Sitting on his porch overlooking the Mississippi Sound, former Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes finds it hard to understand why anyone wouldn’t want to live in this waterfront city. “People are always going to gravitate to the water,” he said. “And we have a beautiful waterfront.”
But after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005, wiping out entire neighborhoods and killing 238 people in Mississippi, it wasn’t clear if residents would come back. Many beachfront properties were reduced to concrete slabs, and rebuilding moved at a slow pace. To speed things up, Gulfport offered property tax breaks to those who rebuilt near the water, hoping to “build back better and quicker” and jump-start the local economy, Hewes explained.
The move wasn’t without its challenges. Building near the water is risky. Flood zones cover much of the beachfront, and rising sea levels add to the threat. Still, cities like Gulfport pushed for rebuilding, partly because they depend on residents and property taxes to thrive. They also made it mandatory for new homes to be built at higher elevations with stronger building codes. Despite that, most waterfront homes remain in moderate to high flood risk zones.
Allen Baker, who lived through the 1969 Hurricane Camille, says Katrina was far worse. His old beachfront home was destroyed by what witnesses described as a tornado spun off by the storm. Returning after the hurricane, Baker said, “there was no home.” He and his wife didn’t move back until 2016 when Gulfport began offering a seven-year city property tax break for rebuilding south of the railroad tracks. The tax break wasn’t huge—usually between $500 and $1,000 annually—but it gave people the push they needed to start rebuilding.
Not all areas have bounced back equally. Some spots are still empty lots, left with the debris of the storm years ago. Yet, just a block inland, new houses stand alongside older ones that survived Katrina. Hewes himself used the tax incentive to build a stronger home on his family’s beachfront land. He invested more money to make the house tougher against future storms.
Baker’s home also goes beyond the city’s code. It’s built with steel rods inside the walls, a thick concrete foundation, and a roof firmly secured to withstand strong winds. This qualifies the house as “fortified,” a standard recognized by the insurance industry that lowers wind insurance costs. However, only about 1,500 homes in Mississippi have this status, far fewer than in other Gulf states.
Even though progress has been made, some residents worry the city isn’t ready for the next big storm. Katherine Egland, who leads the NAACP’s national Environmental and Climate Justice Committee, believes Mississippi hasn’t done enough. She points out that development has been focused on whiter and wealthier areas south of the railroad tracks, while some historically Black neighborhoods north of the tracks have suffered more severe flooding, partly due to new construction inland.
Flood risk remains high along Gulfport’s beachfront. Most homes face at least a 1% annual chance of flooding, and while elevating homes helps, rising sea levels mean the risk will grow over time. The odds of flooding over a typical 30-year mortgage can reach around 40%, making these risks hard to ignore.
Nationwide, building continues in flood-prone areas. A recent study found more than 840,000 homes were built in flood plains from 2001 to 2019. Federal flood insurance often covers rebuilding costs, which some argue encourages staying in risky zones.
There was once a plan to buy out the highest-risk properties in Mississippi to reduce storm damage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated a $408 million buyout could have reduced yearly storm damage by up to $33 million. But Congress never provided the funds, and such buyouts remain rare.
Hewes believes Gulfport’s local approach, including tax breaks and building codes, has done more to aid recovery than a large federal buyout might have. Still, questions remain. Some worry that areas left behind could become neglected or abandoned.
Construction on the coast continues, but its success will only be clear after the next major hurricane hits. Baker sums it up simply: “Some people have built out of concrete, some people have built out of better materials, some people have not. And those people are going to be in for a shock.”