Mississippi Today

Q&A: Feminist author Caroline Criado-Perez talks about the sometimes-deadly lack of data on the female body

Published

2 years ago

January 31, 2024

Note: This Q&A first published in Mississippi Today’s InformHer newsletter. Subscribe to our free women and girls newsletter to read stories like this monthly.

Caroline Criado-Perez, a feminist author and public speaker living in London, talked about her latest book, “Invisible Women,” last week at Lemuria Books in Jackson.

Her book, published in 2019, explores the gender data gap. From frustrating examples of a freezing office or a shelf out of reach, to deadly examples of an undiagnosed heart attack or crashing a car whose safety features don’t account for women’s measurements, Criado-Perez’s book is full of the real-world consequences of a world built without women in mind.

While the lack of research on the female body is an age-old problem, she argues, it becomes all the more pressing with the emergence of artificial intelligence and the increasing reliance on “Big Data.”

Criado-Perez is working on a new book about the reproductive journey of women, and how little science knows about it. She says she plans to use Mississippi as a case study. She sat down for an interview with Mississippi Today.

Editor’s note: This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Mississippi Today: Tell us about the arc of your career and how you got to the point where you were writing your book “Invisible Women.”

Caroline Criado-Perez: Yeah so that’s a question with a very long answer. Really the story of me writing this book is the story of me becoming a feminist. I didn’t grow up as a feminist. I would say I was sort of anti-feminist – I was really quite misogynistic. And I think that was a very normal thing for young women in the ‘90s. I didn’t really identify with women and I just thought, you know, we’re all equal now and everyone should just stop complaining.

And it wasn’t until I went to university – I went as a mature student, I was 25 I think – and it was the first time I had to read any feminist analysis. And I had to read this book called Feminism and Linguistic Theory, which introduced me to the idea of the “generic masculine,” so, using “he” gender-neutrally or “man” gender-neutrally. The author of this book pointed to research that showed that when people hear these words or read these words, they think of men. And that completely blew my mind because it made me realize that I was picturing a man and I was incredibly shocked that I never noticed that, as a woman, that I’m just picturing men all the time.

That really kick-started the whole process for me because having had that realization, I started noticing it in other areas, where we act like we’re speaking gender-neutrally and we’re actually talking about men. So, after my first degree I went and studied feminist and behavioral economics and that is where I sort of discovered the whole economy is built around this mythical man – even though we speak about it being objective like a science. And there were various other bits and pieces I was doing that made me notice it in other areas and then finally I came across it in health, and that was when I was writing my first book. And that was when I started reading some research, the very early stages of my understanding of how much health and our knowledge of the human body is actually knowledge of the male body. That we’re not as good at diagnosing heart attacks in women as in men, and women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed if they have a heart attack. And more than anything I just couldn’t believe that this wasn’t on the front page of every newspaper, why did people not know this, why was everyone not talking about this – women are more likely to die if you have a heart attack: what?! And this is because we haven’t researched female bodies?

So that is how it ended up being a book. Essentially because I had all these things going around in my head and I felt like I was going crazy, that everyone was just blithely acting like we were speaking gender-neutrally when I knew we were talking about men. And just the fact that it was a huge, systematic issue, I knew that it wasn’t going to be an article – it had to be a book. Because it was just in everything.

MT: I’m interested in this term you use near the beginning of your book, “absent presence.” What is the experience of being defined by an absence, a negative space, a silence?

CP: I mean, I suppose for someone who recognizes the negative space, it’s intensely frustrating to know that there are all these gaps and all these silences that, as a society, we just skip over and we don’t notice that they’re there.

This is why I start the book with the Simone de Beauvoir quotation about representation being the work of men, and how they describe the world from their own point of view – which they confuse with the absolute truth. I f—–g love that quote so much. Because I feel like it sums up my book in a quotation because it’s not about these men having deliberately described the world and excluded women from it. They think that’s really what it is like. They think they’re really talking about the real world and they don’t see these absent presences, this silent figure of the woman.

But as a woman, you’re constantly knocking up against it, against the ways in which the world has not been designed for you. And having done the research I’ve done, I now experience the world in quite a different way than I did before, and it’s not a more comfortable way – it’s a much more uncomfortable way, because I’m constantly frustrated.

And of course, when it comes to health care it’s something that one thinks about a lot – you know, has this drug been tested in my body, is this the correct dosage for me, do they know how this drug interacts, and what if I’m on contraception, have they actually done any research? And nine times out of 10, no, they haven’t. Or they don’t know how the menstrual cycle might interact with it.

