Brent Warr, Mayor of Gulfport, MS

When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast last August, most TV cameras were trained on New Orleans. That focus only intensified after the city’s levee system failed and left whole neighborhoods underwater. But other Gulf Coast cities were arguably just as devastated. A 27-foot storm surge wiped out most of the buildings along the Mississippi coastline. More than 200 Mississippians were killed, including 30 people trapped in one beachfront apartment complex in Biloxi. In nearby Gulfport, the state’s second-largest city, 4,000 homes were destroyed, sewage overflowed into city streets, and the storm knocked out all but six traffic lights.

Brent Warr, the Republican mayor of Gulfport, who had never before held an elected office and had only been mayor for seven weeks prior to the storm, was in for the ride of his life. His own home was damaged, as was his business, Warr’s Men’s Clothing in downtown Gulfport. In the days after Katrina hit, his main goal was to get food and water to some 72,000 residents. Another goal was to help his overwhelmed police force maintain order as looters ransacked stores and drug addicts, looking to stave off withdrawals, started raiding hospitals and medical centers. 

Yet within ten days after the storm, most Gulfport residences and buildings had power restored. The Senate commended the city for its efficient removal of 4 million cubic yards of debris, and now, though Gulfport has lost approximately 3,000 jobs, it has also managed to attract new investors who are planning commercial, residential, and mixed-use developments that will revive—and even improve—this devastated coastal area.
“I don’t deserve a nickel of credit,” Warr told a crowd recently as he accepted an award for his leadership during the disaster. “I was just the linchpin. The city employees were the ones carrying the weight.” But many see Warr, whose booming voice and southern drawl give him the air of a preacher, as an unsung hero of the Gulf Coast’s rebuilding efforts. Warr spoke with The Next American City about the lowest moments, the importance of casinos, and the tremendous help from outsiders as his city digs out from one of the most devastating storms in history.

TNAC: After Katrina hit Gulfport, you resorted to some fairly unconventional methods for helping people out. I read one story that said you asked your police chief to hotwire a truck, and you ordered someone else to steal a stove. Was anyone in Gulfport alarmed?

The important part about that stove is, we gave it back. And we gave it back cleaner than we got it, that’s for sure. These were things that we had to do. We had to feed ourselves and other people. What we took was a stove that you’d use for a big barbecue. I knew where it was because I’d driven by it so many times. Really, everybody was doing the best they could. We had to siphon fuel out of wrecked vehicles to run pumps for generators. It was just necessary to keep things going.

With the city in chaos, what did you decide to fix first?

We made sure we had pumps going for wells, and we made sure the hospitals had water and were able to keep running. We have 157 lift stations for sewage in the city, and 54 of them were submerged. They melted down to nothing. They still had electricity running to them when they were underwater. We had to try to get generators to bypass pumps to run those lift stations, so that we could get water. Another concern: if you put water in but you’re not pumping the sewage out, you get dysentery, especially in August and September. So that was something we watched very closely. At one point we were told by the Department of Health, the local authority, to quit pumping water. But we refused to do it.

Was there a time in the days after the storm when you felt panicked?

There was one particular day—within the first week. We weren’t able to get control of the looting, or of the traffic. Our police forces were totally overwhelmed, and they were doing everything they could to maintain order. We just couldn’t gain any ground. Things were slipping away every day. Mayor Joe Riley, the mayor of Charleston [South Carolina], sent in 54 police officers. He didn’t call; he didn’t ask if we needed them. He just knew to send them. I was driving through the city that day, and I saw a uniform I didn’t recognize. A young lady who was a Charleston police officer was standing in one of the busiest intersections in Gulfport directing traffic. That really meant everything in the world to me. He’s an incredible leader
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How long were city employees in crisis mode?

Lord have mercy, we worked out of tents set up on the front steps of city hall. People were sitting in the corners of these tents on the steps of a 100-year-old building. That probably went on for two and a half months. Our public works director, Kris Reimann, is an incredible talent. He himself was in there with his whole department, fixing sewer lift stations and sleeping four to five hours a day. He and the policemen and firemen were out doing search and rescue constantly. We needed water first, then food, then we started worrying about infrastructure. All this time I had dozens of contractors coming in wanting to talk about debris removal. We had millions of cubic yards of debris. That was quite a complicated issue. I didn’t know anything about it. That was something we figured out as we went along.

Who do you think were the most important people in Gulfport’s recovery and rebuilding effort?

