Phenomenal People

One would have to have been living under a rock not to know that it was five years ago last Sunday that Katrina roared ashore onto the Gulf Coast. The network and local media coverage showed the recovery work done over the years and stated that there still was more work to do. That's true, but they also have to deal with the BP oil spill. So one crisis has been largely handled but there's another one simmering under the Gulf waters and the fat part of the hurricane season is upon them.

What's become clear to me over the last months is that these people are fighters. They have to be because life down here isn't that easy. It isn't easy anywhere but places are few where entire communities can have their houses ripped apart in a single day. Beginning August 30, 2005 Moss Point started rebuilding. So did Waveland and Pascagoula. Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Bay St. Louis and all the coastal towns and cities started the long march back to their new normal. They had help from individuals and groups of people who came down from around the country to help them rebuild. They are Phenomenal People, and there was a week-long celebration of that recovery that lead up to the anniversary. Although at first glance it doesn't seem like there's a connection, but there is. You see these people came back from an epic nightmare. Now they face another one with the oil spill and what they all really want is a break to catch their breath.

I'm including a video piece here because it shows the kind of people that live here and that they are going to fight through the oil spill and come out the other side whole. It's a different kind of fight than Katrina, and it will take different skills and talents to do it, but the brains and the talent are here. There's another thing here too... grit. Most of these people don't know anything about giving up.

They'll need that ability now because this spill will take years to play out.

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Heroes, Five Years After

Photo: NOAA

Five years ago, hurricane Katrina slammed the Mississippi shores and this week its residents are celebrating their recovery and resurgence. It's plain to see that they have come a long way but there is still much to do. That ongoing recovery has and is being done by real heroes.

They are heroes because they refuse to give up or give in. Where are these heroes? Walk down any street and they will be all around you. Sit down in any restaurant or go into any shop, they will be there. The work they did and continue to do is being done quietly, outside of the news spotlight but well within view of their friends and neighbors. Coastal Mississippi communities came together to recover and continue in their causes. Groups like the Moss Point Visionary Circle, The Lord is My Hope, Hope CDA and others were born from Katrina's devastation but they all continue to serve.

The celebration of the Mississippi recovery was called "Phenomenal People" and based upon my experiences here, they most certainly are. These are my heroes.

A New Claims Process Begins Tomorrow

Most everyone in the Gulf know that starting August 23, BP will stop accepting claims from businesses and individuals suffering in the aftermath of the BP oil spill. That job now falls to the federal government group headed by Kenneth Feinberg. If you don't know Brockton, Massachusetts' favorite son, Feinberg was in charge of paying claims from the September 11th terror attacks. Consensus is that he did a good and fair job on that, so he was a natural choice for this new roll. However, all is not beer and skittles with the new BP claim process. This AP story from the WLOX TV web site describes the latest.

Clearly this will take time to play out to completion, and many things can change. But if past is prologue, one might look at the five years since Katrina to see how many people were not given a fair shake by insurance companies, FEMA and others entities.

I do not have first hand information on any claims made against BP except one. The one from Kenny DiNero, owner of a bait/tackle shop in Ocean Springs. He also runs a couple of boats to catch shrimp. He was my first interview back in July who had filed a claim with BP for lost business with his boats in early July.

I stopped down to his place this past Friday. After buying me a beer, he extracted from an envelope a small stack of papers, one of which contained the heading "Forensic Accounting". The net result was that BP was going to pay Kenny a little more than $4,200 for his losses in April, May, June and part of July. I did not study the documents in detail, nor would it have done much good if I had. I'm lousy with numbers. However, does it seem that about $1,200 per month is the right amount of compensation for bringing his business to a halt?

I will add that I've talked with community leaders, including two at the Tears to Cheers Music Festival on the Beach yesterday in Biloxi who said that large numbers of people are getting only fractions of what would be fair restitution for their hardship. I am hoping to get an interview with one of those leaders this week.

If a florist in Florida or a restauranteur in Idaho get paid off but local Gulf people and business get shortchanged then there is much wrong with the situation down here. 

We're Waitin' On Ya'

I have been down in southern Mississippi for about six weeks now and I've shot a lot of footage of pretty things but I probably haven't even scratched the surface of what's around. This is my love letter, of sorts, to everything that's here. Sit back and watch for about ten minutes and when it's done, get your butt down here.

