Biloxi's recovery shows post-Katrina divide
Two years later; Many Katrina victims still have no power, but they can see their wrecked homes and FEMA trailers at night by the glare of nearby -- newly rebuilt -- casino signs.
Yet in the wrecked and darkened working-class neighborhoods just blocks from the waterfront glitter, those lights cast their colorful glare over an apocalyptic vision of empty lots and scattered trailers that is as forlorn as anywhere in Katrina's strike zone.
"At night, you can see the casino lights up in the sky," Shirley Salik, 72, a former housekeeper at one of the casinos, said this month while standing outside her FEMA camper with her two dogs. "But that's another world."
It seems shocking, but the stark realist in me accepts this disparity in our societies priorities. And that saddens me deeply.
I need to rethink MY priorities.
