I spent the last couple of weeks commuting back and forth to Gulfport. I was doing a job overseeing the installation of a business network. Actually- the business was rebuilt after a certain be-yach of a hurricane blew most of it to Wiggins. It took almost a year to get a construction company that wasn't booked up.

They must be well practiced as they went from concrete slab to interior finishing in Three weeks. It's like watching mushrooms pop up after the rain.

I see some definite advantages to Katrina. Everything that was destroyed- save the historic buildings- are being built back brand new. Businesses are getting a modern makeover. Homeowners that weren't screwed over by the wind vs rain loophole are getting brand new houses. Unemployment is unheard of. If you can walk and use a push-broom, someone will hire you.

Construction is going on everywhere and the watch-word seems to be bigger and better.

I got a chance to catch up with some of my relatives on the coast and all of them have hair-raising stories.

Heath is a 22 year old who used to live in Moss Point. They went to a relatives house that was in the hills 15 miles behind Pascagoula, MS. Even at that distance, they had major problems. The storm damaged the roof and knocked down so many trees, it was a week until they could drive to the main road. They weren't allowed back to Moss Point for almost a month and then all that was left was a concrete slab. Their family lived in a FEMA trailer from October of last year until June when they finished rebuilding. Heath has become a champion roofer and can get as much work as he can do.

Even a year after the storm, the tell-tale "Blue Tarps" still cover many roofs. If a house didn't get flooded, the winds from Katrina ripped shingles off a roof like a fisherman scales a fish. After the storm, FEMA gave out blue tarps to cover roofs until they could be repaired.

My cousin Rick has a house outside Pascagoula. He built it himself- he is a contractor. He built it 10 feet off the ground with I-beams and concrete blocks. As the area he was in didn't get flooded during Camile, a cat 4 hurricane in 1969 that previously served as a benchmark, he was confident that his house would be fine. What he wasn't counting on was a 35 foot storm surge that despite his elevation and stilts put 3 feet of water on his first floor. His family moved everything upstairs to ride out the storm. To their horror, they looked out and saw their neighbors house coming apart and the neighbors holding onto floating debris. He took the poll that he used to dip leaves out of his pool, went out onto the top of his garage and dipped his neighbor and her two kids out of the flood waters. Before the storm was over, seven more people from the neighborhood were saved. Unfortunately, several of his neighbors are still missing.

Rick's house, built tough, survived the storm easily. It just got a bit wet. His basement workshop was wreaked and he needed new wiring and carpet. He has been working steadily ever since rebuilding homes wreaked by the storm. On the anniversary of the Katrina, he bought a show truck to replace the one that the storm had ruined.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast is down but it's not out. Reconstruction is going on at a furious rate. I am confident that it anything, it will be bigger and better than ever before. Wait a year or so and y'all come see us.

JS

PS- I hear that Joey's on the Beach, the gay mecca in Biloxi, is going to be rebuilt and should be open

by next summer.