Reuters picks up on Mississippi recovery story

Following our coverage in Salon last week about the slow pace of recovery in post-Katrina Mississippi -- "slower than molasses in winter," one resident told us -- Reuters has a piece on small towns struggling to rebuild in the Magnolia State.

Like our piece, the story looks at Pearlington, the small town 40 minutes up from New Orleans that was "ground zero" for Katrina. Reuters describes a scene similar to what we found:

The local school and post office remain closed, few businesses have reopened and only a quarter of its 800 homes have been rebuilt, according to Glenn Locklin of the charity One House at a Time.

"You don't hear about us anymore. They say we're not news," Locklin said. "The one thing people don't realize is that we are just as bad as we were."

The devastation in coastal Mississippi is all the more shocking given the disproportionate share of federal relief dollars Gov. Haley Barbour was able to attract for his state. For example, even though Louisiana suffered 75% of the housing damage from Katrina, Mississippi raked in 70% of FEMA's money for the Alternative Housing Pilot Program. Similar disparities can be found on funding from health care to schools.