Well, if it becomes too quiet feel free to come on over ~

http://yoshi2me.com/phpbb/index.php

We would love to have ya,

Angela :)

I guess New Orleans is just known by more people.  I've talked to
people in other parts of the country that never even knew Mississippi
had a coast! LoL! ... and the news media, I think, goes where they
feel the most interest lies.... and the best ratings.

Basically, most of the debris is cleared from the first quarter mile
inland from the beach. Practically every man made structure is gone
from the beach front. A little new construction has started but we
have two major problems. Number one being money. Insurance companies
aren't paying off. And most people lost more than just their homes.
They also lost their jobs and businesses. Soooo... for the people that
are staying here... no money. We're told the government grants are on
the way but.... so far no money. What do ya do?  Second, there's such
a HUGE deficit in housing. Even though there is plenty work to be done
(right now we have the lowest unemployment rate in our history.
EVERYbody that wants a job HAS a job), there aren't enough workers to
make a dent in what needs to be done. And the reason is.... we don't
have enough housing to house the workers that would normally be here
to build new houses lol!  Sort of a chicken vs egg situation.

But except for those two problems, things are going pretty well and
it's easy to spot new improvements popping up every day. Things are
happening a heck of a lot faster here than New Orleans. I've been over
there several times and there's parts of that city that still look
like the day the water went down. They haven't even cleared the sunk
boats from the bottom of the municipal harbor or the wrecked boats
from the piers and parking lots. Our harbor was more damaged than
theirs but cleared within a few months of the storm. The biggest
difference I can see is that our experience was a "natural" disaster,
plain and simple. We can deal with that.  But theirs was a "man-made"
and "political" disaster (most people don't realize the bad part of
the storm completely missed New Orleans). The condition of those
levees was widely known, even to us over here, and that issue had been
their political football for many many years. They've just been
extremely lucky before now.  Frankly, I'll take our "natural" disaster
over their "man-made" kind any ol' day.

But to your original question, I don't hear many complaints about the
help we've received. In fact, as far as voluteers go, the opposite is
true. The volunteer response we've had from the rest of the states
(and other parts of the world for that matter) has been hard to
imagine.  A whole new industry has sprung up around here known as
"voluntourism"  ;-)

M2