Rebuilding effort proceeds

David Dishneau

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005 | 9:44 a.m.

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Mobile homes will be set up in relatively small clusters scattered across the Mississippi coast rather than in a couple large sites so that the thousands left homeless by Hurricane Katrina will have an easier time rebuilding, Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday.

"What we want to avoid are gigantic trailer parks, for lack of a better word," Barbour told local business leaders and government officials. The meeting, held to introduce a newly appointed commission that will guide the recovery process, also included a visit from President Bush.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide 35,000 to 60,000 mobile homes where those displaced by the storm can stay for up to 18 months, according to Barbour and former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, the commission chairman. The units will be clustered in groups of 250 to 1,000 near devastated communities, Barbour said.

The plan aims to avoid large expanses of tightly packed mobile homes -- as many as 2,500 per site -- that Barbour said were set up in Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The units in Mississippi will be placed on lots 50 feet wide instead of 30 feet, the Florida standard, he said.

Local governments will be able to decide whether and where to allow the mobile homes, he and Barksdale stressed.

Local zoning also will guide the rebuilding of the coast, Barksdale said. His commission will help local governments decide whether condominium towers, casinos and hotels will replace modest residential areas and coastal fishing communities.

"It's really up to the local community. If they want to have high rises, they can have high rises," Barksdale said.

Residents have mixed feelings.

Velma Bryant, 73, of Gulfport, said she wouldn't object to more casinos. Most of the 13 casinos along Mississippi's Gulf Coast were heavily damaged by the storm.

"I wouldn't say I go along with the gambling but you've got to have some kind of thing to give the people jobs," she said.

Dave Dennis, who runs a company that installs workspace cubicles, said he will fight any high-rise development in Pass Christian, a heavily damaged community of 8,500. He said he's been asked to serve on a commission to review the city's zoning.

"Rest assured, the integrity of that historic community will remain intact," he said.