Free Republic

REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence. more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called...

GULFPORT --Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead conducted an all-hands call at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport on Friday. Roughead was on the Coast as part of an eight-day trip to visit shipbuilders, Seabees, sailors and academics throughout the United States. Roughead noted the importance of the Seabees and the invaluable resources they provide not only to the Navy, but also to other maritime activities and joint commands the world over. "I've seen the Seabees not just here but in Iraq and in Kuwait. I've seen the work that they do and it is superb," he said....

I rarely post articles much less vanities, but we're planning a trip to my mother's other home in Vicksburg, MS, in March. Hubby was thinking maybe we'd drive down to Gulfport or Biloxi for a day or two. My questions are these: I know the area was devastated during hurricaine Katrina, are things back to normal? Semi-normal? What is there to do there? Besides casinos. We'll have our 8 year old son with us. Any recommendations? I can look online at places like Virtual Tourist, but it's hard to know how to plan when there is a chance the restaurant...

Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is shooting off his mouth again. Last week in New York City, he claimed that Mississippi and Louisiana were treated differently after Hurricane Katrina because of their politics. Unfortunately, Louisiana's Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, jumped on the suggestion, claiming that Brown had "broken the code of silence about the political conspiracy to hurt the people of Louisiana." Fortunately, Mississippi's Republican governor, Haley Barbour, took the time to consider the source of this conspiracy theory and said Brown's "credibility has been worn pretty thin over the last couple of years...

You'll be happy to hear that Biloxi's gaming business not only has made big strides since Hurricane Katrina devastated the coastline, but also that the restored casinos have expanded what they offer, and new properties are on the way. Before the storm that destroyed tens of thousands of gulf-area homes, Biloxi had nine casinos. Today, seven are back in business, including the glitzy Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, which reopened at the end of August, a year after Katrina hit. After the hurricane, the city changed its laws to allow casinos -- previously confined to floating structures at the water's...

The following is the latest information on casinos reopening on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Open Beau Rivage Resort & Casino opened Aug. 29, 2006, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The resort also plans to open a new golf course in autumn 2006. Beau Rivage has new restaurants, a redesigned and more luxurious casino, and the stores along the promenade will look more like a street with each having their own look inside and out. In addition, all of the guest rooms have been redesigned and have a new look. NEW - Silver Slipper, the Coast's newest casino opened November...

ACKSON, Miss. (Dec. 5) - For Mississippian Rick Looser, the last straw came on an airline flight a couple of years ago when a 12-year-old Connecticut boy sitting next to him asked: "Do you still see the KKK on the streets every day?" That prompted the advertising executive to spend his own money on a campaign to dispel Mississippi's image as a forlorn state of poor, illiterate, racist good ole boys. "Mississippi has more black elected officials than any other state in the country," Looser said. "The old stereotype of the short, fat, white, bald men in suits smoking cigars...

BILOXI, Miss. With drywall, two-by-fours and a patient faith in a sometimes-exasperating God, Burke resident Bart Tucker is trying to raise a small neighborhood from the dead. But in this Gulf Coast City of 50,000, a slender thumb of land smashed by the winds and waters of Hurricane Katrina, nothing comes easy -- least of all miracles. Since arriving in Biloxi with a convoy of supplies and volunteers from his fairfax County church, Lord of Life Lutheran, shortly after Labor Day, Tucker hs spent a total of eight weeks here. He goes home only to raise more money and recruit...

BILOXI, Miss. The Czech ambassador to the United States will travel to the Mississippi and Alabama coasts this week to deliver money for Hurricane Katrina recovery. Petr Kolar, the country's former deputy minister of foreign affairs, will present a check Wednesday for over 111-thousand dollars to the Tapia Public Library in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, which plans to buy books. On Thursday, Kolar plans to present a 100-thousand-dollar check for the revitalization of the Saint Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy in Biloxi. The money will help the charitable facility purchase medical supplies. Media officials with the Czech embassy said the...

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Saturday renewed the nation's commitment to help victims of last year's Gulf Coast hurricanes and thanked U.S. troops fighting abroad. In his Saturday radio address, Bush said Americans are grateful to those who rallied after hurricanes Katrina and Rita to bring food, water and hope to people who lost everything. "We renew our commitment to help those who are still suffering and to rebuild our nation's Gulf Coast," Bush said. This week, the president will attend a NATO summit in Europe and will meet in Jordan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. On Saturday, he...