So it’s intensely frustrating and sometimes frightening, I think, to then just experience the world in which, for the most part, we are still speaking gender-neutrally when we’re talking about men.

MT: You talk about how this is an age-old problem – we live in a world made by men with men in mind. Can you tell us why, in a world that increasingly relies on “Big Data,” it matters so much more? How it becomes deadly, even?

CP: Yeah, so I mean, the gap in data for women is already deadly, if you’re thinking anywhere from car design to health care, but the real danger is becoming exponential, because of the introduction of AI into every single part of our world. And the problem with developing AI using bad data, biased data, is that machine learning is not like a human, in that it doesn’t simply reflect our biases back at us – it amplifies them.

I’ve read so many papers since “Invisible Women” came out where researchers will be like, “we’ve developed this AI and it performs better than a radiologist at detecting lung cancer” or “can predict heart attacks five years before they happen,” and then when you look at the paper, not only are the datasets incredibly male-biased, so you’ve got that bias already baked in, but also, they’re not even thinking about sex.

One paper I’m thinking about that came out shortly after “Invisible Women” was published was about predicting heart attacks. And there are sex-specific risk factors. So, if you’re going to be predicting heart attacks in men versus women, you don’t want to have, as this paper did, something like a 70% male dataset, but you even more don’t want to have that data all mixed up together. Because that’s not going to work for men or women. And yet, there was absolutely no mention of sex in the paper. So, that is frightening. Because the problem with that is it could make the situation worse.

When I find AI exciting is when researchers are using AI to address problems that we aren’t addressing otherwise. So, for example, one woman I spoke to was developing AI to detect victims of domestic violence via injury patterns, potentially years in advance of them ultimately having to be taken to a shelter or something. Because of course victims don’t necessarily report, and it’s not something that we’re investing a lot of money in in health care – because there’s not a lot of money in it and doctors don’t necessarily have the time to do the sort of questioning of a victim, et cetera. So there is exciting potential for AI. But if we’re just using it to do what we’re already doing but faster, that’s where the massive pitfalls are.

MT: As a health reporter, I’m interested in the subject of endocrine-disrupting chemicals you bring up in your book. We know that these chemicals are in everything, but they’re especially pervasive in feminine products, such as toiletries and makeup – and even menstrual products that women put inside their bodies. And as you know, not only are they more common in female products – they’re also worse for women, because of how they mimic and disrupt women’s hormones. How do we begin to address the issue? How can data help?

CP: The first thing that needs to change is obviously labeling – that’s a huge one, that people have the right to know what is actually in these products. That is one of the things that makes me most frustrated. I mean, as you can imagine, since writing the book I am scanning product ingredients all the time. If there’s anything that says “fragrance” I’m like “nope, that’s out, not using that.” And it’s amazing how many products just have these random ingredients in them and they don’t have to disclose what they are. Nobody knows. Nobody knows that “fragrance” means they could put anything in there. That’s deeply frustrating.

But my answer is always going to come back to: we have to collect data on this. And that is the thing that we’re not doing. And that is just incredible to me. The problem we have is not only are there endocrine-disrupting chemicals in these products, but also, how are these affecting not only the women who use them but also the women who work with them and the women who produce them.

And, as I say in my work, it’s not just that we haven’t tested them on women – for example, absorption into female skin, which can be different, or the way that it might accumulate in a female body, because of differences in fat in the body – but also the way in which women encounter them. Because it tends not to be in discrete “now I’m going to be exposed to this chemical, and tomorrow to that chemical.” We’re exposed to a cocktail of chemicals, and that’s not how they’re tested. So the way they’re tested is in itself biased against the way women are exposed to them, as well as the fact that we aren’t even testing them on women anyways.

And I feel that this really ties into this attitude that somehow the female workplace is this cozy, safe place, that women are never exposed to any form of danger. Because historically, the sort of headline-grabbing dangerous jobs have been done by men. By the way, because they were high-paying and women were barred from doing them, but let’s not let that get that in the way of the story that “women are lazy and they don’t want to do scary, difficult jobs.” But the female-dominated jobs that are low-paid, we simply have not been measuring how dangerous they are – from the perspective of exposure to chemicals.

MT: So, it seems like the call to action of this book is to begin filling in some of these gaps in data. But if we think of the modern world as being made up of data, then the idea of collecting all this new data can feel almost like building a new world – and that might be intimidating to some. What would you say to people who feel overwhelmed by this imperative?

