Floating Casinos Down on Their Luck - Monday 12th of September 2005
The glitzy, three-story floating casinos that define this adult waterfront playland were picked up and hurled as much as a mile onto streets and sidewalks when Hurricane Katrina came blasting through over a week ago. Some were split in half, their slot machines spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico as if Mother Nature had hit the jackpot.
The casinos that were responsible for the coastlines economic rebirth in the early 1990s have mostly been reduced to a tangle of broken rods and twisted metal beams, leaving 14,000 employees without jobs and the waterfront a colossal mess.
Diane Stump was a security coordinator on the Casino Magic, a gambling establishment that washed ashore during Hurricane Katrina. (By Michel Ducille -- The Washington Post)
Most owners have said they are determined to rebuild the casinos, which look more like land-based buildings than barges. But the damage is so extensive and the shock of the events so stinging and fresh, rebuilding efforts are far from underway.
Tuesday, casino officials were escorting insurance agents through the wreckage, showing them the havoc Katrina wreaked.
"They are looking for whats salvageable," said Robert F. Kelly Jr., vice president of development and construction for Harrahs Entertainment, which owns Harrahs New Orleans, the Grand Casino Biloxi and the Grand Casino Gulfport. "They are not going to find much of that here."
Kelly leaned against his truck and looked at the 680-foot-long, 180-foot-wide floating casino barge he built 12 years ago, now marooned on a patch of grass a quarter-mile from its anchor. Inside, there are 2,500 slot machines.
The winds and the storm surge tore the barge off its mooring, which is 60 feet wide and 120 feet deep, and is filled with rebar and concrete.
"This is just unbelievable to me," Kelly said, surveying the exposed cables and metal beams. "I built this."
He said the barge would have to be cut into pieces, separated by parts, and recycled or put underground somewhere.
All 13 of the regions casinos in Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis are closed, costing Mississippi $500,000 in gambling taxes every day, officials told the Associated Press. The states offshore gambling industry provides $2.8 billion a year in revenue and $333 million in tax revenue, according to the American Gaming Association.
By Mississippi law, casinos must float and can be only along the Gulf Coast or the Mississippi River. In the past week, there has been talk of amending that law to allow land-based gambling.
In addition to bringing huge revenue, the barges have enticed game dealers, bartenders, entertainers, managers and other casino employees to move to the area for jobs. Each casino also has a land-based hotel with thousands of additional workers.
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