Mississippi in the aftermath of Katrina

I just returned from a short trip to southern Mississippi with my boss. We were asked to use our experience with storm damaged and otherwise understocked forests to help local foresters make better decisions about recovering their timberlands from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina. We drove to Jackson, Mississippi by Tuesday evening (Jackson is in the center of the state, about 2 hours from where we gave the workshop, but it was as close as we could find decent hotels). We arrived in Jackson during a fierce thunderstorm (I believe it was the same system that gave you that snow in Wisconsin).

The following morning we drove south and toured portions of the hurricane damaged region, including parts of the DeSoto National Forest, which provided the picture given above. The forest damage in the areas we saw was more scattered and patchy than we expected, but the losses were still quite extensive. I think a preliminary estimate of timber lost to Katrina alone was over 5 billion cubic feet (yes, that's billion, with a 'b'), with more than 3 billion of this loss in Mississippi alone. It will take several years for the forest industry in this region to recover.

Many of the homes inland from the storms suffered relatively "minor" damage like blown-off shingles, or other roof damage from falling debris. There were many large piles of damaged roof materials, siding, carpets, drywall, downed trees, etc. piled along the roads awaiting removal. We also briefly drove into one of the neighborhoods between Gulfport and Biloxi that was affected by storm surge. I have included some pictures of the damaged homes on our photo link. In the neighborhood we drove into, most of the houses still stood, but have been gutted as a part of the rebuilding process. There was a remarkably sharp line between these severely damaged homes and those above the storm surge, which seemed to lose primarily roof materials and windows. The Gulfport-Biloxi area will take a long time to return to what it had been, but the area was rebuilding rapidly.

Given the damage we saw, I would certainly have my doubts about living so close to the Gulf.