Tomgram: Chad Heeter on Blowin' in the Mississippi Wind

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Sun, 21 May 2006 09:35:41 -0400

Tomgram: Chad Heeter on Blowin' in the Mississippi Wind

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x & pid=85355

 

Tomgram: Chad Heeter on Blowin' in the Mississippi Wind

 

Let me see if I have this straight. The U.S. has just experienced the

warmest April in recorded history. In the meantime, down on the Gulf

Coast where, since 1995, water temperatures (and severe storms) have

been on the rise, all signs " point to a prolonged period, " lasting at

least 15-20 years, " of more frequent and more intense hurricanes " --

and this news comes not from some far-out environmental group, but

from Oil & Gas Journal. After all, in 2004/2005, the region

experienced three of the most severe hurricanes in the last hundred

years -- Ivan, Katrina, and Rita -- all unusual in their ferocity and

the size of their areas of impact. And how prepared are the Americans

of our southeastern coast for a repeat in 2006?

 

Chad Heeter, a former student of mine -- he previously wrote My Saudi

Arabian Breakfast for this site -- recently visited the forlorn

Mississippi coast where Katrina smashed ashore almost nine months ago.

He offers a striking tale of how FEMA has " prepared " Mississippians

for only the best possible weather outcomes in 2006. Maybe, given the

situation, it's time for the President to strike preemptively and call

in the only institution in which he has the slightest faith, the

military, before the first storm hits. Or maybe he should follow up

his Mexican border initiative and put in yet another emergency call to

the major corporations of the Military-Industrial Complex with a

request that they transfer some of their " high-priced, high-tech

tools " at work in Afghanistan and Iraq to the southeastern sector of

the Homeland. Maybe, they could extend the electronic wall (or

" virtual fence " ) planned for the Mexican border eastward and lock out

those foreign hurricanes. Okay, it didn't work in Vietnam (but who

remembers the " McNamara line, " named after Secretary of Defense Robert

McNamara, these days?); it won't work on the Mexican border (where,

when it came to the last high-tech enforcement system, " nearly half of

489 remote video surveillance sites... were never installed; sixty

percent of sensor alerts are never investigated, 90 percent of the

rest are false alarms and only 1 percent overall result in arrests " ),

no matter how many unmanned aerial vehicles we put into the skies over

El Paso; but in Mississippi, who knows? Tom

 

FEMA's Flying Tuna Cans

The New Hurricane Season on the Mississippi Coast

By Chad Heeter

 

I'm standing on the coast, staring not at the Gulf of Mexico but

inland, into the nothingness that used to be Waveland, Mississippi.

Where once homes, a library, and the city hall stood, there's only

rubble, ghostly slabs of concrete, sun-bleached pants, nightgowns, and

curtains eerily draped high in the trees, and a single, green minivan

crumpled like an aluminum can. Oh yes, and then there are the " travel

trailers " -- FEMA supplied -- that sit on the tombstone-like slabs and

house many of the residents who remain in this small seaside town.

 

Now, your basic travel trailer is great for a family vacation to

Yellowstone, but as protection against a storm? Even when tethered to

the ground (and some of these aren't), trailers can rock back and

forth in relatively mild winds and be heavily damaged in your ordinary

thunderstorm. But here in Waveland, where Katrina hit with devastating

Category-4 force nine months ago, and far more important, less than

two weeks before the next hurricane season revs up on June 1st, these

trailers shelter hundreds of families. In fact, over 90,000 Katrina

families scattered across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama now

sleep in FEMA trailers and are likely to face, in the months to come,

a new danger on the unreconstructed coastline of the southeast – that,

in a storm much kinder than Katrina, their " homes " will be turned into

flying tuna cans.

 

In October 2004, experts at the American Meteorological Society,

considering mobile home communities, issued a report which concluded

in part: " The public perception that only tornadoes and hurricanes

destroy mobile homes is wrong. These homes can be demolished by many

kinds of severe winds. " In fact, according to the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), nearly half of the deaths caused by

tornadoes in the U.S. come when trailer residents either stay put to

ride out the storm or flee in areas without immediately available

shelters. Forget hurricanes, Mississippi is hit with an average of 24

tornadoes a year and already ranks second in the nation in the number

of tornado-related deaths and injuries.

 

Gusts of 50 miles per hour lasting more than three seconds can

damage mobile homes. From March 2003 to April 2005, thirteen storms

with winds of at least 58 mph -- the low-end of a severe storm -- blew

through Waveland and surrounding communities according NOAA's online

database. At that strength, such a storm wouldn't even qualify as a

Category-1 Hurricane.

 

Having put over 100,000 Mississippi residents in 38,000 trailers,

how has FEMA addressed this issue? Its website essentially dumps the

problem in the laps of the trailerized, suggesting that it's their

responsibility to closely monitor weather patterns, as in the event of

a tropical storm or a Category-1 hurricane they would have to be the

first -- in some cases, the only people -- to evacuate. Oh, and

they'll need to leave the trailers behind. It's illegal to move the

FEMA trailers.

 

Under hurricane conditions, the website points out, " such shelters

are particularly hazardous...no matter how well fastened to the

ground. " A chart on the same web-page makes the dangers vividly clear.

A Category-2 hurricane will simply destroy all mobile homes in its path.

 

FEMA suggests that, on recognizing the signs of an oncoming storm,

trailer residents should head for the nearest storm shelter. One

problem: there is only one certified Red Cross shelter in Hancock

County, 20 minutes inland from the trailer communities in Waveland,

and that shelter has a scanty capacity of just 250 people. (The

current estimated population of Hancock County is over 40,000 people.)

Of course, such shelters, essentially reinforced concrete bunkers,

could be built right in these trailer communities, but don't count on

that happening in the brief days before the next storm season gears up

to rush across the overheated waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

 

If not sturdy homes or storm shelters, what has been rebuilt along

the coast? Casinos and fast-food restaurants. These went up in the

blink of an eye and have been operating at peak capacity for many

months -- and this is a good thing. These businesses employ thousands

of locals and generate much-needed revenue for cities like Biloxi and

Gulfport. But the employees working in housekeeping at Biloxi's

Imperial Palace Casino, or taking drive-thru orders at the Wendy's in

Waveland, are low-wage earners. What do they live in? Many in those

trailers, of course. Will local officials or FEMA bureaucrats be

organizing ways for them to leave the area with each threat of a

tropical storm, of which there could be dozens?

 

In January, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA)

announced a $6.6 million reimbursement program to encourage

communities and families to build storm shelters or in-home " safe

rooms " in the event of extreme winds. But at most this funding will

subsidize shelter construction for only a few thousand families -- and

if you live in a low-lying flood zone like Waveland, you won't qualify

for the grant.

 

It seems that what FEMA has created is an illusion of safety.

Because these families have been placed in temporary housing, are we

assuming they'll safely ride out the next storm season?

 

With the 2006 hurricane season promising to be as active as last

year's, maybe this is the summer for FEMA to pack up those trailers

and organize caravans of Mississippians to take that long-awaited trip

to Yellowstone.

 

Chad Heeter is a writer from Lee's Summit, Mo. He lived in a

travel trailer for three months one summer during college.

 

Copyright 2006 Chad Heeter