Officials analyze response

CMYK
FRIDAY
Hotty toddy!
-Page 7
SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
Vol. 97, No. 19
Officials analyze response Designated driver
program begins
Corey Martin
Senior Staff Reporter
Darrell Blakely The Daily Mississippian
Richard Copp (left), Richard Howorth (center) and Jeff Alford discuss Oxford’s reaction to the hurricane.
Marti Covington
City News Editor
With their feet firmly pointed
in the direction of a full recov-
ery and a return to stability in the
aftermath of Katrina, local and
university officials took a few
moments Thursday night to step
back, review and discuss Oxfordʼs
response to the disaster live on
Rebel Radio.
See RESPONSE
page 5
Drunken driving at Ole Miss
and around Oxford just got another opponent, and his name is
J.C. Fleming.
Fleming, a sophomore, spearheaded the Ole Miss establishment
of Creatively Helping to Educate
and Ensure a Responsible Society (CHEERS) to the Designated
Driver, a program which is set
to start tonight at 10 of Oxfordʼs
bars and restaurants.
The restaurants and bars are
Applebeeʼs, Chiliʼs Grill & Bar,
The Levee, The Library, Longshots, Night Town Billiards, Oasis Bar and Grill, Parrishʼs, Pearl
Street Pasta and The Rib Cage.
Under the program, any acknowledged designated driver of a
group of two or more people will
receive free non-alcoholic drinks
at any of the participating businesses.
Fleming said he was inspired
to start the program after seeing
his friends and many of his fellow
college students receive citations
for driving under the influence.
“It seemed like everywhere I
looked, they were getting DUIs,”
Fleming said.
He said he felt the university
needed an anti-drunk driving program that was more student-inspired.
Fleming also said he is a realistic person and that he knows
Ole Miss is similar to most universities, which have to confront
their studentsʼ drinking problems.
Though he takes credit for setting
the program in motion, Fleming
was quick to thank his fraternity
brothers of Alpha Tau Omega for
lightening his workload.
He said his fraternity brothers
were approaching him with ideas
and volunteering to help with
anything he needed.
“That really made me proud to
be an ATO,” Fleming said.
Fleming, a Minden, La., resident, said heʼd ideally like to see
no DUIs or drunken driving accidents in Oxford.
“There were problems in my
[home]town, but they were nothing like it is here,” he said, citing
the deaths of Amie Lynn Ewing
and Laura Treppendahl, two Ole
See CHEERS
page 4
Plans for new Square development making progress
Sally Summerson
Special to The DM
The Oxford and Ole Miss community
is getting a new place for shopping and entertainment in the form of a new Square,
which will be reminiscent of the current
community staple.
The new Square, to be called Oxford
Commons, will be located at the intersection of Highway 7 and Sisk Avenue. Workers are in the process of developing the
5,600 acres of mix-use land that stands at
that location.
Approximately 120 acres of the land is
planned for commercial and business use,
and 440 acres for residential use.
“The object of our concept is to create
an entertaining, distinctive environment
Hurricane
Katrina
Aftermath
Bulletins:
- FEMA is directing individuals still searching
for missing family members to the Find Family
National Call Center, an
official nationwide point
established for those still
searching for love ones.
Their number is 1-866326-4393.
Expert staff will be available 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
*Source: FEMA
which should increase frequency of visit
and duration of stay of the consumer, thus
increasing sales volumes for our retail partners, ” said Clay Short, vice president of
Commercial Sales and Leasing for TRI
Inc.
H. Lance Forsdick Jr., managing member for Kenland Developers, LLC, hopes
to make the location a “lifestyle center”
designed like the existing Square.
Short said there will be a balance between the retail power and lifestyle center
aspects of the Oxford Commons, with retail offerings covering a number of areas.
“It will be comprised of most, if not all,
of the following retail categories: consumer electronics; bed, bath and linens; books
and music; off-priced apparel; furniture and
possibly pets,” Short said. “Entertainment,
food and an urban marketplace, main street
setting assist in creating an atmosphere,
which should promote activity and project
style,” Short said.
Plans for the Oxford Commons resemble
the original Square, with three-story buildings. At the center of the Oxford Commons
will be a luxury hotel. Along the bottom of
the building there will be restaurants, bars
and stores. On the top of the building there
will be condos and apartments.
