Hurricane Katrina: The Mississippi Story

336 Pages·2012·5.47 MB·English

by  James Patterson Smith

Hurricane Katrina
This page intentionally left blank
Hurricane Katrina
The Mississippi Story
James Patterson Smith
University Press of Mississippi / Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2012 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2012
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, James Patterson.
Hurricane Katrina : the Mississippi story / James Pat-
terson Smith.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61703-023-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN
978-1-61703-024-6 (ebook) 1. Hurricane Katrina, 2005—
Personal narratives. 2. Disaster victims—Mississippi.
3. Disaster relief—Mississippi. 4. Hurricanes—Missis-
sippi—Social aspects. I. Title.
HV636 2005 .M7 S65 2012
976.206’2—dc23 2011032598
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
For my granddaughter, Alice Marie Bradley,
and all of the children born since Katrina.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
ix.......Acknowledgments
xi.......Preface
3 .......Chapter One
Katrina Impacts Mississippi: “This Is Our Tsunami”
34......Chapter Two
Havoc in the Aftermath
61 ......Chapter Three
Hitching Up Our Britches: Strength at the Bottom in a
World Turned Upside Down
82......Chapter Four
Rising from Shell Shock: Sources of Resilience in State
and Local Government
93......Chapter Five
Digging Out in a Whirlwind of Contract Controversy
114 .....Chapter Six
The Grace of Volunteers
136.....Chapter Seven
The Long Wait for Housing
viii Contents
170.....Chapter Eight
Disaster and Recovery in the Schools
191 .....Chapter Nine
The Great Red-Tape Battle for Public Buildings
214.....Chapter Ten
Faith, Hope, and Jobs: Progress and Frustration for the
Business Recovery
235 .....Chapter Eleven
Conclusion: A Persevering People
243.....Notes
293.....Index
Acknowledgments
The completion of a project of this magnitude owes much to many people.
This idea of a book that would give voice to the special experience of the
people of Mississippi during and after Hurricane Katrina began as an inspi-
ration from Seetha Srinivasan, the former director of the University Press of
Mississippi. In December of 2006, it was Seetha’s patient persuasions that
made this historian and storm survivor believe that his own background
had fitted him to make an effort to construct a credible scholarly account
of the epic but neglected story of Mississippi’s sojourn through the greatest
natural disaster in American history.
I want to thank the Mississippi legislature for its visionary financial sup-
port of the Mississippi Humanities Council’s Katrina Oral History Project,
which enabled the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the
University of Southern Mississippi to gather and transcribe over 400 inter-
views with local officials and Katrina survivors. Regardless of whether their
names show up in the references and citations, each person who shared an
oral history contributed to the collective insights which shaped this book. I
and all future scholars who access this valuable collection owe a special debt
of gratitude to Linda Van Zandt, Stephanie Millet-DeArmey, and Carol
Short, who faithfully transcribed and processed these invaluable first-per-
son accounts. I also owe a special thank-you to Rachel Swaykos, a graduate
student in social work who worked with me in the summer of 2007 to help
gather targeted interviews from school officials, mental health practitioners,
and volunteer organizations involved in relief work in Mississippi.
A grant from the Community and Regional Resilience Institute at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory supported the semester of release time from
teaching which enabled me to finish the manuscript. Dr. Tom Lansford,
ix