This historic waterfront city was on the verge of becoming the great gambling destination of the South. Then came Hurricane Katrina. Now the Gulf Coast is fighting to get back in the game. BILOXI, Miss. -- Olivia Boglin stood in her yard, staring down at a pile of Sheetrock. Just staring in the Mississippi heat, dabbing the sweat off her forehead with a wadded-up tissue. A block away, a guy was riding a bicycle slow, so the front wheel swerved with each crank of the pedals. The heat, the humidity and the noon hour had everything almost at a standstill....

Comic Relief held its 20th event Saturday night from the Harrah's property in Las Vegas to help raise money and awareness for victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's a noteworthy cause, to be sure, and we in South Mississippi were gratified to hear that more than a year after the storm, people still recognized we need help here. Of course, that was before the pre-event press releases came out, advertising appeared and the show itself was aired simultaneously on HBO and WTBS. The media advances talked about how bad New Orleans was affected. The billboards and at least one full-page ad...

"I got a cut on my bone," Timothy Sims said as he showed a deep cut on his leg. Sims learned a painful lesson about being in the wrong place, at the wrong time Monday morning. "I go to the bus to catch my bus and all of a sudden I saw this dude across the street trying to fight," said Sims. Sims says the fight at a bus stop on Bonita Drive was between a teenager and a Gulfport student. Sims says he saw the student grab a stick. "He got a stick or something, and just started swinging,"...

PASCAGOULA - Unlike many other Coast cities, Pascagoula is moving ahead with plans developed through the renewal and recovery sessions sponsored by the governor's office and community leaders. The city is partnering with developers to build new homes that draw on the vision New Urbanists have for rebuilding the Coast. In addition, the city is putting an emphasis on its long-term plans for recreation, and is entering into a lease-purchase agreement to buy government-subsidized property for a new community center and retail shops. Pascagoula was among the first South Mississippi cities to adopt FEMA's new elevation requirements, and its residents...

President and Mrs. Bush are spending Labor Day weekend at their ranch in Crawford, Texas.* *This is based only on the information I could find. I could be wrong. On Tuesday, September 5, the president will resume his series of speeches which remind us all of the true nature of our enemy (the Islamic fascists), while criticizing the critics of the WOT (the leftist appeasers). With no other news available, today’s Dose will recap the best photos of the week. Enjoy your Saturday visit to Sanity Island

Seemingly before the wind stopped, certainly before power was restored, they began arriving. The initial wave brought the food, the drink, the clothing, the gasoline to get through those first desperate, chaotic days. The second wave brought hammers, saws, shovels, drills, all the tools necessary to begin removing Hurricane Katrina’s afterbirth. As summer turned to fall and fall to winter, they came, wave after wave after wave. From near and far, points domestic and international, some 350,000 volunteers set aside their lives to help us rebuild ours. And still they come. To paraphrase volunteer Elizabeth Ryan, they climb, pound, beat,...

Scotty Hancock spent a week in southern Mississippi, seeing Hurricane Katrina’s destruction firsthand. Monday night at the old Kroger building on Hicks Drive, Hancock, the Floyd County Emergency Management Agency director, shared his photos, videos and personal accounts of the devastation with RomeKares volunteers. His message to them: You’re doing more good than you could possibly know. “I wanted to let these folks see what their time and donations are going toward,” he said. “There is a lot of good going on down there.” While no pictures may truly capture the scene, volunteers got what some called their best portrayal...

BILOXI - While New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin continues to get criticized for his actions and inactions before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway has been a media darling. It seems that Holloway, 63, has made all of the right moves before, during and after the big storm. Despite that fact that many Biloxi neighborhoods were hit just as hard as Waveland and Bay St. Louis, Holloway's keen preparation and a little luck helped him and his city get back into the fight more quickly than most. “I put our success to the people of Biloxi,” Holloway...

"And it was in a CNN story where we first saw it. Miles O'Brien was standing in front of the Beau Rivage doing a stand up," said City of Biloxi spokesman, Vincent Creel. The CNN reporter told his audience that 30 people died in the St. Charles apartment complex on the beach in Biloxi. Concrete columns and an elevated slab are all that's left of the St. Charles condominiums on Highway 90 in Biloxi. But there were certainly not 30 deaths there. "We never recovered a single body from that location," said Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove. Hargrove also heard...

6/16/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- It's been more than eight months since Hurricane Katrina displaced thousands of people. Veterans who stayed at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss., were among those who had to leave. More than 400 of the 600 residents were evacuated to the AFRH here and have been without most of their personal belongings since September. "The only thing I brought with me was three shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of shoes and a towel -- that's it," said Leonard Drozal, a World War II Marine Corps veteran. "I miss my computer." Since...