CP: Well, there’s no getting around the fact that it is a huge job, and it is intimidating. And if you tried to do it all, you would be overwhelmed. But nobody could possibly fix this on their own. It’s like saying “you – go fix patriarchy.” It’s not how it works. Everybody has their own area that they can address. And so, people who work in research can collect sex disaggregated data. That’s a really great thing that people who work in research can do. People who work in HR, there’s a lot that they can do when it comes to looking at how their companies consider diversity, for example, in decision making.

People who have children, there’s so much that they can do to address how the future generation even notices that the “default male” operates. Like, if you look at kids’ TV, kids’ books, it’s “default male” all over the place – all the characters are male and if there’s a female character, her characteristic is that she’s female. I’m not saying that you’re going to be able to protect kids from that, but have a conversation with them. And I wish that had happened to me when I was little, that someone had taken the time to point out “isn’t it weird that in the real world, there’s all these women, and in your stories, it’s all boys?” I think that that’s a really powerful thing and I actually think that that’s something that everyone can do is have these conversations and notice when the “default male” is in operation – because I think that that really is half the battle.

If you think about the car crash stuff, that we have historically used an average male car crash test dummy, as if that’s representative of humans overall – when you say it like that, it obviously sounds ridiculous. But we’re so used to using the male body as the human body that people don’t even notice that it’s happening. As soon as you tell people “by the way, cars have not been tested to be safe for an average female body,” they understandably get really freaked out and start demanding change from car manufacturers – which is something very cool that’s happening in America at the moment. So, a really big part of it is just spreading the word and making the changes you can make.

MT: So, we’re talking about the gap in data around the female body and how that plays out in the health care system. One of the things I’ve noticed is that when people bring up this gap and try to address it – and particularly when talking about the menstrual cycle and how it interacts with medicine or what have you – that people tend to think of it as “woo-woo” or “mystical.” I think the fact that talking about something as fundamental as the menstrual cycle is met with such disbelief sheds light on just how uncommon it is to talk about the female body. Has that been your experience? Why is that?

CP: Right. That’s just sexism. It’s like, “oh, that has to do with ladies.” So, you’re reminding me of this report that came out, and again it was after “Invisible Women” was published, and it was about women and asthma. And there were all these testimonials from women who said “I went to the doctor and told them I feel like I get asthma flare-ups in relation to my menstrual cycle, I can tell where in my menstrual cycle I am, based on my flare-ups.” And the doctors were like “that’s just nonsense, you’re making it up” – because women can’t possibly know what’s going on with our bodies. Anyways, it transpires that actually, yes it is. It is hormonally-linked.

So that is something that, hashtag-not-all-doctors, but that they will say because there is this idea that lingers on somehow, in these people who are trained in science, that women are somehow just hysterical and should be less believed than men. But, I mean, that’s just misogyny.

MT: So you’re writing a new book. Tell us about how it relates to health care and how you’re using Mississippi as a case study.

CP: Yeah, so the book is about a woman’s reproductive journey from the beginning of whether or not she’s going to have children and going through things like pregnancy and how little we know about, firstly, how to treat a pregnant woman for anything, because we don’t do any research on women, let alone pregnant women. And then, how little we know about reproduction, so things like miscarriage and the disorders of pregnancy we know very little about, and of course that ties into abortion.

So that’s the area I’m wanting to focus on while I’m in Mississippi – for the obvious reason of Dobbs, and also my husband is from Mississippi, and also I had a miscarriage in January last year when we were last here, which was briefly scary, particularly as a British person, being here and thinking “if this goes wrong, am I going to be able to get the care I need?”

So I’m just really interested in understanding what it is actually like for a woman whose pregnancy goes wrong in Mississippi right now. Because I know there are these exceptions, but also, they’re never used. So, the focus for that chapter is I want to look at what happens to women who need an abortion and legally, supposedly, can get one, but actually, can’t get one. And then the rest of the book is looking at fertility and infertility through to the menopause.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing

Published

2 days ago

September 8, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-09-08 11:30:00

by Sophie Bates, Associated Press, Alex Rozier, Illan Ireland, Mississippi Free Press, David A. Lieb, The Associated Press and M.K. Wildeman, The Associated Press, Mississippi Today
September 8, 2025

TYLERTOWN — As an ominous storm approached Buddy Anthony’s one-story brick home, he took shelter in his new Ford F-250 pickup parked under a nearby carport.

Seconds later, a tornado tore apart Anthony’s home and damaged the truck while lifting it partly in the air. Anthony emerged unhurt. But he had to replace his vehicle with a used truck that became his home while waiting for President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration so that federal money would be freed for individuals reeling from loss. That took weeks.

