Talk:Effects of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi/Archive 1

Missisissippi Coast
What is left of the coastal islands (Ship I., Long I., Cat I.) that lie about 12 miles offshore? I recall from being there in 1959-60 that Ship Island was five miles long and had the remains of a Civil War fort at the western end. It was named Fort Massachusetts and was built by Union forces with bricks that were made in Massachusetts. At the eastern end was an early cemetery where victims of yellow fever were interred. Upon checking a GPS map on the internet a few months ago, I see that Ship Island has been dissected in two. Does anybody know how and when this happened? Musicwriter 02:31, 11 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Ship Island was cut in two by Hurricane Camille in 1969. Djeaux 15:29, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Rebuilding
As a volunteer in Mississippi right now, I really think we should add words about the relief effort here. The trouble is, all my information on the subject is first hand, and wikipedia doesn't allow original sources. The other trouble is, the news seems to be more or less ignoring us here, which makes finding sources difficult. Can anyone help? I'll admit I have a bit of an agenda (donations are still needed, but they're drying up) but I think the information is encyclopedia worthy anyway. Fieari 22:55, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hardy Jackson? Trent Lott? Brett Farve?
Are you joking?

This is an encyclopedia article about the effects of the largest storm surge ever recorded in the United States.--SomethingFunny 03:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Former?
"former US Senator Trent Lott"

that's current, former majority leader and current US Senator. Who wrote this?


 * Check the edit history. I may have done it myself unintentionally; I think the news was on while I was editing and I absentmindedly put that in thinking about Tom DeLay. It's corrected now. Tijuana Brass 16:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardy Jackson merge
I'd personally prefer that Jackson be merged to this article; however, consensus from the last AfD was inconclusive, and a merge and delete may be seen as subverting that. Not sure what to do in a case like this, really. ''' Tijuana Brass ¡Épa! - E@''' 22:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll second a merge into this. The AfD came back with a no consensus result but the idea of a merge was not very well discussed.  It's at least worth a discussion but I think that this is an acceptable route for all parties. --Strothra 01:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm against a merge as such because Hardy Jackson deserves at most one short sentence in this article; moving the large amount of non-notable information from that article into this one is simply wrong. — jdorje (talk) 07:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The figure has not been established as notable even in the AfD discussion but you are stating that the information in the Hardy Jackson article is "non-notable." What are you trying to say? - you seem to be contradicting yourself --Strothra 23:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Are responding to my comment? I am saying that the information is non-notable (not notable) and does not belong in the Effect of Hurricane Katrina on Mississippi article.  Whether it deserves its own article is a separate question, but at least where it is now we don't have to read through it while researching actual notable information about the storm's damages. — jdorje (talk) 23:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge and Delete A lot of this information is "human-interest" cruft that, while it's nice to read, is not largely notable. I think that condensing the information of this page under a heading of "Human Impact" or some-such on the Katrina-Mississippi page would better fit than having this article. Bo-Lingua 18:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks to all who have developed this stub. As a Mississippian, I have been rather annoyed that the Mississippi Gulf Coast has been largely overlooked by the media. Though I didn't vote for him (and probably won't again), our governor, Haley Barbour, has performed more than adequately to the terrible catastrophe. He is to be commended. Anyway, the stub is looking great and I will most assuredly check in frequently. Thanks for all you have done here.--Mikepope 03:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) You may want to gather some info on the residual effects of Katrina north of Jackson, the capital. Of course there was no extensive hurricane damage up there, but thousands of Mississippians have been displaced even into Kansas City, New York City, and Chicago.
 * 2) Again, I don't know how detailed you all want to get, but another topic is the effects of real estate on the coast and rebuilding costs.
 * 3) That leads me to the last point: Insurance companies are scalping citizens on the coast, as I have a brother in Gulfport who has frequently contacted me about homeowners' woes.
 * Well, part of the problem is that we don't even know where to begin looking, so any links would be very much appreciated. Tito xd (?!? - help us) 03:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I am from just north of Jackson, in Ridgeland (Madison County). The damage that I say was that trees fell, there were widespread power outages, and much flying debris. Heck, trees fell on a person in my neighborhood's house. Bandgeek100 03:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Mississippi NEEDS HELP!!!
I live in Mississippi and I went through Hurricane Katrina. I am fortunate to have decided to live 45 miles inland (as the crow flies), when we purchased our home. Our home surived Katrina; all of our property/out-buildings did not. We were terribly under-insured and did not know our true liability until after Katrina. The hurricane was a very expensive lesson for us and FEMA (a TRUE four-letter word!), MEMA and the SBA would NOT provide us with ANY assistance!!! Don't ever believe help IS available for every victim!!!HELP IS NOT AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE NEEDING IT! THOUSANDS of Mississippians were even MORE unlucky and received just as little (no) help! Mississippi NEEDS HELP!