GULFPORT - Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, Beauvoir and the Seafood Industry Museum are among the landmark sites designated for an intensive cleanup effort by people from across the United States who work in the tourism industry. Their visit, set for March 16-19, has been organized by Tourism Cares for Tomorrow in conjunction with the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau. The volunteers range from company chief executive officers to hotel clerks, who have all paid $50 to work hard and stay in tent accommodations. They will get a cap, a couple of T-shirts, some free meals and the satisfaction...

BILOXI, MISS. — Jim Ullery drove along Highway 90 in this coastal community earlier this month, somberly taking in the devastation from Hurricane Katrina with other volunteers from Aiken. Then he stopped the car. “I know that church,” he said. Five years earlier Ullery and his wife, Sandra, had visited friends in nearby Gulfport, spending five days at the Methodist church’s adjacent retreat center. Virtually nothing was left of the church, battered by winds and water last fall. Little more than the shell remained ... along with a cross on the glass front and another on a back wall. “Some...

As Aug. 29 recedes into the conscious time of many Americans, the great storm that devastated 70 miles of Mississippi's Coast, destroying the homes and lives of hundreds of thousands, fades into a black hole of media obscurity.

Many Gulf Coast Towns Feel Neglected Monday January 16, 2006 6:32 PM By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Writer GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - Nicki Henderson has had plenty of reasons to be angry since Hurricane Katrina destroyed her Biloxi home, but it was a simple news item about dislocated dolphins that really made her blood boil. Henderson lost her temper when she logged on to her computer and spotted this headline: ``New Orleans Dolphins Find New Home.'' She knew the dolphins actually came from a hurricane-ravaged marine park in Gulfport, not New Orleans. The headline writer's error reinforced her belief -...

If Congress funds repairs to the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport it could take two years for the work to be completed, officials said.The home might be rebuilt to theoretically withstand a Category 5 hurricane, said Sheila Abarr, a spokeswoman in the retirement home's Washington office.Abarr said representatives are asking Congress for $374 million spread over two years to fund the repairs."It could be May of 2006 (before funding is secured). It looks like hopefully Congress would look at it. They haven't done anything at this point."

GULFPORT, Miss. --Gulfport and its neighboring towns -- from Waveland in the west to Pascagoula in the east -- were epicenters of destruction when Katrina came ashore Aug. 29. But more than two months later, with the reconstruction in full swing, Gulfport has the feel of a latter-day frontier boomtown. At night, restaurants ... are packed, with hourlong waits for tables and a lively, manly bar scene.... Gulfport has a semi-intact infrastructure of motels, restaurants and retail stores ... shakily supporting the migrants who have flocked here to help rebuild and make a buck. About a quarter of the city's...

Dear All, Sorry if this is not appropriate for everyone, but I just sent this to my entire email list, and I am too tired to pick and choose to whom it should go. I thought you would like to know, I am back home, safe and sound from the wilds of Gulfport, Mississippi, where I did, I am sure, I some of the most important work of my life. Mom even saved a life by sending an epinephrine pen with me (a very expensive item, and the only ones we had...she actually sent 8), which we used on a...

GULFPORT, Miss. - The Grand Casino went out with a bang on Wednesday. A demolition crew blew up a section of the barge that has been blocking U.S. Highway 90 near Gulfport ever since Hurricane Katrina heaved it ashore. Three explosions in rapid succession brought down the five-story structure in a demolition overseen by the state Transportation Department.

President Bush traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana today to observe progress made in the recovery process following Hurricane Katrina. He met with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and Jim Barksdale, chairman of the Governor's Commission for Recovery, and area business leaders in Gulfport, and then traveled to New Orleans where he was briefed by Vice Admiral Thad Allen on Hurricane Rita on board the USS Iwo Jima outside New Orleans, and then met with contract workers, and workers at the Folger's Coffee Plant and made comments to the press. First Lady Laura met with Librarian of Congress James Billington in preparation...

GULFPORT, Miss. (NNS) -- The Naval Construction Battalion Center (NCBC) Gulfport office of the Navy/Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS) is providing financial assistance to military victims of Hurricane Katrina here. Just two days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed large sections of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Gulfport's NMCRS was helping military personnel and their family members secure emergency funds through interest-free loans. As of Sept. 14, NMCRS worldwide had assisted 3,574 victims; 1,701 of whom were seen at the Gulfport office. More than $1.3 million in loans have been awarded so far, with more than $400,000 of that amount going to Gulfport....

