Bushvilles

Tent cities are rising up in Mississippi to house Katrina victims.....

The tent city here is one of three set up in recent weeks along the Mississippi coast, making room for families now that the emergency shelters have closed and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is working through a backlog of some 5,000 families still on waiting lists for government-supplied travel trailers or mobile homes.

There are 3 tent cities with 300 residents and more people are moving in daily. Residents are for the most part grateful. The tents can be heated and have wood floors but it is still some hard living...

When the wind blows in from the Gulf or it rains, there can be no mistaking that despite any effort at niceties, the accommodations are rudimentary.

"It is a bit like a tomb," said Dave Frisby, 55, a handyman whose home and tools were washed away by Hurricane Katrina. "It can be depressing."

SNIP

Boredom is perhaps the biggest problem in the tent cities. There are no electrical outlets in the tents in Long Beach, meaning no television and no way to charge cellphones.

"You can't communicate with the world," said Kenneth Gray, 55, who was a construction worker in Gulfport before Hurricane Katrina. "It is just so isolated."

You would think we could do better than a modern day Hooverville.