In pockets of Mississippi's coast, Katrina survivors battle the foe of despair

[babylonsister]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p01s01-usec.html

As recovery lags in Gulf, spirits sag, too
In pockets of Mississippi's coast, Katrina survivors battle the foe of despair.
By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor


Pearlington, Miss. - When he peered out of his FEMA trailer at the frame of a new house in his front yard, Tony Dixon didn't see, as others might, a symbol of progress on the battered Mississippi coast.

Instead, Mr. Dixon claims, the frame became a taunt – a daily reminder that "corrupt" recovery coordinators kept diverting building supplies from his project to rebuild homes for their buddies. The former firefighter says his frustration boiled over one day last month in a bizarre one-man protest: He used his truck to yank the wood frame off its pilings and then set fire to the rubble, standing off with police until the flames died down.

"Normally I'm an easygoing person, but it got to where I just said, 'Enough of this mess,' " says Dixon.

Officials deny any conspiracy to sideline the project, and Dixon now faces arson charges. But his bonfire suggests that hope and patience are wearing thin for some Katrina survivors on the Mississippi coast, where promising starts and glimmers of normalcy are dogged by slow federal relief, waning volunteerism, and even the quirks of residents themselves.

"There's a growing gap between the ones who have been on the road to recovery and a significant group – perhaps 20 to 30 percent – who don't see the light at the end of the tunnel," says Ray Scurfield, director of the Katrina Research Center at the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach. Lack of progress compared with others, he adds, is "becoming more unsettling to the group that still feels stuck."

Here in Pearlington, called Katrina's "forgotten town" by many familiar with its plight, as many as one-third of the storm's survivors are experiencing a dull sense of despair, experts say. For them, signs of progress elsewhere only add to a feeling of isolation.

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[Firespirit]

1. As usual, it's one recovery for the rich and one for everyone else.

Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, had a reconstruction plan that involved massive corporate welfare and other governmental giveaways to Wal-mart and the like. (It named Wal-mart by name.) The coastline was to be sold to the highest bidder. Actual communities were shunted away. And, thanks to the insurance industry, it's outrageously expensive to live there. The homeowners won their lawsuit, but as far as I know, it's still hung up in higher courts for review and no one has received money yet, meaning that thousands of people lost EVERYTHING and have received NOTHING to keep them afloat, much less to pay for their insured losses.

The MSM will not cover a bit of this. Instead, they'll run stories about Katrina victims who allegedly "defraud" the government by finagling $5000 instead of $1000 to cover living expenses after they, um, lost their homes... or who are "turning to crime." New Orleans was thoroughly slandered and libeled after the storm as a worthless crime-ridden cesspool, and MS was slandered and libeled as a bunch of greedy people trying to rip off poor FEMA and the poor insurance industry.

It's sickening.

[rudy23]

2. They'll still paint Katrina as a "black" story--If Americans knew how the middle class was treated

in all this, there would be pitchforks in the street.

It's a shame that Americans are more likely to sweep a "black" tragedy under the rug, but besides racial bias, it serves to keep other groups of people from identifying with the victims.

Americans can tell themselves, "This would never happen to me. My job makes me safe from all this."

They would be very, very wrong.

[Bitwit1234]

3. Wait a minute....rove is such a "brain"

why in the hell hasn't he solved this yet. Remember bush put him in charge of taking care of the recovery effort.

Oh hell, that's whats the matter. rove was put in charge to MAKE sure they didn't recover.

[RB TexLa]

4. We can make them honorary citizens of Louisiana, it's easier when you KNOW the rest of the country

does not and will never care or do anything for you.

[rudy23]

5. Hear, hear nt