Private insurance companies are using EVERY legal and ILLEGAL tactic imaginable to cut THEIR losses and save their investors' returns. The bottom line is Katrina's impact on EVERY Mississippian is greater than ever imagined (state-wide insurance hikes in ALL insurance types) and MUCH GREATER than National News Media Coverage is reporting. I am so tired of reading and hearing about New Orleans. New Orleans was on the "GOOD" side of Hurricane Katrina; Mississippi took the DIRECT HIT on the BAD side of the storm! I am sorry their levies broke, but, perhaps some of the money spent on city-wide parties and parades (NOT just given for Mardi Gras) SHOULD have been INVESTED in state-of-the-art levies and pumping stations! Instead of spending MILLIONS of dollars building a fast interstate through-way and exit to Harrah's Casino, perhaps the money COULD have been spent building a third or fourth bridge over the Mississippi river for mass evacuations; or perhaps even better, a new direct TRAIN route directly north to Akers, LA and up the center of the I-55 corridor to Jackson, MS and on to Memphis, TN for emergency evacuation of the city's population.

I guess people in New Orleans did NOT really understand what the term "BELOW SEA LEVEL" meant prior to Hurricane Katrina. Everyone living and working in New Orleans KNOWS the city IS/WAS built BELOW SEA LEVEL; I guess they just thought the term meant "bad sea-ting at a Saint's football game".

What I do know is residents in Mississippi DID evacuate from historically flood prone regions. Katrina set a "new bar" for flood zones; and, areas that had NEVER flooded in the last 150 years, managed to be devastated by flooding and tidal surge. When residents did finally return, they came back to either NOTHING or HORRIFIC Damages from the wind and storm surge. Katrina's long-term effects will be felt for the next decade at a minimum and more probably for the next twenty years! The financial infrastructure is gone for the most part. Federal Bankuptcy laws changed in 2005 and NO EXCEPTIONS were made for Katrina victims except, some of the required paperwork is being waived; not much help for people whose insurance company are saying "not covered". The mortgage defaults are catastrophic. The longer term effects of Katrina run from leaving here-to-fore stable famlies now homeless, jobless, and poor, to sky-rocketing suicides, sky-rocketing divorce rates, soaring school drop-out rates, and verbal and physical abuse within once-happy famlies! All this stress added to storm ravaged famlies fighting depression. Children have nothing to do; playgounds, swimming pools and entertainments are gone; and, are not a priority in the rebuilding of entire towns. All this trauma is compounded when you then add to the mix a LACK of stable local economics, local governments, and consumer based services.

Resaurants that did manage to rebuild and actually re-open, can't find employees. Employees can't afford long commutes to jobs because of sky-high gasoline prices. Local rental housing is almost non-existant. Business that openned are now closing their doors because they can NOT afford their sky-high utility bills (water, sewer, garbage, gas, electricity), constant employee shortages, and/or build a lack of a stable clientele base for their goods and services. Construction workers can't find shelter/apartments to live in to work on the coast. It is a vicious circle.

People attempting to purchase or find "Safe" real estate for rebuilding their homes are instead, finding prices vastly inflated due to Katrina's impact. Further, if people have managed to collect from their insurance company, they can not afford the same standard of living or housing because of inflated home values in the homes and neighborhoods that did survive Katrina. Likewise, if they choose to rebuild, homes are costing more to construct due to stricter building codes mandated by new local, state, and federal building laws. Building costs have sky-rocketed for a multitude of reasons (shortage of labor, shortage of skilled labor, shortage of building materials, shortage of qualified contractors, engineers and surveyors, NEW FLOOD HEIGHT REQUIREMENTS are raising buildings' heights, etc.) the list goes on and on.

