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Wednesday, October 12 -- Today in Biloxi, Mississippi, design specialists from throughout Mississippi and the nation begin an intense six-day planning exercise with local residents and elected officials from 11 coastal cities most damaged by Hurricane Katrina. What comes from this unique Forum will form the core of a report Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour turns back to the cities and counties for consideration sometime after January of 2006.
Preparation for today actually began weeks ago, shortly after the hurricane struck, as Governor Barbour invited Netscape founder and Mississippi native James Barksdale to chair the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. Tuesday, as Forum participants began arriving and setting up the Isle of Capri operation, Barksdale visited the site and later joined 100 fellow participants to review aerial video footage taken earlier that day.
Launching such an ambitious planning effort so soon after Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast is "a risk," Barksdale acknowledges. "But anything worth doing is always a risk. All opportunities start out looking like problems. And I think this is an opportunity all our communities will take advantage of.
"None of us wants to look back 20 years from now and realize we allowed ourselves to get locked into a rebuilding process that failed to take advantage of the clean slate, the clear opportunity we have right now. It's the worst possible time. But the opportunity makes it the best possible time.
"I hope we give it our best shot this week, that everybody is as creative and as open as they can be. We want to do it right. And we want to do it for the long term."
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 A tour of local
devastation
By photographer
Sandy Sorlien.
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