A Gulf Coast City Ruined by Katrina Focuses on Cleaning Up

For one Gulf Coast city devastated by Katrina, the focus has finally moved from rebuilding infrastructure to beautification. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

On a cold sunny day more than a thousand volunteers spread out across Waveland to spend the day making the city more beautiful.

“And it just looks like ants, you’ve got all these people just planting, we’ve got wheelbarrows, we’ve people with shovels, rakes.”

That’s Cathy Steinberg who came down with a group of 25 high school students from Wayland, Massachusetts. They came to volunteer for the one day launch event for the Great American Cleanup, which will run through May and include other national cleanup events across the country. Gayle Cunningham is managing director of the great American cleanup. She says it’s taken a long time for Waveland to even get to a place where they could come in and help.

“Well when we came down here after Katrina we saw that Waveland was so hard hit, that they weren’t ready at that time.”

Waveland was ground zero for hurricane Katrina. More than a 40 foot wall of water hit the city, 95% of the residential structures were destroyed. The city has just recently completed 100 million dollars in work to restore infrastructure projects like sewer, water and gas lines, which were all destroyed during Katrina. Waveland Mayor Tommy Longo,

“So now it’s an opportunity for us to do something other than deal with debris and cleanup and things. This will help us restore some of the natural beauty that the city of Waveland knew before Katrina."

Mayor Longo says the recovery’s been long and hard, but everyday they end up a little farther in getting Waveland back to normal. For MPB News, I’m Phoebe Judge in Gulfport.