We have been to Biloxi several times prior to the hurricane so we wanted to return and see what it looked like now.
While driving along Interstate 10 from Florida to Texas we decided to take a side trip into the Biloxi, Ms area. We have been to this area several times prior to hurricane Katrina. In fact I Lived in Biloxi for over a year while in school at the air force base there. This was our first look at the damage and reconstruction progress.
If you are not familiar with the area highway 90 runs along the coast at this point and separates the landside from the beaches.
On the landside were many old southern homes overlooking the beaches and Gulf of Mexico. A scattering of motels, small shopping centers and RV parks were nestled among majestic old oak trees.
On the Beach side were the casinos and fast food places. The casinos were unique as state law requires the casinos be on the water so the casinos were and are just very large barges tied to land based hotels.
When the storm hit it changed all that perhaps forever. Now as you look down the beach side that’s all that is there …beach. There are only a few indicators that something was there. Barges…gone marinas and boats…gone….The beach has pretty much been returned from whence it came…a beach.
The landside fared a little better. There are some houses that were untouched but there are a lot of those beautiful old houses …gone. Motels and stores boarded and abandoned. Anything that wasn’t concrete isn’t there. Most places are damaged beyond recognition. If you didn’t know exactly where something was you most likely won’t find it now.. there just isn’t enough landmarks to find anything.
Here is the sad part Construction of high rise condos has started in place of those old southern homes. Construction seems to be all big bucks kinda thing. Some individual homes are under repair but it looks to me that overall very little is being done. At the rate we observed it will never get finished. The trend seems to be leave it (for whatever reason) a condo firm buys the homeowners out and bingo another hi rise condo. The good that may come of this all of the construction thus far is on the land side nothing on the beach side.
There is still a lot of clean-up that needs to be done and who knows what will happen in the future. All I can say is this is a very depressing place for the moment. The boom of casinos is pretty much gone. The ones that had little or no damage are up and running but it doesn’t appear that the casinos that were totally destroyed are planning to rebuild.
