Mississippi’s second-largest city could use recovery money from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina to seek a solution to a neighborhood’s flooding problem. WLOX-TV reports that the Gulfport City Council will consider hiring an engineering firm Tuesday to investigate flooding and propose solutions. Businesses along the stretch of U.S. 49, a central artery in the city, have long complained that unmaintained ditches and a ...
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Mississippi sues landlords over Katrina loans gone bad
Mississippi is going after landlords and would-be landlords who promised to fix up property after Hurricane Katrina for low- to moderate-income tenants but failed to abide by the terms of their forgivable loan agreements. The Sun Herald reports the Mississippi Development Authority has filed 65 lawsuits and so far recovered $630,000 in funds the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban ...
Read More »State’s highest court reverses decision in Windpool case
By JACK WEATHERLY The Mississippi Supreme Court has reversed decisions by the state insurance commissioner and Hinds County Chancery Court and ordered a reconsideration of Arrowood Indemnity Co.’s suit against the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association. The company said it made an overpayment of nearly $5 million because it was misled by the association, known as the Windpool. The Windpool, composed ...
Read More »Circuit clerk protects Hancock County’s records, history
By LISA MONTI Hurricane Katrina ripped open the roof off Hancock County’s historic courthouse and broke windows but most records inside the thick walls survived, thanks to some hurried preparations and a good bit of luck. But Circuit Clerk Karen Ladner Ruhr isn’t counting on luck to protect the old documents in her office, especially the marriage licenses that date to ...
Read More »JACK WEATHERLY — Barbour’s book tells of Mississippi’s finest hour
The Flood of 1927 was the most widespread and disruptive natural event to happen to Mississippi in recorded history. The flood, which also inundated Arkansas and Louisiana along the Mississippi, has spawned many a book and many a tale. Now Mississippi has Hurricane Katrina as its greatest state tragedy, and its finest triumph, as Haley Barbour tells it in his ...
Read More »SUMESH ARORA — Re-energizing after Hurricane Katrina
A s we mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and reflect on the past decade we hear many stories of courage, strength and of the unity we showed as a state. One of the numbers which stood out in my mind was the number of people who lost electricity to their homes, offices or businesses: nearly four million, by some ...
Read More »JACK WEATHERLY: Healing on the coast — A sunny mortality
BAY ST. LOUIS – We sit on the porch of our rental cottage two blocks from the Gulf. Palmettos embrace the screened enclosure with their large fronds resembling the human hand. Hence their name. It’s hard not to think we’re in paradise. Or should I say paradise regained? The lane is always quiet, but more so in the morning, disturbed only ...
Read More »Hancock Bank had card table check cashing, scratch paper IOUs and kept money flowing
By TED CARTER Prospects for a bleak morning turned to brightness Tuesday for Hancock Bank’s John Hairston by the time he rang the bell to start the Nasdaq Stock Exchange’s trading day. With the bell sounded, four days of historic drops gave way to stock price gains that by the end of the day shifted into reverse. Wednesday trading brought a ...
Read More »LISA MONTI — The Gulf Coast has made progress, but it’s really not over
I rode out Katrina in my house just a block away from the Bay St. Louis beach. I wouldn’t recommend it. In spite of all the official warnings ahead of the storm and the hand wringing among friends and relatives, four family members and I chose to stay. It’s what a lot of people on the Coast do. My family, ...
Read More »LYNN LOFTON — 10 years of the ‘new normal,’ but we’re still here
The ringing phone awakened me early on Sunday morning, Aug. 28, 2005. “Get up! We’ve got to leave. There’s a monster storm coming and we can’t stay here,” my neighbor and friend, Clare, said with urgency. Just the night before we sat on her sun porch laughing and talking, sipping wine, confident we wouldn’t evacuate. How quickly things change. Like ...
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