Tourism industry obliterated as hurricane death toll mounts

Saturday, 31 Aug, 2005 0

A decade of tourism development in Mississippi was wiped out in a few hours as the full extent of Hurricane Katrina’s destructive force began to emerge.

Hundreds of people are now feared to have died as winds of 145mph and 30ft waves surged through the Gulf Coast, wrecking everything in its path.

New Orleans is said to be 70% under water as rescue teams raced to pluck stranded residents off rooftops. Although the city was spared the full initial impact of the hurricane, new dangers emerged as its dykes gave way under pressure from rising and powerful water surges.

Millions of homes throughout Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama were without clean water and power as the region was plunged into chaos.

Among the worse hit towns was the tourist resort of Biloxi, approximately 70 miles to the east of New Orleans, where buildings within 400 yards of the sea were flattened.

Aside from the personal tragedies, the region faces a £15 billion clean-up operation, making it the most catastrophic natural disaster in US history.

Mississippi Tourism UK representative David Nicholson said the Gulf Coast region has spent millions of dollars over the past 10 to 15 years developing a thriving tourism industry that now lay in tatters.

“By the end of the year it would have surpassed Atlantic City and Reno and become the second largest gaming centre in the US,” he said. “The casinos were the catalyst for development across the entire Mississippi state. Many of the casinos had spas and golf courses and were becoming phenomenally successful.”

Many of the casinos, around 16 in total along the 25 miles between Biloxi and Gulfport, had been constructed on floating barges with hotel rooms on the shore. While they were built with the worse case scenario in mind, the power of Hurricane Katrina simply obliterated some and tossed others miles inland.

“It’s a devastated area,” said Nicholson.

Around 30,000 to 35,000 UK tourists visit Mississippi each year.

Airlines could also be counting the cost as oil prices rocketed to a record $90 a barrel as the hurricane damaged pipelines, rigs and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Jet-fuel prices are crushing, and could prove to be a knock-out blow for some,” John Heimlich of the Air Transport Association wrote in a recent report on fuel prices.

Report by Steve Jones