Plans also include an 11-screen movie
theater with an amphitheater and an elMatthew Sharpe The Daily Mississippian
ementary school for the Oxford School
The future location of the Oxford Commons is
District.
Every space in the new Square is not yet showing progress as construction crews are going
See PLANS
page 4
forth with the project.
Katrina makes top ten disaster list
Zachary Brown
dead, and a more accurate number wonʼt be clear
Staff Reporter
until the waters recede, which may take months.
The number of deaths helped to dispel the fears
The destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina
has earned the storm the distinction of being the of fatalities reaching 10,000 or more, according to
recent reports.
ʻ10th deadliest natural diTop 10 Deadlisest
Had casualties climbed
saster to strike America,”
Natural
Disasters
in
U.S.
that
high, the devastation
according to government
of
New
Orleans and the
officials.
1. Galveston Hurricane (1900)
surrounding Gulf Coast
Katrina earned her spot 2. Great Okcechokee Hurricane (1928)
would rival such disasters
on the list not only because
as the Johnstown Flood
of the shocking death and 3. Johnstown, Pa. Flood (1889)
of 1889 and the Galvesdestruction she brought 4. Louisiana Hurricane (1893)
ton Hurricane of 1900,
5.
South
Carolina/Georgia
Hurricane
(1893)
to Mississippi, Louisiana
catastrophes that shocked
and Alabama, but also be- 6. Great New England Hurricane (1938)
the country and captured
cause of the vast numbers 7. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
a place in history.
of people she displaced
8. San Francisco Earthquake (1906)
“Hurricanes like Kafrom those areas.
trina
hardly ever make
9.
South
Carolin/Georgia
Hurricane
(1881)
So far, recent reports
landfall with such intenindicate the official deaths 10. Tri-State Tornado (1925)
sity, and they rarely hit
across five states in Katrinaʼs path to total nearly
670 people, with several hundred more still missing.
See KATRINA
page 6
New Orleans accounted for nearly two-thirds of the
Hurricane Katrina by
the Numbers:
- $172,295,380.77 = the
amount of distaster assitance
obligated by FEMA
- 1191 = the number of truckloads of ice sent to Mississippi
residents in disaster areas.
- 963 = the number of
truckloads of water sent to
Mississippi residents in disaster
areas.
- 1,187 = the number of
homes destroyed.
- 24 = the number of businesses destroyed
- 3,739 = the number of Mississippi National Guard troops
deployed.
- 47,758 = the number of
meters still without power.
*Source: FEMA, MEMA
PAGE 4
FRIDAY • SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
FRIDAY • SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
PAGE 5
Cheers: Some worried sober driving options may promote drinking
Response: Officials attribute escape from damage to local crews
Miss students who were victims of
drunken driving accidents.
Fleming, a business management major, said he hopes
During the hour-long discussion, Lafayette County Administrator Richard Copp, Oxford
Mayor Richard Howorth and university Director of Public Relations and Marketing Jeffrey Alford
answered a variety of questions
centered around the single theme
of the communityʼs preparation
for and reaction to the storm.
“Oxford is probably like most
places, in that no one was really
prepared for Katrina,” Howorth
said at the beginning of the broadcast. “No one knew the magnitude
of it and how much destruction it
would create.”
Despite the element of surprise
and shock that came with Katrinaʼs treacherous winds and torrential rains, Howorth credited the
city, county, university and local
aid and non-profit agencies with
helping to ready members of the
community for the worst possible
outcomes quickly and to the best
of their abilities.
All three officials attributed
Oxford, Lafayette County and the
universityʼs escape from Katrina
with only minor damages to the
work of local crews from the public works, electric, police and fire
departments, as well as the universityʼs physical department.
“They [the crews] were all over
it when the storm came here,” Howorth said.
The hardest work for local utility workers and residents alike
came in the days following the
stormʼs arrival in Oxford. With
power restored and a sense of normalcy returning to life, the town,
county and university were deluged with those from communities
From
Page 1
CHEERS will teach students they
donʼt have to drink to have a good
time and lessen peer pressure.
Marc Showalter, director of
the Ole Miss Student Counseling
Center, echoed Flemingʼs thoughts
TONIGHT:
THE BEATLES
about having fun while sober.
“There are other things to do
to have fun with your friends,”
Showalter said.
Showalter said being a designated driver is a big responsibility
for anyone, and students should
think carefully before they accept
the role.
He added that the role means
the driver is responsible for his life
and his friendsʼ lives, but he said
the role should be equally distributed among a group of friends.
“Itʼs a way of showing you care
about your friends,” Showalter
said.
He also said the most important
thing is that the driver is someone
who wants to be the designated
driver and that he/she should be
someone responsible whom the
group trusts.
Dean of Students Sparky Reardon has also given his support to
CHEERS.
“I think anything promoting responsibility with alcohol is good,”
Reardon said. “This gives students
options [for safety].”
With options such as CHEERS
and Rebel Ride, there is a concern
that the programs may promote
more irresponsible drinking from
students. Reardon said he disagrees.
“Our [the Dean of Students Officeʼs] philosophy is that responsibility begins with the individual,”
he said.
According to the Missouri
State University Web site, http://
www.missouristate.edu/cheers,
CHEERS to the Designated Driver
is modeled after a 1986 MissouriColumbia project named CHEERS
and was founded in Springfield,
Mo. in the fall of 2002.
Anyone interested in the Ole
Miss chapter of CHEERS can email him at jcflemin@olemiss.
edu.
Corey Martin can be reached at
[email protected]
Plans: Shopping options in the works
T R I B U T E BA N D
8 - 9:30 pm
From
Page 1
filled. Kenland Developers and TRI
Inc. Realtors are still working with
letters of intent for the open spaces.
Names of the restaurants that
will be found in the Oxford Commons will be released in two weeks.
Wendyʼs is the only confirmed restaurant.
Plans for the Oxford Commons
2 for 1
wells
18 to enter 21 to drink
www.theleveebar.com
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also include a department store and a
movie theater.
“We have received a commitment
from a department store anchor of
65,000 to 85,000 square feet. The retailer has asked to remain undisclosed
while we work toward the execution
of the final documents,” Short said.
Colbert Jones, director of planning and developing for Oxford,
said Oxford is large enough to support both the Malco movie theater (to
be built on Jackson Avenue) and the
movie theater to be found in the Oxford Commons.
“Itʼs smart for the students and
citizens of Oxford,” Jones said.
Construction for the movie the-
ater began on Sept. 15. Plans for the
Oxford Commons show the movie
theater to be open in May 2006. By
that time, two to three restaurants will
also be ready.
Look for additional confirmations
from other restaurants and stores in a
few weeks.
The Oxford Commons has the potential to become a popular destination for residents and for visitors.
Forsdick described it as a medium-to-low price center for anybody
in town to spend time shopping, eating and being entertained.
Sally Summerson can be reached
at [email protected]
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From
Page 1
that werenʼt so fortunate.
To accommodate the needs of
growing numbers of evacuees, the
Oxford community sprang into action.
“Students, faculty and staff responded almost immediately and
continue to respond today,” Alford
said. “Within a week, students had
already collected $12,000 and sent
a truckload of bottled water down
to the coast.”
Howorth and Copp praised
similarly rapid and generous responses from citizens and agencies in their respective areas of the
community.
“This community has always
been a very charitable community,” Howorth said.
“People just keep giving, and
giving and giving,” Copp added.
The centerpiece of the communityʼs efforts to reach out to Katrina
refugees is the Katrina Resource
Center, which for the past 11 days
has provided families with legal
and job placement services, showers, beds, canteens, medical services and a friendly environment.
The center is the result of a joint
effort between city, county and
university officials, who formed
a committee to spearhead relief
programs. The United Way, Red
Cross, University Medical Services, Baptist health services and
others also provided the committee with input on how they could
best mobilize and serve evacuees.
Tuesday morning, the center
will move from the old Wal-Mart
in Oxford Mall to the Stone Center located on Washington Street.
Though the center will only stay
open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and
wonʼt be open this weekend, the
services offered to Katrina victims
will not be scaled down.
“Weʼve had 1,200 people sign
in [to the center] as families,”
Copp said. “We think weʼre averaging about 3.5 people per family, which puts us at about 4,000
individuals that have been served
there.”
Many more families and individuals, Howorth said, are in our
community but have not gone to
register at the center. The total
amount of evacuees in the community could be considerably higher.
Some Katrina refugees who
made it to Oxford plan to stay and
resettle in town. Families have taken an interest in placing their children in city and county schools.
Nearly 100 displaced students
had been admitted into Ole Miss
and have started taking classes.
As of Thursday, 90 new students
had enrolled in the Oxford School
District, while 50 had enrolled in
Lafayette County.
The increase in students puts
a strain on the resources of local
schools, Howorth and Copp said,
but the additional costs of serving
a large number of new students is
not one the state will reimburse.
The inevitable financial crunch
the state will face while rebuilding the coast will have a dramatic
effect on its budget, all three officials speculated.
Alford said that reports from
the Institute of Higher Learning
estimated that it would take $600
million to repair Mississippiʼs universities.
“It will be a long, slow recovery for the state,” he said.
Howorth agreed that the financial consequences of Katrinaʼs
destruction will pose serious problems to the state.
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Marti Covington can be reached
at [email protected]
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to prepare themselves for another
Katrina.
“Weʼve got to get word out
to the public. Weʼve got to make
them aware,” he said.
Howorth also cited the emergency response team as an important part of the lessons learned.
“We learned how to put together a community team,” he said. “In
spite of all the tragedy, this was a
healthy exercise.”
Alford agreed with Howorthʼs
positivity.
“Disasters like this bring out
the best in people and the worst in
people. This disaster has brought
out the best in our community,” he
said.
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“Weʼre going to take, I believe,
an extraordinary hit,” Howorth
said. “This city could be very
much affected by things that happen.”
The negative aspects of Katrina, like loss of homes, property
and finances have made officials
on all levels of the community
take note of what they can learn
from the disaster.
Copp pointed to the existence
of the emergency response committee as one lesson learned. He
also mentioned going through
drills and simulations with the
Mississippi Emergency Management Administration as an important part of the legacy and stressed
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PAGE 6
FRIDAY • SEPTEMBER 16, 2005
Katrina: Only nine other catastrophes compare to Hurricane Katrina
From
Page 1
such a populated area like New
Orleans. The consequences of such
a storm are deadly,” said Maribeth
Stolzenberg, assistant professor
of physics and astronomy at Ole
Miss.
Most Americans remember
Hurricane Andrew, which ravaged
southern Florida in 1992 before
crossing the Gulf of Mexico and
surprising the Louisiana coast.
Andrew, until now the hurricane
that spawned the most expensive
recovery, killed 26 people, most in
southern Florida. Scientists have
admitted in recent reports that Andrew barely registers among the
top ten natural disasters.
Hurricane Katrina, on the other
hand, has caused more deaths than
the previous 10th deadliest disaster, the Labor Day Hurricane of
1935. Very similar to Katrina, this
Category 5 storm blindsided the
Florida Keys, killing an estimated
405 people.
Only nine other catastrophes
compare to the devastation caused
by Hurricane Katrina. The Great
New England Hurricane of 1938
killed nearly 720 people. The San
Francisco Earthquake of 1906 leveled much of the town, killing an
estimated 700 people. Missouri, Illinois and Indiana lost an estimated 695 lives during the Tri-State
Tornado of 1925.
While these disasters rank
among the worst in our nationʼs
history, only the deadliest five disasters on the list have killed 1,000
or more people.
The formidable five disasters,
like Hurricane Katrina, were defin-
ing moments in American history.
Texans will remember the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which
drowned nearly 8,000 people, for
centuries. Florida was devastated
in 1928 by the Great Okeechobee
Hurricane, which left more than
2,500 dead. The Johnstown Flood
of 1889 ravaged the Pennsylvanian town, washing away more
than 2,200 people.
While some disasters are worse
than others, the science behind
their destruction is strikingly similar in many cases.
“Many factors, like ocean surface temperature, background
winds and other weather systems
along the path all play a role in
the development and intensifica-
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tion of hurricanes,” Stolzenberg
said. “When all the factors come
together, the resulting storm can
be long-lasting and extremely destructive.”
The unexpected power of Katrina has left many pointing fingers of blame, trying to pin the farreaching devastation of the storm
on a single agency or individual,
but Stolzenberg said she -hopes
that people take lessons from the
situation.
“I hope that after this event,
more people, including officials at
every level, will heed the warnings
of the Hurricane Center and get
out when they can,” she said.
Zachery Brown can be reached at
[email protected]
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