Gulf Coast Blog
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LOVE OF PLACE AND FAMILY TIES
As I drove around East Biloxi today, I was moved and saddened by the enormity of what struck this city and its inhabitants a year ago, and by how much remains to be done. I was on my way to Moore Community House, which used to provide Head Start and child care services for some of Biloxi’s neediest families.
MCH’s director, Carol Burnett, and I met in a trailer on what looks to be an empty, abandoned lot, filled with sparse grass, broken concrete, and the occasional wildflower. This site is all that remains of what was once a small campus of seven separate structures, each housing classrooms, play spaces, and many, many children. Carol took me into a former church on the next block that has been gutted and reframed on the inside.
“With luck and a good contractor,” she said, “we will be able to reopen here within six months and get our programs operating again. They are so desperately needed. How can women get back into the workforce and resume any kind of normal life if they don’t have a safe and caring place to leave their children?”
After my visit with Carol I stopped at Le Bakery to talk with a young woman who has been helping to organize the Vietnamese community in East Biloxi since just after the storm. Uyen (pronounced “Win”) Le explained to me how the city’s newest plan for revitalization appears to have completely written its Vietnamese inhabitants out of the picture.
The destruction of homes in this part of Biloxi was nearly complete, and nothing except a few concrete slabs and FEMA trailers indicates that there were dozens of blocks of thriving neighborhoods here, all swept away by Katrina. All that is left is vacant land, a tempting magnet for developers of casinos and condos -- especially given its location on the point, surrounded by water on three sides.
“We want to be able to rebuild our community,” Uyen said, “but the city wants to create a completely different type of neighborhood here, one where there would be no room for us, our temple, our church and family businesses.”
Before I left, she told me about the community meeting she organized last week. The meeting was the first time local residents had a chance to hear about the city’s plan and to see maps of what is projected.
“Now that they have the information,” Uyen said, “we hope they will be able to get involved in our work to pressure the city to respect local residents’ rights.”
My next stop was to meet Connell Lewis, the gentleman whose profile was featured in our report and whose story seems to exemplify all that is wrong in this region’s “recovery.” Connell and I looked through the report together, pausing at the pages with his own story and its accompanying photos. As we read, Connell kept nodding his head, affirming that we had gotten it right.
“The FEMA inspector drove down the street,” Connell told me, “and when he got to my house he just walked back and forth in front a couple of times, then got back in his car and left. Never asked to come in, look around.”
We stepped inside and I looked around at the walls, broken down to the studs, at the holes where doors should be and the ceiling with no electricity or lights. Connell continues to live in this home, waiting and hoping that somehow help will arrive so he can rebuild.
We talked about getting him registered with some of the local organizations, such as the East Biloxi Coordination and Relief Center, that are matching volunteers and donated materials with families that need them. Before I left I told Connell that I thought our report was creating a lot of interest in Biloxi, and that some reporters might even call and want to speak with him. That brought a smile, the first I had seen from him, and left me wondering how often he gets news that is worth smiling about.
I continued down the block after leaving Connell’s home, passing other lots filled with storm debris that still hasn’t been removed; other severely damaged homes that stand crookedly, waiting for a decision to be made to tear them down or rebuild. I passed FEMA trailers parked in yards, and saw residents busily cleaning and tearing out damaged houses. It was hard to fathom that 12 months have passed, and people have had to go on living all this time amidst the debris, the mold, the loss of neighbors, businesses, and jobs. I drove by an enormous FEMA trailer park, and thought about what it would be like to have to live for months in what is really nothing more than a huge parking lot, with hundreds of trailers packed side-by-side under a baking hot sun.
Yet there is a determination to stay, a love of place and of family ties, that I find remarkable here. Despite the hardships and uncertainty, the mold and debris, the paperwork and bureaucracy – despite the loss of everything familiar and beautiful that was Biloxi before the storm—people want to return. They want their lives back, and they want to seize the opportunity to provide something even better for their children.
Carol Burnett indicates with pride the empty lot that she sees redone as a wonderful playground for neighborhood children. Uyen Le looks at the road proposed as a cut-through taking tourists from one casino to another and sees a potential thriving business strip for the Vietnamese community. Connell Lewis keeps hope alive in the face of incredible odds, patiently rebuilding his home “one board at a time.” Today it seems a great privilege, I thought, just to be able to let folks know their stories are finally being told.
