Few Coast industries and businesses closed permanently

Considering the amount of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina a year ago, it is remarkable that so many Coast businesses and industries were able to get up and running in a relatively short period of time, says Jay Moon, president of the Mississippi Manufacturers

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"We were relieved few manufacturers actually went out of business completely because of the hurricane," Moon said. "There are two reasons: Few were actually in the area where the storm surge was. Secondly, most manufacturers' facilities were built to stronger standards than your average residential facility. They had big iron beams, for example. I'm not minimizing the damage, but industries were not completely wiped out. Overall from the manufacturing standpoint, we have come out of the storm as well as can be expected."

Unlike in New Orleans where flood waters stood for a long time, the storm surge came in and went out quickly on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. That helped mitigate damage. Still, the storm surge was salt water, which is very corrosive. Moon said the salt water had an impact on machinery. Some was fixed locally, some was sent away for repairs, and some equipment had to be replaced. Businesses also had to replace office equipment like computers.