(Click here to also read Karen's first report from Mississippi on Day 13 after the Hurricane Katrina)

'When a critical mass of caring and competent outsiders make their way here and link up with caring and competent insiders, Mississippi transforms."                                                                             Derrick Evans

 

Derrick Evans, the founder of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives was referring to pivotal moments in history: post-Civil War Reconstruction, when his emancipated ancestors bought and settled on land along the Mississippi Gulf Coast now called Turkey Creek and, later, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement when color barriers broke and Jim Crow laws fell.  Today, standing in the midst of unimaginable destruction, he talks about the opportunity he sees for 'round 3."

 

My first Katrina report as a volunteer at the Mississippi Center for Justice detailed the chaos, devastation and absence of government coordination in Gulfport's Turkey Creek, one of the Coast's poorest communities.   I tried to chronicle some of the ways bureaucracy had blocked the best of intentions and tell how local leaders had miraculously done what they could with so little. That was day 13, post-Katrina.

 

After my return visit on days 28 and 29, I can report some signs of renewal in Gulfport.  But there are also breathtaking gaps in services still -- and a daunting future for the insiders and outsiders determined to rebuild Mississippi.  Regardless of age, wealth, and race, there is a spirit of optimism and soulful generosity that I've never witnessed before. 

 

Good news.

 

On September 23rd, I learned FEMA had recently opened a Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) in Gulfport. It was one of 11 open in the state as of day 28, up from the four in operation on day 13 -- and progress toward the 50 promised in Mississippi's devastated counties. 

 

My coastal traveling companion was Trisha Miller, a Skadden Fellow at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. On this trip, she joined conversations about new projects with Rose Johnson, founder of the North Gulfport Community Land Conservancy and the nuns from Mercy Housing, a nonprofit affordable housing developer.  

 

Together Trisha and I attended a meeting of community leaders and FEMA historic preservationists at Turkey Creek's Mount Pleasant Methodist Church.  We heard the FEMA team assure the residents of its commitment to seek their advice when establishing priorities and making decisions. Nearby, OxFam women sat patiently, waiting for their turn to offer help. 

 

While we were there Derrick Evans and Rose Johnson had real progress to report. They had moved from securing food, water and bleach to acquiring building and roofing materials, and office equipment and supplies. To facilitate legal aid, MCJ is distributing high-production printers, computer monitors and laptops donated to help Gulf Coast non-profits by the Morrison & Foerster law firm and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. The luxury of having a range of new resources coming in has enabled Evans, Johnson and Turkey Creek's residents to start thinking about their community's future.

 

But as the muck clears, the enormity of the task also comes into view -- still frustrated by the bureaucracy. 

 

Bureaucracy still reigns - and legal problems emerge.

 

Trisha and I met with legal aid lawyer Jeremy Eisler at the courthouse law library. He's director of litigation at the one, now decimated, legal aid office on the coast. Lately, he has been riding the shelter and DRC circuit in the most affected areas.  Sometimes he gives legal advice; sometimes he's problem solver and listener.

 

Eisler reports predictable legal problems. There's an onslaught of housing issues, including tenants returning home to find locks changed and people able to pay higher rents occupying their houses and apartments; possessions confiscated, including medications and toys, allegedly to cover lost rent; insurance claims denied because the damage has been deemed 'flood" (not covered) rather than 'hurricane" (which is); and, the legal aid Hotline system severely frustrated by still-faulty phone service, and aggravated further by only 41% of Mississippians with telephones pre-Katrina.

 

Spotty internet reception at the DRC makes it difficult for prospective FEMA registrants. They only get three online tries each, access to working phone lines remains limited and FEMA doesn't accept handwritten applications. A shortage of tarpaulins meant further damage with the approaching rains from Hurricane Rita. Because the pre-existing weak public transportation system has been weakened further, the 20-mile trip to Wiggins where Food Stamps are distributed is impossible for many. Eisler had earlier given one of his clients $4 to buy gas for the trip.  

 

And, as the threat of tens of thousands of foreclosures looms, all are hoping Governor Barbour will exercise his statutory authority to declare a moratorium and provide a grace period for people trying get back on their feet.  (Remarkably, Mississippi's 72 percent home ownership exceeds the national average.) Still being debated are questions about possible sites for in-coming trailers. Meanwhile, as Gulf Coast residents anxiously await opportunities to participate, plans have begun on such new development projects as moving off-shore casinos onto land. All this -- at a time when the possibility for public comment is virtually impossible. 

 

Meanwhile, the county courthouse is closed until late October, causing additional confusion and making democracy's most important protections a distance memory.  Some of Eisler's clients are still missing.  To further complicate Eisler's life, he and his wife lost their home, as well as everything in the Gulfport legal aid office. Yet Eisler tells me they're lucky - they have jobs and flood insurance.  He continues to work every day, all day, our meeting a brief respite. He wonders aloud whether FEMA benefits are immune from garnishment as Social Security and Veteran's benefits already are - that may need a legislative fix, he noted.  And he worries about the rise of domestic violence; he's already interviewed a number of people with telling bruises.

 

As Trisha and I left we gave him a copy of a disaster relief legal training manual, a joint project of Morrison & Foerster and the ABA.  Although this resource is online, Eisler had no office or internet access and didn't know about it.  "Please tell them I said 'thanks.'  This will come in very handy."  An expanded version focusing on Mississippi law is being prepared by clinical law professors and will soon be on the web.  We promised to send hard copies.

 

Before Katrina, environmental momentum was strong.  The community organized around offshore drilling and expansions of the chemical plants.  Katrina has blown that momentum down, leaving in its wake sewage, industrial waste, tons of rotting food -- a toxic buffet -- predicting yet another new set of legal and policy issues. 

We're in this together.

 

The historic preservation team's photographer was exhausted.  When I ventured it might be hard wearing a FEMA badge along the Coast he looked relieved and said 'whatever people may think about FEMA right now, we're human beings -- we're not miracle workers."  A volunteer at a shelter in Long Beach told us of her surprise when she saw several FEMA workers come in to use the computers  - but understood when they lined up to register for  FEMA benefits themselves.  'We're all in this together," she added.  I recalled Jeremy Eisler saying, "For the first time ever we have all kinds of people who now have everything in common."

 

Visit to Bay St. Louis - still no FEMA.

 

Friday morning I set out with Reilly Morse, a former judge and prosecutor turned solo practitioner whose work focuses on community-based organizations, environmental and zoning issues.  We wanted to check out the new Gulfport DRC, and talk to the Mississippi Bar Young Lawyers' Division volunteers about burgeoning legal issues.  But when we arrived, a police officer amplified the handwritten sign on the door indicating the DRC was closed Friday and Saturday 'due to Hurricane Rita,' even though Rita promised only a storm along this part of the Coast.

 

With all the DRCs in the region closed, I abandoned my plan for firsthand study of the emerging legal landscape.  So Reilly and I left to visit a shelter at Bay St. Louis, a coastal town west of Gulfport.  Mostly middle class and known for its artists and historic district, this small community was one of the hardest hit along the Mississippi Coast. It was from Bay St. Louis that CNN's Anderson Cooper reporting became so emotional and angry in the first days after Katrina. 

 

One of Reilly's clients, Ellis Anderson, is the co-founder of Coastal Community Watch. She gave us a tour of the indescribable devastation -- piles of rubble and steel frame skeletons where houses once stood, details of people's lives strewn everywhere, family linens hung from wrought iron fences, a toy truck emerging from the debris, a shrine carefully placed on front steps that now led nowhere.

 

On day 29, it still looked like ground zero, with not a whisper of a federal presence. 

 

Immediately after Katrina struck, the fire chief mobilized his small staff to deliver Vienna Sausages and water, and rescue, find and 'identify" their neighbors.  A local woman got into the Second Street Elementary School and began converting it into the FEMA equivalent of a shelter and distribution center.  Neighbors arrived to help and were soon followed by CityTeam Ministries and yellow-shirted Scientologists.  The few locals with working cars - about 75% were submerged -picked up supplies for the whole community.  The cafeteria now hosts the 'free store," and each night the gymnasium floor is set-up with more than 100 cots for the newly homeless.  This beehive of activity exists with no government support. 

 

When I visited, there were concerns about the shelter's future.  Bay St. Louis once had three elementary schools; Second Street is the only one still standing.  Understandably, the school district wants it to re-open as a school.  On day 29, the shelter had no other place to go. 

 

Desperation still reigns in areas along the coast. 

 

'Round 3" - and what you can do.

 

The thread of my Day 13 report was 'bureaucracy kills." On days 28 and 29, there's more of a twine, knitting together the failures with an extraordinary outpouring of care and generosity, and courage and commitment, from ordinary people, whether local or from across the country.  But I fear the enormity of the undertaking to repair and re-create a new and vibrant Mississippi will crush the 'insiders" in the weeks and months ahead. 

 

Katrina has become the great equalizer. Derrick Evan's hoped-for 'round 3" shows the promise of nurturing and valuing all voices -- the rich and poor, black and white, immigrant and sixth-generation Mississippian. 

 

What the legal community can do: