By Hook or by Crook, Surviving Storm

Strange storm detritus remains everywhere: houses blown into matchsticks, clothes wrapped around treetops, and pine needles impaled in broken glass panes. The region now has enough food (mostly meals-ready-to-eat) and water, thanks in part to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But residents are still struggling to acquire and distribute other basic supplies: baby food, diapers, paper products, cleaning supplies, shovels, rakes, bleach. Most important, they need temporary housing, which has been slow in coming.

"And if help doesn't come soon, we're going to have a major health issue," says Marsha D. Barbour, wife of Gov. Haley Barbour (R).

Mississippi's first lady, along with her two children, Reeves, 26, and Jackye, 24, has been running supplies into storm-blighted communities by pickup truck. After sitting out the storm in Hattiesburg, Marsha Barbour was in an initial convoy into Gulfport, with transportation workers and National Guard members cutting trees ahead of her. That night, she went out on a looting patrol with Gulfport police.

"I take my hat off to her," says Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran. "She's not sitting around sipping tea and serving tomato aspic."

But the effectiveness of the response to Katrina appears to diminish the higher you move up the chain of command. By Sept. 7, Lott concluded that FEMA and its Mississippi arm were overwhelmed and understaffed, and he went straight to circumvention mode. "We're just going around them," Lott says. "We talk to people on the ground, and they tell us what they need."

Lott has used his office to run his own supply line, funneling in aid donated by fellow senators. He worked with Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) to get two 18-wheelers full of baby supplies, disinfectant and basic medical goods from Ohio to the United Methodist Church center in Jackson.

According to FEMA, the agency is doing a good job in Mississippi under trying circumstances. Spokeswoman Mary Hudak, who is working in Jackson, said FEMA had supplied 99 million bags of ice, 37.5 million liters of water and 7.8 million meals to the state as of Saturday. The Red Cross and Salvation Army have served an additional 3.8 million meals. FEMA has also provided 12 search-and-rescue teams and 15 medical strike teams, and 21 Disaster Medical Assistance teams have treated 16,331 patients. There are five FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers, and 318,000 households have registered, while approved aid payments total $250 million.

"I think we're working well with the state of Mississippi," Hudak says. "Quite frankly, there have been challenges. The scope, the damage to infrastructure, the debris, the lack of fuel. Just because we're the federal and state government doesn't mean the debris and fuel problems don't challenge us, as well as individuals."

But officials say that although FEMA is well-intentioned and helpful, it has also been plagued by disorganization and agonizing slowness. At times, it has even been a hindrance. A local FEMA liaison has answered the Ocean Springs mayor's questions by telling her to call an 800 number.

On one occasion, Warr, the Gulfport mayor, arranged for trucks of ice and water to be sent to local shelters, where evacuees had gone 36 hours with nothing to drink. He discovered that FEMA had ordered the trucks held at a distribution point at the Stennis Space Center in Hancock County. "The trucks were sitting for a day and half out there, idling, waiting to be told to come on in to town," he says.

Gulfport is badly in need of generators to keep its pumping stations working; sewage was beginning to come out of manhole covers, and Warr feared an outbreak of disease. He put in an order for 157 generators with FEMA and did the paperwork. Then he got a call from Washington. The voice on the other end of the line told him that the generators couldn't be sent without a specific address.

"Send them to City Hall," Warr said he replied. "I've got 157 places they need to go."