JACKSON - It was conceived - and written into state law - as a bold, ambitious new regional governmental entity to be created for long-range redevelopment of the Gulf Coast after Camille hit in 1969. But it later never got off the ground.
The idea, however, still languishes in state law books three decades afterwards, even an unused relic, but one that could be revived.
A 1971 law created what was to be known as the "Gulf Regional District" as a conduit for state, federal and private recovery funds. It was given power to issue revenue bonds for regional projects and, among others, "to marshal the region's cultural and human resources."
But the law contained a fatal flaw: It would not become operational unless counties and municipalities in the six-county coastal area voluntarily voted to join the district.
And that never happened.
As Danny Guice Sr., Biloxi's mayor when Camille hit, puts it: "The further we went beyond the immediate aftermath of Camille, the less people wanted to join one area-wide body."
Guice, who on Aug. 28 fled his home in D'Iberville as Hurricane Katrina approached and eventually wound up in a rental apartment in Brandon, said he had favored a centralized regional approach for rebuilding the Gulf Coast.
"But," he said, "some began saying that I wanted to be mayor of the entire coast." So he didn't push the idea, and he began concentrating on pleading for federal and state funds, primarily to help his own city. Remember, there was no FEMA or federal billions for relief back then.
Coastwise, the cities and counties soon went back to their old ways of building the region's unique character and economy with their own hands despite lingering parochialism.
Now a monster natural disaster even more devastating than Camille has presented an even greater challenge to the region to restore itself, hopefully better than before.
President Bush's proposal of a "Gulf recovery zone" in his highly publicized address from New Orleans brings to mind the failed attempt 30-some years ago to create a regional superstructure over post-Camille redevelopment in Mississippi's six coastal area counties and 14 cities.
Bush offered no details of his Gulf zone idea, and as this was written, none had yet been forthcoming. But overall, Bush outlined broad post-Katrina federal spending ideas that would cost $200 billion, say most Washington observers. New Orleans' recovery would doubtless get the bulk of the money, but Mississippi's Gov. Haley Barbour and its congressional delegation have enough clout to get a fair share for their state's hard-hit areas.
The post-Camille concept of a superstructure authority to plan and carry out redevelopment of the hurricane-smashed region came out of a comprehensive plan drawn by META Systems, based in Cambridge, Mass.
META had been hired by the "Governor's Emergency Council," a 10-member blue-ribbon committee named by then-Gov. John Bell Williams shortly after Camille hit, as the coordinating agency for planning economic restoration of the hurricane-ravaged area.
The emergency council inherited broad power when President Nixon visited Gulfport in early September 1969 and named the council as the single agency through which all federal funds for the counties and cities on the Coast would be channeled.
It's noteworthy that the Emergency Council was all-white, all-male and consisted of successful bankers, businessmen and lawyers. Diversity was not even thought of back then. Additionally, the council had a distinctive up-state flavor, something that rankled Coast folks.
The council members, as I had written back then, were hard-nosed business types, but with no widely based exposure to the sociological and human realities of the broader society in our relatively poor state.
Within days after Katrina hit, Barbour named wealthy philanthropist Jim Barksdale to head an ad hoc committee on renewal and recovery that may resemble the Camille-era governor's emergency council.
Certainly in Barksdale, the governor picked a leader from the business world with a rare sympathetic understanding and compassion for disadvantaged Mississippians.
Still unknown - and no doubt to become a major issue in the days ahead - is whether the massive federal dollars for recovery in our Gulf South region will be spent from the top down out of Washington or if the state and its own agencies will be able to decide where and to whom they go.
From what Barbour has indicated, he will insist on the state having the final say-so on reconstruction. We'll see.
