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BILOXI, MISS. — Almost immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005, New Orleans and the flooding caused by breached levees in southern Louisiana became the focus of international media attention.
But as Biloxi's Sun Herald lamented in a Pulitzer-winning editorial that December, that same news coverage failed to chronicle the havoc wreaked by Katrina elsewhere along the Gulf of Mexico as anything more than “a footnote.” Mississippi, it said, had become the “invisible coast.”
Just as little attention has been paid since then to Biloxi's remarkable recovery from the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
Yes, scars from the hurricane are still evident. The artsy community of Pass Christian was almost wiped out and Gulfport remains deeply wounded. In Biloxi alone, Katrina claimed 6,000 homes and businesses, and much has yet to be rebuilt as insurance claims struggle their way through a legal morass.
Casinos are the big story in Biloxi's comeback, but the 42-kilometre stretch of uncrowded, white sand beach never left. (Laszlo Buhasz/The Globe and Mail)
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But there is good news. Especially in Biloxi, and especially when it comes to what locals call “the big engines” – the casino resorts that account for so much of this town's employment and revenue.
Not only have eight casinos reopened, they've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in refurbishment and expansion. And it's already paying off: With earnings of $1-billion last year, Biloxi is ranked as the seventh-largest casino market in the U.S.
Ironically, Katrina has also set in motion a further development boom. In 1990, Mississippi legalized casinos as long as they were offshore, dockside or on barges. But the hurricane tossed most of those barges like toys – crushing everything in their way onshore. So a month after the storm, the state passed a new law allowing casinos to build on land.
Now, there are plans for seven new casino resorts in the next decade. Already under construction, for example, is the $1-billion Margaritaville Casino – a partnership between entertainer Jimmy Buffett and gaming giant Harrah's Entertainment set to open in 2010. Riding on the gaming and tourism boom, new condos and golf courses are also sprouting up along the coast.
All of which begs just one question: Will Biloxi's recovery mean big-box development at the expense of what made this town unique – or will one of America's classic beach getaways balance old and new, with some weight added to the cultural side of the scale?
OLD SOUTH, NEW BUZZ
When I first drove along this coast 15 years ago, Highway 90 between Gulfport and Biloxi was lined with long rows of mansions – all beautifully maintained, shaded by ancient, moss-draped oaks and flowering magnolias.
Many of these houses were built by rich families from New Orleans and Mobile in the 1800s. Some wanted to escape the stifling heat of Louisiana and Alabama summers; other residents were running from periodic plagues of yellow fever.
And even a century later, long after those fevers had subsided, there was a sense of the languid Old South along this coast. The mix of stately homes, mom-and-pop shops, small seafood restaurants and the clustered boats of fishermen were only just being disturbed by the arrival of the garish neon of casino barges – eyesores such as Biloxi's Lucky Lady's Chinese pagoda.
But Katrina changed all that. While the hurricane of 2005 destroyed the rich architecture of the coast, it also ended the era of unsightly gaming barges. Casinos have moved upscale with more permanent facilities, upgraded entertainment, luxurious spas and packages to dozens of regional golf courses.
For example, once you get past the endless mannequins in rock-star costumes and the drone of pop a decade out of date, the rooms at the new Hard Rock Hotel & Casino are as sleek as any you'll find in Las Vegas.
Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, meanwhile, offers play at an 18-hole championship golf course designed by Tom Fazio and a luxe spa to soothe away any strains from a day on the links. And in the evenings, celebrity chef Todd English serves up sirloin, lobster and other dishes that have made his Manhattan and Boston restaurants buzz.
Entertainers coming to casino row this fall include B. B. King and Gladys Knight.
Still, if casino resort developments are the big story in Biloxi's comeback, the old attractions never left. The sun, the water and a 42-kilometre stretch of uncrowded, white-sand beach still attract families for classic American getaways.
COASTAL CULTURE REDUX
To bring in cultural tourism, Biloxi is also spending millions of dollars buffing up historical landmarks and launching new showcases for local art. Take Beauvoir, the last home of Jefferson Davis. It reopened in June – the 200th anniversary of Davis's birth – after a year-long $4-million restoration.
