What is the nation's understanding of recovery here in the Gulf Coast?

This is just not a problem with the national overview shortfall – the various entities involved in recovery here on the Gulf Coast are having trouble coming up with a consensus on what the mantra should be for the media. These organizations have been receiving phone and email requests from the media for weeks looking for an anniversary story. Last year the story was that we had a long way to go? This year there is an effort to get the message out that we need to finish the job. The requests from the media have been for the evacuee perspective, the local residents left behind, the resident back in the home story, the resident who have been forced to leave, and the warm and fuzzy volunteer story. The same as last year.

That positive spin

After two years of struggling, it is embarrassing that we have not moved further forward. And it shows in some of the public relations ploys showing up recently in news releases.

The Hancock Chamber of Commerce is blatantly paying for happy articles- they want positive stories out there just not Katrina woes. They are willing to pay a $100 for a "positive story" published in the media outside the region. The The Gulf Coast Business Council sent out an email asking its members to contribute to the anniversary report in a positive manner.

Mayor Farve of Bay St. Louis, and Mayor Longo of Waveland, were on WLOX television this weekend, together, both hesitant to criticize FEMA and their response and neither giving a full assessment, statistically, where their Cities stand or a complete overall needs assessment picking only miniscule portions of their towns respective stories to report. Mayor Farce did concede that it would be ten years to recovery – nothing imminent at all. Neither Mayor addressed the issue of the failure of the FEMA programs to actually produce the "cash". Promises yes, but actual follow thru is very slow. As was pointed out at the Supervisors meeting this week by one of the Supervisors. Promises of help are one thing – actually seeing the cash flow to the project is not on the horizon at all for most. They were having trouble even figuring out how to fund a bathroom facility for a ball field in the County this week. And it will end up being built by volunteers in lieu of the contractor route for a myriad of reasons including the timeline. The volunteers can get it done quicker with the least amount of red tape and money.

Beefing up the presentation

The town hall public meeting organized by Congressman Taylor only allowed five local business people to present to the members of Congress regarding the need for insurance reform – there were no comments allowed from the public thus mitigating any spin on the marketing message to the media.

Telling the story from outside the box

The Sun Herald the local newspaper from Gulfport, had no trouble coming up with a mantra – where did the money go? They state that the 23.5 billion is enough to buy two average sized houses for each of the 65,000 families in Mississippi who lost their homes with enough left over to buy a Honda Accord to drive between their two $166,000 houses.

Long Term Recovery very quiet on statistics?

In the trenches are the various and sundry Long Term Recovery Committees. Little has been reported from them. Cloaked in non disclosure agreements that extend beyond confidentially to impeding freedom of speech on statistical reports –most of these organizations have not released a "State of the Union" report for the national media. They really cant – the quagmire to get those funds has resulted in such low numbers of actual homes repaired or rebuilt under these platforms in the double digit arena only. Putting a search into the Sun Herald  for "Long Term Recovery" revealed no comments from any of the organizations in Hancock, Harrison, Jackson etc.

The Governor prepares for the Media hype

The State of Mississippi perspective - the Governors report  is brimming with confidence but admits we have a long way to go. The report states that there are still more than 17,000 people remain in FEMA trailers, but that is 19,000 less than were in the trailers a year ago. No where in this report is the issue of dwindling volunteers or the lack of fiscal support for the privatizing of the response addressed. There is no mention of the fact that the shortfall in grant amounts has been bolstered by partnering the home owners with volunteers to propel the house rebuilding effort. Nor does the report address how many of those 19,000 who have given up their FEMA trailers are actually in a home or have left the region permanently.

Volunteer Effort Dwindling

Volunteer efforts are struggling for several reasons - lack of a funded national marketing plan and lack of funding available for office overhead, volunteer housing, and rebuilding costs such as vehicles, tools and equipment costs along with a critical shortage of paid Case Managers, and a dire desperate shortage of skilled volunteers. The church and non profit groups are just plain running out of money. The one critical program that was funded and reaching out, one on one, to the residents, Project Recovery, had 366,604 individual face-to-face encounters. No other program can tout such a success story. And it was cancelled, despite an outcry from the DRO''s. with 5.4 million dollars being sent back to FEMA. Project Recovery was able to get people in the field directed toward the volunteer efforts out doing the Needs Assessment efforts run by the various Long Term Recovery committees. Why? They had the money and the manpower.

And the mantra for this, the second Anniversary and third August – mixed. No consensus. The response a quagmire even the officials in local government have trouble explaining to the citizens at local civic meetings. The Governor of Mississippi took 40 pages to explain the scope of Recovery and Renewal and left off the volunteer effort except for a brief mention on page 6 and page 7, a mention while talking about debris removal, and another in his opening letter where he states "Volunteers continue to pour in".

What can you say to the Nation after two years?

We are not done with 23 billion sent already? In fact, we are barely started? Look around, street after street after street with houses gone, concrete house pads bare, the contractors telling us there is a shortage of work, the lumber business in Waveland/Bay St Louis is telling us there is a critical slowdown in housing starts, and the Hancock Chamber of Commerce was telling a town meeting, with members of Congress present,  the fragile nature of the business district.

Our operation here at Katrina Relief has 1,500 clients, here in Hancock County, who desperately need to be matched with volunteers and funding. That's just one operation – it is the same story no matter which DRO you approach. The road to funding, where it is available, is a quagmire of rules, red tape, income guidelines, and politics.

Response to Katrina is the largest privatized effort by the United States in response to the largest natural disaster ever in the United States. It has fractionalized the response and there is no universal hub for the response engine to dock and report problems and issues or to develop a national marketing plan for soliciting volunteers let alone a mechanism for volunteer platform to obtain, easily, funds for rebuilding. Every dime of the recovery money is in the form of a grant. Someone has to write each and every grant request. No funds are readily available to pay grant writers.

And the mantra for this the second anniversary? It's a ten year plan, we are moving into year three. We have just begun to replace the housing – we have a long way to go. We still have yet to develop a Master Plan. You can market a positive spin and even pay for happy articles– but the fact we still have people floundering in recovery is going to be hard to disguise as the media wanders to the shores of the Gulf. If you want the recovery effort to be credible for the national media – you are going to have to tell the story honestly. And honestly – we have a very long way to go. We need enough funds and support for finish the job. The job is ten years long at the very least.

What can you say? The enormity of it from this perspective at ground zero is overwhelming. I see it in the eyes of the constant stream of residents to my office, their phone calls, and the very obvious FEMA trailer still in their front yard – if they were even lucky enough to get one at all. I see it in the pile of Work Orders in our Work Order system. I see it on the volunteer calendar – the small percentage of skilled volunteers compared to all the volunteers. I see the volunteer numbers on that calendar – they are not growing to meet to increasing housing starts we need to make with what funds we have.

What do we need

What do we need: money, manpower and materials? The money needs to be easily accessible or aided by paid grant writers, paid Case Managers, and the manpower needs to be supplemented by paid contractors who will provide expertise and quality control, and we need access to building materials and equipment such as trucks, forklifts, skidsters, and post hole diggers. There needs to be unrestricted funds so we can build foundations. We have funds to build the house - but no available funds to build the foundation.  Some of the rules are beyond restrictive.

We need a universal hub other than the news media to manage of needs in this recovery effort and listen to those in the trenches struggling with a very flawed system. The media can put a spin on the story – they can not act on the recovery needs.