A Two-Year Anniversary and a Brand-New School 

Release Date: August 9, 2007
Release Number: 1604-580

» More Information on Mississippi Hurricane Katrina

BILOXI, Miss. -- For a look inside the Mississippi Gulf Coast Recovery process, with its two years of trials and triumphs since Hurricane Katrina, you could do worse than talking to a man named David Kopf.

As superintendent of the 4,400-student county school system in rural Hancock County, where the main eye-wall of Katrina walked ashore, Kopf has had his headaches with federal paperwork. Yet he remains doggedly supportive of that process. "The system does work," he says. "We feel like good things come to those who wait."

The waiting was particularly well publicized with regard to one school, South Hancock Elementary, which was built to replace damage done by Katrina. "The best way I can describe it is like giving birth," Kopf said of the planning and negotiating for South Hancock. "It was a very painful process, but now there is just such joy. I'm very excited for our children."

Midwifing the school's birth were the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its state counterpart the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), whose involvement began in a time of chaos. Katrina destroyed 30 school buses in Hancock County. In one school every pupil and all but one teacher were homeless. Kopf watched FEMA plow into the county's isolated coastal area to bring drinking water, ice and food. "I can't tell you how precious that was to us," he said, recalling how he spent an hour with a chainsaw, opening a road to relay the FEMA supplies to a neighbor, who responded with tears of gratitude. At daily crisis management meetings, he noted FEMA facilitators working behind the scenes.

"That reassured the county. We had individuals there who were sensitive to our needs. They supported us spiritually, physically and mentally-I guess you could say in every facet."

But a longer slog lay ahead. Over the coming months, the challenge of turning a tragedy into a firm plan was not always pleasant. Federal regulations were complicated.

Meanwhile, "neighbor was helping neighbor," Kopf recalls. The citizens of Hancock County were "very supportive of us getting the schools open so the children could come to a place of solitude and peace." Only 22 days of school were missed as portable buildings arrived to become classrooms. Breakfast and lunch were served. "The teachers worked on adrenalin most of that school year. I saw a lot of heroes." Standardized tests rated the year's schoolwork as Exceptional-Superior, the superintendent said quietly: "We're just very, very proud of that."

It was decided that the new South Hancock Elementary would house 600 students, with growth space for 150 more. Bricks were salvaged reverently from the two ruined schools that were being replaced.

But where should the new school be built?

Many landmarks were gone. Floodplain restrictions were confusing. Kopf listened as his FEMA advisers said the rule was "up or out." In other words, for the site selection of the new school, the choices were either to pile up enough landfill to make the new site a high, flood-resistant platform, or else to move out of the flood-plagued area altogether and bus children to a more distant site. Otherwise, no federal disaster funds would be available for rebuilding. The county opted to pile up the landfill. The site for the new school was raised from an 18- or 19-foot elevation up to 26 feet, Kopf said: "That's a lot of dirt."

At last, after nearly two years of patience and perils, groundbreaking for South Hancock was set for June 21 of this year. Contractors were hired, expecting to be paid with promised federal funds. Then came the day before the groundbreaking, in horror, Kopf found himself gazing at a new FEMA memo, saying that there could be no new construction of a school or any similar building in the flood-prone area in question, no matter how much dirt was piled in.

At the last minute the groundbreaking was canceled. A magical success story seemed to crash and burn. Kopf remembers expressions of deep concern from state and federal officials. Also rushing to help were local FEMA personnel stationed on the Coast, who were as surprised by the new memo as anyone. The ruling struck down not only South Hancock but other projects across Mississippi's coastline. In response, nine local FEMA experts went out and spent a weekend in the rain, using hand-held GPS satellite readers in an effort to determine whether old mapping of the sites, done in the post-Katrina chaos, might have slightly misstated positions in the flood zone. This turned out to be the case. The double-checking showed that more than 100 sites ruled out by the memo were permissible after all, according to FEMA's Public Assistance Section in nearby Biloxi. One of the reapproved sites was South Hancock.

School superintendent David Kopf got a call at 8:00 a.m. He would get his school after all. The groundbreaking could be rescheduled.

"Everybody," said the weary school superintendent, "just about did what they had to do to make things work. We were bound and determined to make things work."

So what about the over-all process, this thing called federally-supported long-term recovery? David Kopf may not be the most objective of witnesses, but then few people are if they have actually been inside the storm. "If I were to write down all the bad things versus the good," he said with quiet conviction, "the good things most definitely outweigh the bad."

FEMA coordinates the federal government's role in preparing for, preventing, mitigating the effects of, responding to, and recovering from all domestic disasters, whether natural or man-made, including acts of terror.

Last Modified: Thursday, 09-Aug-2007 10:58:37