“You wake up in the truck and look out the windshield and see nothing. That’s hard. That’s hard to swallow,” Anthony said.

Thousands of trees toppled as the result of tornadoes that hit Tylertown in March of this year are being ground into mulch, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, as recovery efforts continue.

Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, during Trump’s current term, the AP found.

The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.

“The message that I get in the delay, particularly for the individual assistance, is that the federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”

The wait for disaster aid has grown as Trump remakes government

The Federal Emergency Management Agency often consults immediately with communities to coordinate their initial disaster response. But direct payments to individuals, nonprofits and local governments must wait for a major disaster declaration from the president, who first must receive a request from a state, territory or tribe. Major disaster declarations are intended only for the most damaging events that are beyond the resources of states and local governments.

Trump has approved more than two dozen major disaster declarations since taking office in January, with an average wait of almost 34 days after a request. That ranged from a one-day turnaround after July’s deadly flash flooding in Texas to a 67-day wait after a request for aid because of a Michigan ice storm. The average wait is up from a 24-day delay during his first term and is nearly four times as long as the average for former Republican President George H.W. Bush, whose term from 1989-1993 coincided with the implementation of a new federal law setting parameters for disaster determinations.

The delays have grown over time, regardless of the party in power. Former Democratic President Joe Biden, in his last year in office, averaged 26 days to declare major disasters — longer than any year under former Democratic President Barack Obama.

This Aug. 14, 2025, photo shows Buddy Anthony’s house after it was destroyed by a tornado in Tylertown, Miss..

FEMA did not respond to the AP’s questions about what factors are contributing to the trend.

Others familiar with FEMA noted that its process for assessing and documenting natural disasters has become more complex over time. Disasters have also become more frequent and intense because of climate change, which is mostly caused by the burning of fuels such as gas, coal and oil.

The wait for disaster declarations has spiked as Trump’s administration undertakes an ambitious makeover of the federal government that has shed thousands of workers and reexamined the role of FEMA. A recently published letter from current and former FEMA employees warned the cuts could become debilitating if faced with a large-enough disaster. The letter also lamented that the Trump administration has stopped maintaining or removed long-term planning tools focused on extreme weather and disasters.

Shortly after taking office, Trump floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA, asserting: “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”

FEMA’s acting chief suggested more recently that states should shoulder more responsibility for disaster recovery, though FEMA thus far has continued to cover three-fourths of the costs of public assistance to local governments, as required under federal law. FEMA pays the full cost of its individual assistance.

Former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who served during Trump’s first term, said the delay in issuing major disaster declarations likely is related to a renewed focus on making sure the federal government isn’t paying for things state and local governments could handle.

“I think they’re probably giving those requests more scrutiny,” Gaynor said. “And I think it’s probably the right thing to do, because I think the (disaster) declaration process has become the ‘easy button’ for states.”

The Associated Press on Monday received a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in response to a question about why it is taking longer to issue major natural disaster declarations:

“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him. Gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations – that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Under prior Administrations, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience. President Trump is committed to right-sizing the Federal government while empowering state and local governments by enabling them to better understand, plan for, and ultimately address the needs of their citizens. The Trump Administration has expeditiously provided assistance to disasters while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”

New piping and hook-ups are under construction at Paradise Ranch RV Resort where a few campers enjoy the park in Tylertown, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. The park is open again after a tornado struck the area in March.

In Mississippi, frustration festered during wait for aid

The tornado that struck Anthony’s home in rural Tylertown on March 15 packed winds up to 140 mph. It was part of a powerful system that wrecked homes, businesses and lives across multiple states.

Mississippi’s governor requested a federal disaster declaration on April 1. Trump granted that request 50 days later, on May 21, while approving aid for both individuals and public entities.

On that same day, Trump also approved eight other major disaster declarations for storms, floods or fires in seven other states. In most cases, more than a month had passed since the request and about two months since the date of those disasters.

If a presidential declaration and federal money had come sooner, Anthony said he wouldn’t have needed to spend weeks sleeping in a truck before he could afford to rent the trailer where he is now living. His house was uninsured, Anthony said, and FEMA eventually gave him $30,000.

In nearby Jayess in Lawrence County, Dana Grimes had insurance but not enough to cover the full value of her damaged home. After the eventual federal declaration, Grimes said FEMA provided about $750 for emergency expenses, but she is now waiting for the agency to determine whether she can receive more.