GULFPORT, Miss. (NNS) -- Naval Construction Battalion Center (NCBC) Gulfport opened its doors Sept. 17 to Kelly, Toni, Jackie and Noah, four of eight Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins displaced when a reported 40-foot storm surge caused by Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home at Marine Life Oceanarium Aug. 29. The dolphins' temporary home includes three portable saltwater above-ground pools, filters, pumps and monitoring equipment set up by U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program personnel from San Diego at an NCBC facility. One 22,000-gallon pool and two 10,000-gallon pools will be used to provide a temporary home for eight dolphins while they recover from...

Hurricane Katrina has transformed Mississippi's mayors into car thieves, and senators into blockade runners. Isolated by the initial hit of the storm and failed by the slow federal response, citizens have fended for themselves in some original and not entirely legal ways. Brent Warr, the Republican mayor of Gulfport, even ordered his police chief to hot-wire a truck. "When you send your law enforcement out to steal things, that's when you know you're in a different situation," Warr says. In Gulfport, Warr did everything by the book, right up until he started stealing. His force of 225 police officers and...

For Coast shrimpers, end of a livelihood: A heritage, Southern culture may be lost with the battering from Katrina By Matt Apuzzo/ September 16, 2005 BILOXI -- Hanh Luong has no home and no cash. The only thing he has left, and his only hope for the future, is the Santa Maria, a battered 98-foot fishing boat he worked years to buy. But two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, his boat remains tethered to what's left of Biloxi's piers. The polluted Gulf of Mexico is off-limits to shrimping, and all the major processing plants between Alabama and Louisiana have been pulverized...

Goods From Gulf Will Cost More: Yes, we have some bananas -- costly ones; same for shrimp and coffee By Maria Burnham/ September 18, 2005 Despite the signs in some grocery stores around the Mid-South, residents shouldn't be too worried about the supply of bananas, shrimp and coffee. But they might raise an eyebrow or two at the price. Economists, wholesalers and restaurateurs predict an increase in the price of tropical goods that typically come through the Port of New Orleans and seafood that comes from the Gulf Coast, but say it will only be temporary and that supply shouldn't...

GULFPORT, Miss., Sept. 11 - Past the razor wire that has been rolled out along the unusable railroad tracks separating the heavily damaged neighborhoods from the destroyed neighborhoods lies the port that gave this city its name. Put generously, it is a mess. The cargo containers are scattered for miles, the poultry freezers are destroyed and 7,300 jobs are in limbo. In the middle of one of the major terminals sits a casino, the Copa, one of a fleet of floating gambling houses that had revitalized the Gulf Coast, pumping taxes into city, county and state governments and providing jobs...

D'IBERVILLE, Miss. (NNS) -- Seabees stationed at Gulfport, Miss. received aid Sept. 8 from U.S. and international forces in support of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts here. U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton, Calif., Mexican marines from ARM Papaloapan (A 411), Sailors on board USS Bataan (LPD 5) and Dutch sailors on board HMS Van Amstel (F 831), participated in one of the first international humanitarian efforts here, repairing D'Iberville Elementary School just outside of Biloxi. The elementary school is currently being used as both a shelter and a food and water distribution center. The 75 Mexican marines arrived Sept. 8 via...

Exciting news!! I was finally put in contact with my family. Needless to say it has been many sleepless nights. As you can see with the timing of this thread, I have yet to go to sleep. :) If I hear that chick at the end of the phonecline say, due to the hurricane your call cannot be put through or worse the generic speech, it will be to soon. As I was looking through the various online message boards I thought what the hell lets try calling again. It rang, WOW, it rang again getting my attention, I thought,...

While almost all of the attention has been on New Orleans, the fact is that the hurricane (thankfully) turned and didn't hit the city directly. While this was fortunate for the 100,000 residents stranded in the city, it didn't bode well for those in the other cities and towns along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama. They took a direct hit, and it's important that we don't forget about them. These pictures were sent in by a reader who works with the spouse of the photographer, who is in the Air Force Reserve. They were taken very recently, perhaps...

GULFPORT, Miss. (Army News Service, Sept. 5, 2005) – Forty-two aircraft, making six or more trips a day, are flying out of the Gulfport/Beloxi Air Guard base. They bring food, water, ice and medical supplies to those affected by the hurricane. They take needed prescriptions, fill them, and fly back into the neighborhoods with a white paper bag. Each flight has a medic on board. Spc. Terrance Jones 20, is a full-time college student and Soldier in the Mississippi National Guard activated in response to Hurricane Katrina. He thought his day was over, and then he got assigned to one...

President George W. Bush outlines further assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina in a statement in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne spent the day touring the hurricane-stricken Gulf Region talking to local officials and residents Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice openned a town hall meeting for public diplomacy staff members at the State Department in Washington . After opening the meeting, Rice she turned it over to new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes First lady Laura Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings visit Lovejoy Elementary School in...