Before the hurricane, Davis's house attracted about 80,000 visitors a year. They came to see where the Confederate President (wrongfully accused of a conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and imprisoned for two years without trial) wrote his memoirs and the two-volume Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
But when Katrina hit, the house took a serious thrashing. “The house was built on 60 eight-foot tall brick piers,” curator Richard Flowers tells me on a tour of the property. “Half the piers were lost in the storm and if Katrina would have lasted for even a half hour longer, I think we would have lost the entire house. The new piers have been reinforced and now the structure is 400 per cent stronger than before.”
Next in line for rebuilding at the Beauvoir estate are the Hayes Cottage (where Davis once hosted Oscar Wilde) and the barracks. Then there's the Presidential Library: Located behind the house, it was completely demolished by Katrina but a new $12-million building will open in 2010 or 2011 on higher ground.
Construction has also begun again on the ambitious Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, a complex at the east end of Biloxi that was destroyed before it could open when Katrina dropped the Grand Casino's barge on top of it.
Designed by Frank Gehry – best-known for the iconic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain – the museum will include an African-American folk art gallery, an educational pavilion, a contemporary art gallery and a reconstruction of the Pleasant Reed House, one of the first homes on the coast built by a former slave.
To house the pottery of George E. Ohr, the museum will also have linked stainless-steel, tulip-shaped pods – all designed to “dance” with a grove of ancient oaks.
“The trees are architecture, they are as interesting as any building,” Gehry has said. “It's like if you go to a dance and your dance partner is a tree. She's a pretty partner, so we'll try and waltz her around a bit.”
The whimsical pods will be an appropriate showcase for the artist known as the “Mad Potter of Biloxi.” Ohr was a wildly prolific producer of what he called his “mud babies” – ceramics remarkable for brilliant glazes and fantastic, organic shapes that predate surrealism.
Dismissed by his contemporaries, the largely self-taught Ohr was a ceaseless self-promoter who cultivated bizarre eccentricities à la Salvador Dali, such as a huge mustache that was long enough to tie behind his head
Sadly, unlike Dali, Ohr gained a reputation only years after his death. Today, however, an exhibit of his masterworks is now touring the U.S. and will be at Toronto's Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in May, 2009.
As for Biloxi, a selection of his works is on show right now at the temporary home of the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. Their new home – part of the $19-million first phase of the Ohr-O'Keefe development – will open in 2010.
ON THE HORIZION
But raising Ohr's profile isn't the only goal for those who support his new home. Many hope the new Ohr-O'keefe Museum will also drive tourism at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art across Biloxi Bay in Ocean Springs and spur the recovery of the artistic community in Pass Christian.
And how does this high art fit in with the area's high rollers? According to Larry Clark, president of Ohr-O'Keefe's board of trustees, two casinos – Beau Rivage and IP Casino – donated $1-million each to help fund the museum.
“This wasn't charity. It was a business decision,” he says. “The campus will have the only Frank Gehry-designed buildings in the U.S. Southeast and will bring more attention to the Mississippi Gulf Coast than any other single project in our history.”
Still, despite the promise of a high-wattage spotlight on the city and ongoing expansion and development, many businesses have had to fight hard to come back from the damage inflicted by Katrina.
Mary Mahoney's, a landmark French restaurant across the street from the new Hard Rock Casino, is a prime example of local tenacity. Dating back to 1737 – and thought to be the oldest building in Biloxi – it has been featured in two John Grisham novels and is a favourite with visitors such as Denzel Washington.
But owner Bob Mahoney shows me a sign propped on a mantle that marks the five-foot-plus wall of water that surged into the restaurant. “It was a disaster,” he tells me. “But the restaurant was up and running eight weeks after the storm, even though my family and most employees personally lost everything to Katrina.”
Today, in fact, there's little sign of havoc in Mahoney's. Earlier this summer, Jimmy Carter was there with 15 other guests dining on soft-shell crabs and snapper stuffed with shrimp. “He ate good,” says Bob Mahoney.
Then again, Larry Clark, who also lost his house to the hurricane and had to rebuild on Biloxi's Back Bay, sums up a new wariness here toward the waters of the coast.
“I grew up with the waters of the Gulf,” he says. “It has always been a part of my life, a familiar and much-loved horizon. But looking at that water now just isn't the same. It's like admiring a dog that bit you.”