Meanwhile, Congressman Gene Taylor, (a Great guy and true representative of Mississippi voters and "the little guy")and Senator Trent Lott are both in court suing their resprective insurance companies for their Katrina losses (homes) from the hurricane's winds and those court cases are not going to see an early settlement. Insurance companies are REFUSING to pay claims because they are saying the losses were due to the storm surge (flooding) and NOT covered if the homeowners "only" carried hurricane (wind) coverage. I live in Mississippi, graduated from college up in Ohio, and I honestly thought when you purchased huriicane coverage it COVERED ANY DAMAGE INFLICTED in a hurricane. NOT SO. Insurance companies are NOT honoring what everyone believed to be "implied" coverage; a tidal surge IS the product of a hurricane; at least to everyone EXCEPT employees of the insurance industry. Flood insurance is NOT sold to home owners living OUTSIDE Federally stated flood zones! NOW the federal government is REWRITING flood zone boundries post Katrina. Multitudes of Mississippian are filing court cases and praying for favorable out-comes for Misters Taylor and Lott with their court cases. Most insurance companies are attempting to drag these cases out to wear-out, wait-out, and exhaust their claimants; hoping to settle for pennies on the dollar. It is a very sad situation here in Mississippi.

As mentioned earlier, insurance companies are NOT working "in good faith" with Mississippi residents, FEMA is rejecting hundreds and thousahds of requests for help (our family was/is in a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy PRIOR to Hurricane Katrina and lending institutions and the SBA will NOT assist us in our attempts to repair and rebuild; we are left with missing walls, etc.). Mississippi is being over-looked by our Federal Government, Shorted by FEMA, by the SBA and most certainly the National News Medias.

Local television news covers the "success stories" where ever and when ever possible (to build up optism and confidence within its listening public). Channel 13 did/does a REMARKABLE and great job of news coverage and reporting before, during and following Hurricane Katrina! Channel Television News 7 did NOT "rise to the task" nearly as effectively pre or post Katrina. After speaking to one news reporter from Channel News 7 (our local television station) his explanation was "lack of personnel, lack of gasoline and lack of power" for the poor performance in news reporting. I "wondered" how Channel 13 located 50 miles CLOSER to the Mississippi Gulf Coast DEVASTATION managed such GREAT coverage? I was very lucky to be able to pick up Channel 13 all through our Katrina ordeal. Mississippi lost about 55 percent of her trees in the souther five counties from wind damage; MILLIONS OF linear lumber feet.

The last catastrophe to impact Mississippi as adversely and thoroughly was theAmerican Civil War in 1861 to 1865, followed by the Reconstruction of 1865 to 1785 which, while intended to "help" Mississippi, really rather inflamed anti-Norther sentiment! Fortunately, we are of one nation and Mississippi NEEDS 47 other Union States to put into place a WORKING Reconstruction Plan with National News Coverage on an on-going basis. THIS "Mississippi-Katrina 2005 to 2015 Reconstruction" is no less needed for our survival!!!