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The Unexpected Victims

The stories in this blog and in the videos come primarily from two sources. The first is when someone tells me that there’s someone I need to talk with and then I follow the trail. For example, there was a woman inspecting a beach in Gatier who told me about the work the Audubon Society was doing at their response center in Moss Point. Audubon’s Finley Hewes pointed me to the children’s symposium put on by the Moss Point Visionary Circle and that’s where I met Darlene Carter. It works like that sometimes.

The other times I stumble upon them, like this one. I was trying to turn around on the narrow streets of Ocean Springs and saw a soup kitchen called “The Lord Is My Help”. That got me wondering if the spill had effected them. It has. They have been squeezed from both ends because the number of people needing their help is up and the donations are down.

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Their situation could possibly get worse as the Vessels of Opportunity (VOO) program is ended (which is happening now) and fewer tar balls float ashore lessening the need for cleanup workers. There are a lot of people who came into the area to take up this work. Some will stay and look for other work, but the economy is not kind to the unemployed these days. Some number of them will need the help of places like the “Lord Is My Help”. And now, they need yours.

The Scariest Words In The World

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Yea, it’s an old joke but it’s appropriate for this post.

Let me introduce you to Kenny DiNero. He owns a bait and fuel dock in Ocean Springs and runs a couple of shrimp boats. I sat down with him this morning to talk about where the oil spill has put him and his business and what he told me was not pretty. I expected that because his business is at the nexus of everything hurt by the spill. Shrimping was banned so his boats had nothing to do. The charter business tanked because fishing was banned. Fishing tournaments were cancelled, and they were big ones.

One sad fact tells the tale. Yesterday, July 21, the shop brought in $214. That’s it. It was apparent that wasn’t going to come close to making his monthly nut.

So, he goes to the government to apply for remuneration for the business he’s lost. As he tells it, the person he spoke with couldn’t do anything relative to lost sales for bait and fuel, but he could help him file a claim on the two boats. The government needed a bunch of financial records including tax returns from 2007, 2008 and 2009. He pulls together what they need, delivers that to them and waits. After a while he called to find out what was going on. Kenny was told that he needed to resubmit all the paperwork again because the first set was filed away in an archive somewhere. Not a problem because he had copies. He sent them in and waited some more. So the short story is that almost a month has gone by and he’s yet to see a dollar, but the government rep said he should get a check in August.

That’s only part of the story that he told me for just over a half hour this morning in front of my camera. As he talked, it became clear that his situation is effected by a bunch of situations set in motion when the well blew. What came quickly clear to me is that Kenny DiNero is one sharp, hard working cat with a sly sense of humor even though he didn’t smile much or laugh at all. His situation wasn’t even remotely humorous.

I can’t even start to retell his story because it’s incredibly complex, involves things that as an outsider I don’t understand and the outcome is still unknown. That present me with a problem I mulled over at lunch and during the short drive back to my hotel. After watching the interview as it was transferred from tape to my computer I realized that I had to use all of the interview. All 35 minutes of minutes. It’s a thought that might make some news field producers and documentarians look for tall buildings to jump off of. I can’t do it any other way. To leave out any part of it would be to ignore an important part of the jigsaw puzzle he’s living in. It would alter the context of what he’s going through. It wouldn’t be his story any more. It would be the story that I wanted to tell about him, and it wouldn’t be the truth, the whole truth.He also tells it very, very well.

So I’m going to violate every rule of video production and run all of it. From his answer to my first question to when a dog that adopted him after Katrina that he named “Pirate” jumped up on the bench next to him and the interview ended, you will hear everything that he said to me. I will cut video away to b-roll periodically to show some of the things he talks about but his audio will be complete and uncut. Since I asked questions off-mic, I’ll use full screen graphics for them.

The good news is that Kenny DiNero is very articulate and tells his story well. He sounds good too. I spent the afternoon and early evening adding graphics and b-roll to his story and I don’t think that if you care about what’s happening in the Gulf, you won’t be bored. But if you are, remember that I didn’t come down here to remake Caddyshack.

Coming up…

Dispersant, friend or foe.

UPDATE: Corrected the date when Kenny submitted his claim. The original article said that months had passed since he submitted his claim. In fact, he submitted it at the beginning of July. Also corrected his gross revenue number for the day described, which my weevil filled brain remembered incorrectly.