Tornado destroyed home on Hwy 98 north of downtown Tylertown, Monday, March 17, 2025.

“We couldn’t figure out why the president took so long to help people in this country,” Grimes said. “I just want to tie up strings and move on. But FEMA — I’m still fooling with FEMA.”

Jonathan Young said he gave up on applying for FEMA aid after the Tylertown tornado killed his 7-year-old son and destroyed their home. The process seemed too difficult, and federal officials wanted paperwork he didn’t have, Young said. He made ends meet by working for those cleaning up from the storm.

“It’s a therapy for me,” Young said, “to pick up the debris that took my son away from me.”

Historically, presidential disaster declarations containing individual assistance have been approved more quickly than those providing assistance only to public entities, according to the AP’s analysis. That remains the case under Trump, though declarations for both types are taking longer.

About half the major disaster declarations approved by Trump this year have included individual assistance.

Some people whose homes are damaged turn to shelters hosted by churches or local nonprofit organizations in the initial chaotic days after a disaster. Others stay with friends or family or go to a hotel, if they can afford it.

But some insist on staying in damaged homes, even if they are unsafe, said Chris Smith, who administered FEMA’s individual assistance division under three presidents from 2015-2022. If homes aren’t repaired properly, mold can grow, compounding the recovery challenges.

Tylertown Assistant Fire Chief Les Lampton, shows how he and other firefighters receive alerts via their smartphones, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, in Tylertown.

That’s why it’s critical for FEMA’s individual assistance to get approved quickly — ideally, within two weeks of a disaster, said Smith, who’s now a disaster consultant for governments and companies.

“You want to keep the people where they are living. You want to ensure those communities are going to continue to be viable and recover,” Smith said. “And the earlier that individual assistance can be delivered … the earlier recovery can start.”

In the periods waiting for declarations, the pressure falls on local officials and volunteers to care for victims and distribute supplies.

In Walthall County, where Tylertown is, insurance agent Les Lampton remembered watching the weather news as the first tornado missed his house by just an eighth of a mile. Lampton, who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, navigated the collapsed trees in his yard and jumped into action. About 45 minutes later, the second tornado hit just a mile away.

“It was just chaos from there on out,” Lampton said.

Walthall County, with a population of about 14,000, hasn’t had a working tornado siren in about 30 years, Lampton said. He added there isn’t a public safe room in the area, although a lot of residents have ones in their home.

Rural areas with limited resources are hit hard by delays in receiving funds through FEMA’s public assistance program, which, unlike individual assistance, only reimburses local entities after their bills are paid. Long waits can stoke uncertainty and lead cost-conscious local officials to pause or scale-back their recovery efforts.

Walthall County Emergency Management Director Royce McKee, at emergency management headquarters in Tylertown, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. McKee discusses recovery efforts in Tylertown and surrounding areas after tornadoes struck in March.

In Walthall County, officials initially spent about $700,000 cleaning up debris, then suspended the cleanup for more than a month because they couldn’t afford to spend more without assurance they would receive federal reimbursement, said county emergency manager Royce McKee. Meanwhile, rubble from splintered trees and shattered homes remained piled along the roadside, creating unsafe obstacles for motorists and habitat for snakes and rodents.

When it received the federal declaration, Walthall County took out a multimillion-dollar loan to pay contractors to resume the cleanup.

“We’re going to pay interest and pay that money back until FEMA pays us,” said Byran Martin, an elected county supervisor. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get some money by the first of the year, but people are telling us that it could be [longer].”

Lampton, who took after his father when he joined the volunteer firefighters 40 years ago, lauded the support of outside groups such as Cajun Navy, Eight Days of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse and others. That’s not to mention the neighbors who brought their own skid steers and power saws to help clear trees and other debris, he added.

“That’s the only thing that got us through this storm, neighbors helping neighbors,” Lampton said. “If we waited on the government, we were going to be in bad shape.”

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.

Update 98/25: This story has been updated to include a White House statement released after publication.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article presents a critical view of the Trump administration’s handling of disaster declarations, highlighting delays and their negative impacts on affected individuals and communities. It emphasizes concerns about government downsizing and reduced federal support, themes often associated with center-left perspectives that favor robust government intervention and social safety nets. However, it also includes statements from Trump administration officials defending their approach, providing some balance. Overall, the tone and framing lean slightly left of center without being overtly partisan.

Mississippi Today

Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina

Published

3 days ago

September 7, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-09-07 07:00:00

by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
September 7, 2025

The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast has come and gone, rightfully garnering considerable media attention.