PLEASE DON'T FORGET Mississippi and just assume we're "back to normal" because a full year has passed and New Orleans is all you read about or see on TV!!! Mississippi NEEDS YOU! Kat100 06:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I sympathize with your plight, but this talk page really is intended for discussing ways to improve the article. =\ Luna Santin 06:41, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 28-Aug-2006: Thanks for all the detailed information; I also concluded Mississippi has been drastically under-reported in the media.  I clearly see the article could have an "Economic Impact" section; also, much more needs to be added to the vast destruction across Mississippi, because I realize that tree damage, such as to ancient oak trees, is not insured (or added to cost figures?), but can be horrific on property covered by trees.  BTW:  Sources said that central New Orleans was passed 40 miles from Katrina, with no reported hurricane-force winds (sustained); it was coastal Louisiana, the "boot-tip" peninsulas that were obliterated like coastal Mississippi, since few areas were protected by NOLA-style 35-foot levees.  Overall, it has been very difficult to gain perspective, since few people from obliterated towns are on Wikipedia talking "facts" when accomplising "survival" is their focus.  I saw the 24-foot waves in Mobile Bay 50 miles away, but other people are so busy, life goes on.  I hope the Wikipedia articles can awaken people to the utter, total devastation to millions of buildings, billions of trees, thousands of boats, that people owed, and shine some light on their plight.  -Wikid77 01:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Other counties
28-Aug-2006: I have added a new section named "Other counties" to help gather further information, since Katrina travelled up the entire length of Mississippi for over 12 hours. That section is not intended to be a list, but perhaps, people can focus on adding more details about each county, at first. -Wikid77 02:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Indent citations
In other articles, it has been noted that citations to webpages should be expanded as footnotes that include the author/group, title, and date of a reference, so in case the webpage expires in a few months, the reference can still be hunted by title or author, perhaps found on other webpages or in print journals. The problem caused by expanding most citations to have author/title/date is that the citations can become huge within a sentence and clutter the text of the article, unless formatted to avoid the "mass-of-text" appearance. I have found that ref-tag footnotes can be indented (with restrictions), similar to a block-structured programming language, to improve readability of all the added details, without totally obscuring the original sentence with a "mass of text" about the cited author/webpage/publication. The following is an example of an indented ref-tag (where "ref-tag" will be "ref" in the actual citation):


 * John Authore, "Title of Topic Story," MyOrganization, May 10, 2006,
 * webpage: [http: //www.sourcewebsite.org XXX-Story].

The main restriction is to never split a bracketed link "[xx yy]" across 2 lines using a carriage-return newline (or the link could appear as unlinked text); however, each separate text line (after carriage-return) can be indented (such as by 5 spaces), similar to a computer programming language where each line has a carriage-return. Also, the lead ref-tag cannot be separated by a blank line from the prior sentence phrase, or the Wiki-formatted line will split. There is no reason to impose a standard indentation: it could vary, throughout an article, such as indenting the author name by 5 spaces, or 7, with no strict limit. Indented ref-tags can make it bearable to have a dozen footnotes in a paragraph without appearing, internally, as a complex mass of text. -Wikid77 06:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Measurements
04-October-2006: I have added the alternate measurements in meters, kilometers, or in kph to the edited text, using conversion calculations, double-checked. The American reference quotes contain lengths in feet and speeds in "mph" since Katrina was primarily an American hurricane, and those are direct quotes. That completes the cleanup for measurements, tag removed. -Wikid77 21:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

POV/Tone
WP:NPOV violations and tone problems: examples include "so it is practically impossible to adequately describe the devastating, staggering effect of Hurricane Katrina on Mississippi", "Many coastal towns of Mississippi (and Louisiana) had already been obliterated, in a single night", "forty-seven (47)" (no need for numbers in brackets, see WP:MOS); uncited info: "It is possible that scattered damage to northern Mississippi occurred, by spin-off storms"; irrelevant info like "General: The effects of a hurricane can be scattered across a large area, because hurricanes are large, complex storms which spawn smaller thunderstorms, tornadoes, storm surges, and sea waves. Wind speeds east of the eyewall can be 40-50 mph higher than winds west of the eye. Wind gusts can be scattered, just as boats or debris can ram one house but not another. One building can seem untouched, while others nearby are flattened; also trees can be partially weakened: tree limbs can fall months later, crashing onto a roof, automobile, fence, etc." – Chacor 16:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 04-October-2006: The words such as "devastating" and "staggering" are actually NPOV due to the massive, widespread extent of the damage.  It is understandable that some people cannot imagine or easily comprehend the actual impact of a 100-mile coastline utterly leveled (in "pure devastation"), so I simply replaced the same wording in the article with a similar direct quotation from USA Today assessing the damage six months later, after emotions had cooled from the immediate aftermath, and rebuilding had continued for 6 months.  The six-months assessment was described as "devastating" and "staggering" and appeared in many news reports about the area.  An area over 1,000 times the size of New Orleans was affected, so that's why the impact is called devastating and staggering.  -Wikid77 22:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Move
I propose the article be renamed Effects of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi. I prefer the new format, as there was more than one effect. There was the wind effects, the storm surge effects, the preparations, the aftermath, etc. Also, I prefer in rather than on as in indicates it is within the area. In feels more specific than vague. The reason I propose the change is because the articles in Hurricane Isabel effects by region have that format. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination
This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of March 17, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:


 * 1. Well written?: Fail
 * 2. Factually accurate?: ?
 * 3. Broad in coverage?: Fail
 * 4. Neutral point of view?: ?
 * 5. Article stability? Pass
 * 6. Images?: Pass

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you for your work so far. --Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 06:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The organization of the article is confusing at best. A natural way to organize the article would be to create sections about the impact and the aftermath in each county (in fact, similar articles of featured quality, such as Effects of Hurricane Isabel in North Carolina and Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware do so.) There is no need for an "impact synopsis" section; that is the purpose of the lede. There is no need to subdivide it into "General" and "Specific" either. As the section is too long, modify the lede to include most of the details, and weave the rest of the information on the relevant county sections. Place the table of contents at the end of the lede, not in the middle; that is strongly recommended by the Headings Manual of Style, and by general practice. The Evacuations section could be renamed "Preparations", and include other information, such as pre-landfall forecasts (there is a lot of information about this on the Congressional Report).

The formatting of references is erratic; they should be in a consistent format, ideally with cite web filled out, and with access date properly noted. You also have several "(more ^)" links throughout the article; those are frowned upon. Modify the death toll list into a table (such as done on Hurricane Katrina death toll or Hurricane Wilma). The "In the Region" section strikes me as completely unnecessary, as the scope of the article is restricted to Mississippi; the picture there is helpful, though. The Jackson County section is too short; it needs more details. I cannot judge on accuracy until that portion is complete.

Finally, other users had brought up concerns about NPOV above; while those words were properly attributed to other sources, it still makes me a tad uncomfortable. Overall, it still needs a significant amount of work, and that is why I cannot promote it to GA status. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 06:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Summary Info on Recovery
A lot of good facts are available on Mississippi's recovery at http://www.governorbarbour.com/recovery/

As of August 2007, it looks like $7.1 billion has been approved for disbursment or has already been disbursed from FEMA alone. Then there's the SBA programs and state-level programs which adds more complication than I can easily summarize. Of course none of this accounts for private-sector and non-governmental recovery efforts. 205.144.230.206 22:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

reference
I was looking at reference number five (^ As flood waters rose, many streets became swamped and impassable. Emergency crews rescued over 100 people, from rooftops or trees, in Mississippi.) It did not state where (or who) it came from. Where did it come from, and is it reliable? Juliancolton 19:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
As with nearly every Katrina-related article, this one needs a lot of cleaning up. I cut out the blog-esque content and tried to condense things down to a coherent form, but it's proving to be very difficult to find information about post-Katrina Mississippi, as the media's attention is on New Orleans. There's plenty of work to be done still, if anyone is interested in collaborating with me, drop a line here or on my talk page and we'll go over where to head with this to change it into a more solid encyclopediac article. Tijuana Brass 05:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


 * While you're at it why don't you add some information about mississippi to the Impact section on the main Hurricane Katrina article. At the moment there is practically none. — jdorje (talk) 06:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Good suggestion, I'll do that. Thanks. Tijuana Brass 16:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've found a good source for the impact at FEMA's page. Tito xd (?!? - help us) 02:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd be willing to help out - am a MS native and go home quite a bit. You'll likely find good info on rebuilding in (obviously) the Sun Herald, but also on the MGCCC and USM websites and the website for Perkins-Eastman, a Pittsburgh architechture firm who has come to the coast several times to look at rebuilding opportunities.  I'm a neophyte to the wiki-world but would love to help out any way I can.  Khowell 20:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC) kristy

I think that this article still needs a little cleanup. I am willing to help inprove this article at whatever anybody needs me to do with it, as i can find nothing to do with it at the moment. Juliancolton 02:48, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

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