So I went and saw the damage laid waste by Katrina. Guys, unless you have borne witness to such destruction, please do not play armchair quarterback. This is real. The company I work for, Outback Steakhouse, was able to do some charity work, providing food and comfort to FEMA and the National Guard, those brave souls first called to respond to Nature’s worst. Let me tell you first, that Gulfport and Biloxi will never be the same again. Also, New Orleans as we know it is gone forever, in it’s magnificent culture. Lovely pre-Civil war homes in Biloxi, gone. NICE...

MOBILE, Ala. - The Coast Guard is working to establish an operations base in Gulfport, Miss., to provide assistance to local law enforcement agencies, provide search and rescue capabilities and to establish a visible law enforcement presence in the community. Coast Guard forces are being brought together to form Mississippi Coastal Recovery Base Gulfport as a result of the damage Hurricane Katrina caused along the Mississippi Coast. The Coast Guard Station in Gulfport was destroyed by the hurricane. The following units are operating for the newly established base: - The Coast Guard Cutter Decisive is providing communications, homeland security and...

The near total evacuation of the major American port city of New Orleans, Louisiana was accomplished between Tuesday afternoon, August 30 and Friday afternoon, September 2, 2005. This evacuation occurred while other search, rescue, relief and evacuation operations were simultaneously being conducted throughout the Gulf Coast between approximately Lafayette, Louisiana, on the west and the Florida panhandle on the east -– an area of about 90,000 sq. miles, or the size of the entire nation of Great Britain. I'd say this amazing achievement is the opposite of slow. I'd say that it's a stunning accomplishment and one that demonstrates superb...

A co-owner of Shelbyville-based Gowen-Smith Chapel has been deployed to Gulfport, Miss., to help with recovery since Hurricane Katrina, and his business partner here has described the grim task there. "DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security. His partner, Dan Hicks, of Paducah, Ky., was deployed Monday. Buckner, of Dickson, is on standby. Their funeral home is one of several collection sites for donations to be taken to the Red Cross in Fayetteville on Wednesday for transfer to places...

Please post any information you have that relates to the current status of gulf ports - waterways - rivers - highways - townships - etc.

GULFPORT, MS – Mississippi Power employees and outside crews were able to turn lights on in numerous parts of the company’s service area Thursday, three days after the region was slammed by Hurricane Katrina. “We were able to restore service to small pockets along the Coast and around Hattiesburg, which were among the hardest hit areas,” said Kurt Brautigam, company spokesman. “It was a real lift for everyone to see some visible signs of success. We expect to see more progress today.”

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy Seabees are currently deploying additional personnel to the Gulf Coast to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery operations. Two active-duty Seabee battalions from Port Hueneme, Calif., Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit (CBMU) detachments from both coasts, and Reserve Seabee volunteers from various areas will join those already in Gulfport, Miss., for a total Seabee force of up to 3,000. As currently envisioned, their initial mission will be to clear roads so that civil organizations can reach hurricane victims and to set up logistics centers to distribute food and water as well as to provide emergency...

This is a message we just received from folks down in Gulfport: "We need food and water right now at the Gulfport Emergency Operations Center at Hwy 49 Gulfport. We do not need hotel space or offices now and unless we get food and water down there now. We have cell phone contact with Walter Dukes-sr partner with what was one of the largest law firms on the coast. He and neighbors are armed for self protection from roving bands of looters. Walter and family have had no food or water since Monday when the storm hit except for a...

WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Officials at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss., announced plans Aug. 30 to evacuate 416 now-homeless veterans from the hurricane-decimated home and move them to its sister facility here. Most of the veterans were preparing to leave Gulfport on Aug. 30 by charter bus for the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, which is preparing to house them in dormitory areas, said Sheila Abarr, director of public affairs and marketing for both homes. The veterans are expected to arrive here Sept. 1. Plans are being considered to airlift assisted-living and long-term-care residents to Andrews Air...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1, 2005 – Fifty servicemembers applied several hours’ worth of old-fashioned elbow grease Aug. 31 to make a building undergoing renovations suitable for nearly 400 military retirees displaced from Gulfport, Miss., by Hurricane Katrina. Looking around at a bunch of chairs, tables, magazine racks, mops, mop buckets, brooms and trash in the large hallway in the Pipes Building at the Armed Forces Retirement Home here, a frustrated Air Force sergeant bellowed out, “What do you want us to do with all this stuff?” to Air Force Master Sgt. Terry Rawlins. “Just make it look nice and clean, so...