Trent Lott, Thad Cochran, and Haley Barbour—I don’t know which I’d put on top of the list. Those were the go-to people that we called with problems. If we needed a generator, they would get us a generator. Also, Congressmen Chip Pickering and Gene Taylor. On the local level, the guy that I have so much respect for is our coroner, Gary Hargrove. Can you imagine what his job was like? He was having to find places to store bodies. He did it with a lot of respect and dignity, and he gave a lot of respect to the victims of the storm. That could have been very mishandled. He was kind of an unsung hero.

There was also a North Carolina Baptist Men’s group that was unbelievable. They made a commitment to come into Gulfport and rebuild over 600 homes for free, providing labor and materials at no cost. It’s amazing the way this worked. I think God just did this for us. We got an old armory given back to the city by the National Guard about four weeks before the storm. It was just sitting there: a bunch of bunk houses, warehouses, and a kitchen. We agreed to give the NC Baptist men the use of this for two years. They came in and built us another big warehouse and brought in trailers for showers and places to sleep. They’ve got 400 volunteers on the ground all the time down there rebuilding these homes. They come to people and say, “Look, we’re going to put you a new roof on. It’s not going to be a 20-year shingle, it’s going to be a 30-year architectural shingle. What color would you like?” They go around saying things like, “That tub is dirty—let’s pull it out and put you a new one in for free.”

What was their connection to the Gulfport area?

They’re just wonderful Christian people. They came in and said, “We’d like to help.” Before they came in with construction crews, they had set up the largest feeding facility on the Coast. They fed—I can’t remember how many meals—well over 50,000 meals in a very short amount of time. They came in on buses, slept on cots, and they’re still down there, feeding people and praying with them, taking them meals and asking nothing.

Was it a big blow to the city and the local economy when the two casinos shut down?

It was. But not as significant a blow as some people think. The gaming revenue was about 5.8 to 6 percent of the general income for the city. More important than that, there were a lot of local jobs that were tied to the gaming industry. They’ll be able to find other jobs, we hope, and hang on until we have the new casinos open. Harrah’s, a big player, decided to sell their assets in Gulfport, rather than rebuild. They had one in Biloxi, and they decided to take their interest money and move to Biloxi.

Are both Gulfport casinos back up and running?

Nope. The other one bought the Harrah’s property and they’re working on it. Late summer they’ll be open, and we have other casino properties coming in.
How many jobs were lost?

Probably 3,000. Some of them were able to draw unemployment for some time, and they have been able to go work at other casinos. There are three open in Biloxi now. A lot of people who weren’t from the coast and worked at casinos left and moved back to where they were from.

Do you think it will be a big part of the plan for moving forward, attracting new casinos and getting the current ones up and running?

It’s part of the plan. We’re not going to have as many casinos as Biloxi. That’s not our plan or our desire. We’d like to have enough to have them as a good added amenity, but we won’t have a dozen.

What will it take to draw people back in to the Gulfport region?

We have only lost about 2.5 to 3 percent of our population. It’s already happening. People are coming in, wanting to work, wanting to participate in all the new economic activity. The government opportunity zones and tax-incentives are huge. We have a lot of labor in the city, a lot of activity, that wasn’t there before. A lot of sophisticated investors are coming in now, looking for prime opportunities and prime pieces of real estate. They can really build a quality product now, and they’re very attracted to Gulfport.

Did you feel that, in the aftermath of Katrina, the media and the public overlooked cities like Gulfport to focus mainly on New Orleans?

They did, and I think everybody would agree that that happened. But I think there are practical reasons for that. We weren’t as vocal about what had happened to us as some other cities were. One of the reasons for that is that we had seen storms before. No one in New Orleans had ever lived through a levee break and the city flooding. I’ve been through all the hurricanes since Camille in ‘69. I knew what I was going to be looking at when I walked out of the house after the storm. I had no idea it was going to be as bad as it was, but I knew what blown-down trees and cars on houses and damaged houses looked like. Folks that lived over in New Orleans—I don’t know if there’s anybody alive that’s lived in the city when the levees broke.

Did you feel that residents of Gulfport dealt with the crisis well?

Oh God, they were just as devastated as people in New Orleans. There’s no question about that. Everyone was traumatized and heartsick. They were scared, upset, sad. But they moved on with an incredible amount of dignity. They didn’t complain; they just got to work.

Why has Gulfport rebuilt so much more quickly than other cities?

We’ve begun the rebuilding process. We’re not rebuilt yet. But everyone who’s there, they love it. It’s their home. Many of them have other options for places to go. They’re not going to do it. They’re not willing to let the storm win. Katrina took a whole lot from us on that day. But it’s kind of like—she won the battle, but we’re going to win the war.

Knabb, Richard D., Jamie R. Rhome, and Daniel P. Brown. “Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Katrina, 23-30 August 2005.” Miami, Florida: National Hurricane Center, 2005. www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf