James E. Miller
jim.miller@usm.edu
House before Katrina.
House one month after Katrina.
House eight months after Katrina.
House ten months after Katrina.
Which Jim Miller?
2005
It was a year of loss. In July we evacuated for hurricane Dennis to our
backup house in Diamondhead. When we returned to Gulfport we received word
that our daughter Debbie had died. That was
the big loss for the year. Katrina followed (too soon). The Gulfport house
took two feet of water on the second floor,
roof, and had a large
chunk of the chimney (6'x4'x2.5') end up on the kitchen
counter. Someone's dock busted out the second story deck entrance to the bedroom. The Diamondhead backup did much better. The three large pines
that were blown down mostly missed the house and the storm surge would have had to have been at least 4 inches higher to have taken out carpets.
Tentative plans are to level the Gulfport house and rebuild (elevate). We enjoyed that house and the backyard. My office at school was in one of many buildings to receive significant
damage and there was a major scramble to move the campus to a new location in order to salvage the Fall semester. We pulled it off even though everyone had to deal with the storm. If you didn't lose your house
then you probably had long term guests that did. One of the things that was done at school that I thought was an interesting (pure therapy) move was to encourage everyone to write about a Katrina experience. My
down load offering (this is not great literature) documented the first trip back to the house and the search for our 13 year old Gray Cat. My computer
became a companion for Gray Cat. "Yard art" that had appeared at the destroyed house was claimed as a self
portrait.
2006
Diane and I have been pushing to rebuild. They started taking the house
down 3/25/06 and finished up 3/27/06. We
kept the chimney. This is a very slow and
frustrating process. The first major problem is getting plans drawn for
the replacement house. It looks like they will be ready (Started
in January) 8/3/06. Because the house needs to be elevated the plans were
not
something that we could finish by ourselves. Gulfport has not determined
"How high is high enough." yet or what exactly are the building codes and
that coupled with a over committed architect has really slowed things
down.
We can't figure out what the replacement house will cost until we have
plans to take to a builder and then we will not be able to determine if
there is enough money until we sign a contract because the funding
programs that could make a difference require that as a preliminary step.
Labor is the major question mark in a building project now with the
initial building materials shortage sort of under some control. Eleven
months after the storm houses are both appearing as folks start rebuilding
and disappearing (take another look at the 8 and 10 month pictures
above) as folks give up.
Still no plans and the building of the house is now questionable. It has
been a
week of ups and downs with the "official" elevation quoted at 16 feet and
at
23. We find out 08/08/06 maybe. Best guess is that FEMA says that it
should be 23 (12 feet higher than it was) and that we will not be able to
afford it. 08/11/06 Busy day. Word is that there will be open discussion
on what
the elevation should be but that the decision will be 22 feet. Positive
development is that elevation will be measured to top of bottom floor and
not to bottom of lowest cross support. That little detail makes
construction less expensive and puts the last elevation itteration on
house plans at a
correctable 5 inches low instead of out of sight. Project still alive.
8/17 We were able to get a set of plans that had enough detail in them
that
we could start getting cost estimates. We guessed the elevation would be
at 22 feet but a newspaper article 8/25 stated that it was going to be
22.5 feet. I've marked some elevations on the
chimney so that we can get a
feel for how high that really is. Project still alive with cost the next
major consideration. Official word 9/5/06 is that the elevation will
be 22.5 feet. Now we can finish the drawings and get meaningful cost
figures. 9/11/06 Rumor of the day dealt with insurance for projected
house and we had to move quickly to stay out of the wind pool (the
projected $1,000 per month would have been a deal breaker). 10/6 Fifty
days after plans went out for bids the first cut on
building costs are in and the house is "mostly dead." Time to make a
backup plan. 10/7 Fully understand that the house might not
get built. 10/8 House dead. 10/12 House probably dead. 10/14 OK with
thought that the house is probably dead. 10/15 It is now 412 days
since Katrina hit. Diane and I see a sign for an open house on a new home
in Long Beach, on the way
home from church, and make an offer on it. 10/16 We agree to the
counter offer to our counter offer. 10/26 We close on the house. 11/3 Our
third night in the new house. All large stuff (there is a freezer to worry
about) has been moved and we are in buy furniture and unpack mode. Blinds
to be installed 11/5. This is working. SBA of all of the goverment support
agencies has been the most helpful. If you view it as playing "Calvin
ball" you will at least cut down on false hope. Example: Approved loan
after lots of paperwork. Told that the money could be used for the
purchase of a home. Advised to close on the home before the money was
made available. Verified that SBA had approved original loan based on
numbers that badly underestimated our loss and at their request sent
in the necessary documentation to support a larger loan. SBA response
was to cut the agreed upon loan figure (after I purchase a house) and
threaten to pull all support because (Calvin ball example) the
insurance money that we did receive was used to pay the off the mortgage
on the destroyed house and
there was no documentation to say that the mortgage company "demanded
it." (I still don't understand what their thinking was.) We were asked for
that additional documentation. Then there was a
request for flood insurance on a slab and a no-action on a closing date
and then on 12/6 everything worked out. On Christmas day we declared
Katrina essentially over. Interesting times.
2007
Looks like Katrina is not over. Purchasing furniture is a pain in
this environment and this introduces a new phase in working with the
insurance company. Because of the flood vs. wind issue only the furniture
in certain rooms is covered by insurance but we need furniture for a
complete house. The insurance company (State Farm) works with us. On
destroyed belongings we made the decision that our first cut at putting a
list together (along with our estimate of current value) was also our
final version. As we worked through the process it looked like the errors
we made pretty much cancelled out. State Farm made a couple of errors that
almost cancelled each other out. Absolutely no way to get something this
complicated exact. 6/28/07 The first settlement check for replaced
personal items arrives. When we
raised a
question that dealt with the flood vs.
wind decision we were directed to a review process. 9/12/07 We receive a
favorable final settlement. December the official FEMA maps are made
public and
the city of Gulfport now says the build back height is 15 feet. 12/6/07 We
find out the build back height is 16 feet. 12/13/07 The last of the
pictures get hung. There are still traces of Katrina mud on Christmas decorations.
The Backyard
The backyard is not unique to the coast of Mississippi but perhaps
different enough to be interesting. It offers one of the best
locations for viewing the Christmas boat
parade (DeckAfterKatrina) and
that
has
always been a decent excuse for a party. Fishing is the primary diversion
and
there is usually a line out while activities such as mowing the grass are
going on. Bayou Bernard has yielded
red fish,
black drum,
mullet,
croakers,
large mouth bass,
striped bass,
speckled trout,
catfish, (stonecat, hardhead, gafftopsail,
channel, and
blue),
redear sunfish (that's "red" ear or
shellcracker),
bluegill,
green sunfish,
pin fish (good for bait and not much else),
pompano (seriously small), does jelly fish count?,
needle nose gar,
short nose gar,
and a couple eels.
Crabbing is difficult because of otters. Other
creatures that have been
spotted (but not caught) include alligator, red? fox (1/19/02), nutria,
possom, raccoon, and
of
course squirrel. Water fowl include anhingas that look sort of like a
cormorant and are locally refered to as "snake birds", osprey, king
fishers, green heron, great blue herons, blue
herons, yellow-crowned night-herons, egrets (cattle, snowy, and great),
brown pelicans, gulls (wide variety),
mallards, Canadian geese,
least terns, and black skimmers. The cold snap the first week in
October/2000 brought 67 great egrets to a group of pine trees on the
other side of the bayou for one of those picture perfect moments. The
two surprises Spring of 2001 were a two week period where the only
thing that was getting caught was channel cat in the 24 to 30 inch
range and a wierd sight of a group of 24 anhingas that were making a
sweep of the bayou. Ten minutes after seeing the birds swim down the
bayou a group of 54 came flying back. The most of this type of bird
that I had seen previously in the area was three. A four foot gator
was spotted and became the smallest seen in the past eight years. (Big
one was pushing 12 feet.) Fall of 2001 has turned up my first otter in
the yard, my first gafftopsail catfish (a really wierd looking
fish), a 52 inch needle nose gar, and a 21.5 inch speckeled trout. The
day before the Super Bowl turned up four mallards in the yard and a
32.5 inch blue catfish that took forever to
clean. The Christmas break 2002 produced a
38.5 inch
blue cat and another 52 inch gar. New for
summer of 2003 was an ibis and a stand of cardinal flowers. Fall 2004 a large Blue Heron
stood in the yard waiting for bait fish to jump in the yard. When we
figured out what he was doing we did likewise and fished with live
bait. 2/12/05 The water was like glass and the reflections in first
light with the reds and purples was kind of neat. The next time I
looked out there was something going on. Thirteen pelicans and
approximately 30 anhingas were feeding while three Blue Herons flew 10
feet off the water like planes protecting ships. They were joined by a
small green heron. The next morning was more of the same but this time
there were 15 pelicans that mostly sat, 3 blue herons that flew
protection, 3 mallards that swam up stream and a flotila of anhingas
(58 by actual count) that swam downstream with no diving or splashing in a
long column
that was never more than four abreast. 5/23/05 First double sighting
of gators (6.5'and 8'). As they swam toward each other the double
strikes on two lines turned out to be the same fish hooked twice.
After landing the fish I had a chance to watch the gators (they never
came closer than 50 feet to each other) but was distracted by a large
turtle that lumbered out of an azalea to bite the fish once and then
retreat. 8/29/05 Katrina. 8/25/06 A number of folks are reporting
Katrina
melons (gourd shaped watermelons) and we have a
good crop growing next to the slab. The thing I have enjoyed most
about the yard is that on any day I can see something that I have
never seen before. Today that was a place in the yard where I could stand
and get (because of the stuff Katrina took
out) my first view of all of the 200+ feet of land ajacent to the
bayou. 9/17/06 Persimmons are getting ripe as are the last of the
Katrina melons.
This page is maintained by
James E. Miller
