch into Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney keynoted today’s monthly luncheon of the Stennis Capitol Press Corps. Chaney hit on a number of things during his roughly 35-minute presentation that featured a slideshow. The biggest news, and it wasn’t really news, is that Chaney said there was “no way” the Mississippi Insurance Department was going to grant State Farm’s request for a 45 percent rate increase in homeowner’s insurance policies on the Mississippi Coast. Chaney had made that assertion shortly after the company formally asked for it a couple weeks ago.

The MID is also freezing some open positions, including those that would inspect mobile homes in the state, while the budget situation remains unsettled. Chaney did say that he would issue a request for proposals “in the next 14 to 21 days” to private companies to perform the inspections.

The rest of the Chaney’s time at the podium was spent running down the details of the State Fire Academy. Chaney, by statute, is the boss of it, and it looks pretty interesting. There are several cars and even an airplane submerged in a lake on the premises that act as training aids for rescue operations that require underwater maneuvering around cars and/or airplanes.

Pretty neat, right?

As we mentioned yesterday, Gov. Barbour and First Lady Marsha Barbour were scheduled to honor two volunteers who helped Mississippi out a whole bunch after Hurricane Katrina. Honor them they did.

Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, two New Yorkers who work for Talk Radio News Service, were at the Governor’s Mansion this afternoon to be recognized for the work they did after Katrina. Barbour said for the first 12 months after Katrina, the state was able to capture the names and addresses of 600,000 different volunteers who helped with the recovery.

“They came from literally every state in the country and many from outside the United States,” the governor said

Ratner and Espinoza played a big part in the building of the Marsha Barbour Community Resource Center in DeLisle in Harrison County. “They took the bull by the horns and they raised the money and put the team together, the team on the ground,” Gov. Barbour said.

Dedication for the Center is Saturday. It will feature a swimming pool, computer lab, a medical room to treat minor medical issues, a basketball court and everything else a community center needs.

“The only way I can reconcile the images of Katrina is if something good came of it,” Espinoza said.

Ratner, in her role as the host of a liberal-leaning talk show, has known Barbour a while. She had a lot of good things to say about Marsha Barbour and her work immediately after the storm.

“This is an amazing story and it’s an amazing story of true leadership,” Ratner said.

Ratner and Espinoza are only two of the army of people who spent their own time and money to help South Mississippi get back on its feet. As big as the storm was, the helping hand we got was even bigger. That’s probably one of the most important things to remember as the fourth anniversary approaches.

So to Ratner, Espinoza and all the others: Thanks, ya’ll.

Gov. Barbour and his wife Marsha will hold a press conference tomorrow afternoon to recognize some of the volunteers who have helped South Mississippi with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina and who have had a hand in the development of the Marsha Barbour Community Resource Center in Pass Christian. If you’ll remember, the First Lady was on the frontlines during and after the storm. The details of the press conference will be posted as soon as it’s over.

The four-year anniversary of Katrina is this Saturday. Hard to believe. Magnolia Marketplace is playing in a charity golf tournament in Gulfport that day, a day that should carry a lot of emotions for our fine folks on the Coast.

Moving forward there hopefully will be a new post before this time every morning, but Magnolia Marketplace has just gotten Internet service back after losing it late yesterday afternoon. The final tally: One replaced ethernet cord and one very patient, helpful and probably frustrated IT guy at the corporate office in Minnesota. To some news …

My trip to Gulfport last month for the “ground-making” ceremony at the State Port was one of the neatest things I’ve done since I started here.

Several college buddies live on the Coast, and I’d passed both Port entrances probably 100 times, but the ceremony was the first time it had registered. What jumped out immediately were the hundreds of tractor trailers that had the Chiquita Banana logo on them.

Anyway, the Port is undergoing a rebuilding and expansion as part of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Word came yesterday afternoon that the Mississippi State Port Authority had awarded a contract to Pennsylvania-based Geospatial Holdings to map the Port’s underground pipeline utilities. Geospatial is part of a team that includes Mississippi Engineering Group, part of Jackson-based Waggoner Engineering, and Pickering Engineers, which is based in Memphis but has offices in Jackson, Pearl, Southaven and Biloxi. The group will eventually map above-ground and underground utilities before the heavy lifting of the 20-acre expansion can start.

By itself the underground mapping contract, according to a press release, is expected to be worth about $3 million over three years. The overall cost of the expansion is $22.5 million, paid for with federal money. Along with expanding it, the Port will eventually be elevated to 25 feet above sea level to minimize damage from future hurricanes. Gov. Haley Barbour’s decision to set aside $570 million in Community Development Block Grants to pay for the elevation has drawn a lawsuit from the NAACP and criticism from several Democrats in Congress who want that money used for low- and moderate-income housing. The lawsuit is ongoing.