Flooded by struggles

EDITOR’S NOTE: Reporter Brianna Bailey is in Pascagoula, Miss., with Palm Harvest Church volunteers on a mission to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. More than two years after one of the deadliest storms in the country’s history, thousands remain displaced. Volunteers are helping repair homes, most of which belong to residents too old, too ill or too poor to move or rebuild after Katrina. This is the first in a five-part series.

Pascagoula, Miss., looks a little better every time Palm Harvest Church volunteer Mike King visits. Fewer FEMA trailers than last year dot each block of the small shipbuilding town on the Gulf Coast.

The piles of rubble from Hurricane Katrina’s massive storm surge and sea waves the size of five-story buildings have been cleared. Street signs are back up.

But Katrina left deep wounds. Homes still need vital repairs before residents can return. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and unemployment are problems in the area, King said.

“You don’t know what someone’s heart feels like just because their body looks right,” King said.

King — along with 66 other volunteers from Palm Harvest Church in Costa Mesa, across Orange County and beyond — will spend the next four days in Pascagoula, helping repair homes, most of which belong to residents too old, too ill or too poor to move or rebuild after the storm. The trip is King’s third to the area in the past two years.

Like unseen psychological scars, many Pascagoula homes’ exteriors hide unlivable interiors.

“You never know what to expect. Some houses look OK from the outside, but on the inside, it looks like it went through a blender,” said Palm Harvest Pastor Mike Decker, who leads the team from Costa Mesa.

One Pascagoula man church volunteers plan to visit has been waiting more than six months to move out of his FEMA trailer because he can’t afford to install a simple fuse board in his house, Decker said.

Many local residents, still struggling to rebuild two years after Katrina, feel forgotten.

“A lot more needs to be done. A lot of people have been struggling ever since the storm,” said Palm Harvest volunteer Joe Banning.

Local codes require electrical wiring and drywall before families can move out of their FEMA trailers and back into their properties. It’s work many Pascagoulans can’t afford, King said.

“Typically across the board, they’re elderly or in bad financial shape,” King said. “Everyone who could afford to fix it has, or they have moved. Most of the people left behind are too poor to leave.”

The Palm Harvest Church team will sleep on air mattresses in an unheated church gymnasium and work 10 hours a day hanging dry wall and doing electrical work.

This year’s trip will be the first-time visit for many volunteers. The team has more than doubled in size from last year’s group of about 30 volunteers.

King and Banning are part of an advanced team that set out this week ahead of the rest of the group to find people and houses in need.

“There’s a lot of gratitude, but there’s also been a lot of promises made not followed through on,” Banning said. “People are wary and skeptical. But we’re here to help.”

There are fewer FEMA trailers in Pascagoula, but at least three or four still sit on every block, King said.

Insurance policies left many in coastal Mississippi high and dry after the flood waters receded.

There are two main destructive forces in a hurricane: wind and water.

Pascagoula, a town of about 27,000 residents, was devastated by Katrina’s 20-foot storm surge and 30- to 55-foot sea waves.

More than 90% of the town was flooded in the wake of the storm, which killed at least 1,836 people and caused about $81 billion in damage along the Gulf Coast.

Many insurance companies have refused to pay for damage they say was caused by flooding, which they insist was not included as part of most Pascagoulans’ hurricane insurance policies.

One home, belonging to a grandmother, needs extensive drywall work and electrical wiring before she can return, King said.

A homeless shelter flooded and vandalized after the storm also needs new drywall before it can begin serving the community again. Looters ripped out copper wiring and pipes to sell for scrap metal.

“We’re going to let them know we haven’t forgotten,” Decker said.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.