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| Waiting: Ellen and Chuck Breath of Bay St. Louis, Miss., who lost their home to Katrina, don't yet have the information they need to
start rebuilding. Mary Knox Merrill – Staff  Rebuilding hope in the Gulf |
As recovery lags in Gulf, spirits sag, too
In pockets of Mississippi's coast, Katrina survivors battle the foe of despair.
from the July 10, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
Uninsured in low-lying Pearlington
But for at least 7,000 uninsured Mississippi households in tucked-away spots like Pearlington – one of the poorest towns in one of the poorest states – precious little has been put back the way it was.
Pearlington, prestorm population 1,500, remains a sleepy haven of retirees, military veterans, working-class families, and others who could afford to buy a plot in the bottomlands and a small house, but not always the flood insurance. In such places, where elevation is barely above sea level, government red tape and natives not keen on changing their building standards have slowed the recovery to a crawl.
"A lot of these people ... don't know any other lifestyle. They live day to day in self-reliance, and part of that is to throw caution to the wind and hope everything is going to be OK," says Tom Dalessandri, an emergency management coordinator from Carbondale, Colo., who has worked extensively in Pearlington.
In part because Pearlington is a remote and unincorporated part of the county, residents here waited four days for rescue crews after the storm. Likewise, it is playing catch-up in the broader recovery.
Residents who did have insurance often took paltry settlements – averaging about $15,000 – to pay back storm debts. The post office washed away, and some residents still travel nearly 40 miles round trip each day to retrieve mail in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
Volunteers, working from a donation-driven recovery center nicknamed "PearlMart," have provided 85 percent of the labor to rebuild about 150 out of 500 homes. But donations, supplies, and even the volunteers themselves are dwindling, with no groups yet scheduled for August. Scraping the free-labor barrel, organizers are now often relying on 13-year-olds to swing hammers.
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