Hurricane Katrina Resources

North Gulfport and Turkey Creek

This is a report on the status of the communities and some of the residents featured in the cover story in Shelterforce’s July/August 2005 issue, Crossing Muddy Waters. As they are located within three miles of the Gulf of Mexico in southern Mississippi, North Gulfport and Turkey Creek sustained heavy damage on Aug. 29, 2005 from Hurricane Katrina.

The groups featured in the story, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives (TCCI) and the North Gulfport Community Land Conservancy (formerly Community Land Trust) are among the groups involved in a grassroots planning process to protect their neighborhoods from encroaching development. The planning effort was instigated by Hurricane Katrina and is just getting underway. It is occurring on the heels of the Mississippi Renewal Forum, a planning process supported by Governor Haley Barbour, which made proposals for future development and land protection in the North Gulfport area. See Turkey Creek and Mississippi Renewal for more information.

Derrick Evans, founder of TCCI, was out of harm’s way when the hurricane hit in August. Many of his neighbors stayed in their homes to ride out the storm. Evans learned that his mother was in her home in Turkey Creek when water from the storm rose as high as the rafters. A neighbor helped her evacuate, using an air mattress to float. The TCCI office was badly damaged but many of its historical archives were salvageable. The neighborhood church and many homes along Turkey Creek were severely damaged or destroyed.

Shelterforce received word that Rose Johnson and Becky Gillette, co-founders of the Community Land Trust, were safe. We also heard that Burnice Caldwell, who is pictured on the cover of the July/August issue of Shelterforce, was safe, but her house was lost. Howard Page, a board member of the land trust and the photographer for the story, was able to evacuate with his entire family, although his home was also destroyed. It was only four blocks from the coast, in an area of Gulfport where an estimated 95 percent of all structures were ruined by the tidal surge.

As the focus shifted from emergency disaster relief to repairing homes, Evans brought roofing, tarps, bleach and other materials to the community from a base in Birmingham, AL. Trisha Miller, the author of our story, was in Jackson, MS on Sept. 9 helping disaster victims to register for federal aid. On the same day, TCCI and Johnson were close to securing the services of professional roofers to work in their community for 30 days.
(Thanks to author Trisha Miller for contributing to this report. See the September/October 2005 issue of Shelterforce for a follow-up story by Miller on the recovery and rebuilding effort. Also see the Summer 2006 issue for a story by Miller on how landlords tried to evict many tenants in southern Mississippi after the storm.)

Funds to help the community recover from the disaster can be sent to:

Turkey Creek Community Initiatives
14439 Rippy Road
Gulfport, Miss. 39503

Click here for additional listings of grassroots organizations and charities providing relief