But still undercovered in the 20th anniversary saga of the storm that made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and caused unprecedented destruction is the role that a worm farmer from northeast Mississippi played in helping to revitalize the Coast.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, who died in 2019, was a worm farmer from the Prentiss, not Alcorn County, side of Rienzi — about as far away from the Gulf Coast as one could be in Mississippi.

McCoy grew other crops, but a staple of his operations was worm farming.

Early after the storm, the House speaker made a point of touring the Coast and visiting as many of the House members who lived on the Coast as he could to check on them.

But it was his action in the forum he loved the most — the Mississippi House — that is credited with being key to the Coast’s recovery.

Gov. Haley Barbour had called a special session about a month after the storm to take up multiple issues related to Katrina and the Gulf Coast’s survival and revitalization. The issue that received the most attention was Barbour’s proposal to remove the requirement that the casinos on the Coast be floating in the Mississippi Sound.

Katrina wreaked havoc on the floating casinos, and many operators said they would not rebuild if their casinos had to be in the Gulf waters. That was a crucial issue since the casinos were a major economic engine on the Coast, employing an estimated 30,000 in direct and indirect jobs.

It is difficult to fathom now the controversy surrounding Barbour’s proposal to allow the casinos to locate on land next to the water. Mississippi’s casino industry that was birthed with the early 1990s legislation was still new and controversial.

Various religious groups and others had continued to fight and oppose the casino industry and had made opposition to the expansion of gambling a priority.

Opposition to casinos and expansion of casinos was believed to be especially strong in rural areas, like those found in McCoy’s beloved northeast Mississippi. It was many of those rural areas that were the homes to rural white Democrats — now all but extinct in the Legislature but at the time still a force in the House.

So, voting in favor of casino expansion had the potential of being costly for what was McCoy’s base of power: the rural white Democrats.

Couple that with the fact that the Democratic-controlled House had been at odds with the Republican Barbour on multiple issues ranging from education funding to health care since Barbour was inaugurated in January 2004.

Barbour set records for the number of special sessions called by the governor. Those special sessions often were called to try to force the Democratic-controlled House to pass legislation it killed during the regular session.

The September 2005 special session was Barbour’s fifth of the year. For context, current Gov. Tate Reeves has called four in his nearly six years as governor.

There was little reason to expect McCoy to do Barbour’s bidding and lead the effort in the Legislature to pass his most controversial proposal: expanding casino gambling.

But when Barbour ally Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who presided over the Senate, refused to take up the controversial bill, Barbour was forced to turn to McCoy.

The former governor wrote about the circumstances in an essay he penned on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Today Ideas.

“The Senate leadership, all Republicans, did not want to go first in passing the onshore casino law,” Barbour wrote. “So, I had to ask Speaker McCoy to allow it to come to the House floor and pass. He realized he should put the Coast and the state’s interests first. He did so, and the bill passed 61-53, with McCoy voting no.

“I will always admire Speaker McCoy, often my nemesis, for his integrity in putting the state first.”

Incidentally, former Rep. Bill Miles of Fulton, also in northeast Mississippi, was tasked by McCoy with counting, not whipping votes, to see if there was enough support in the House to pass the proposal. Not soon before the key vote, Miles said years later, he went to McCoy and told him there were more than enough votes to pass the legislation so he was voting no and broached the idea of the speaker also voting no.

It is likely that McCoy would have voted for the bill if his vote was needed.

Despite his no vote, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper ran a large photo of McCoy and hailed the Rienzi worm farmer as a hero for the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual and balanced account of the political dynamics surrounding Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts in Mississippi, focusing on bipartisan cooperation between Democratic and Republican leaders. It highlights the complexities of legislative decisions without overtly favoring one party or ideology, reflecting a neutral and informative tone typical of centrist reporting.

Mississippi Today

PSC moves toward placing Holly Springs utility into receivership

Published

5 days ago

September 5, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-09-05 12:45:00

by Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today
September 5, 2025

NEW ALBANY — After five hours in a courtroom where attendees struggled to find standing room, the Mississippi Public Service Commission voted to petition a judge to put the Holly Springs Utility Department into a receivership.

The PSC held the hearing Thursday about a half hour drive west from Holly Springs in New Albany, known as “The Fair and Friendly City.” Throughout the proceedings, members of the PSC, its consultants and Holly Springs officials emphasized there was no precedent for what was going on.

Concerned residents listen during a Public Service Commission hearing on whether Holly Springs should retain control of its utility department, in New Albany, Miss., on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

The city of Holly Springs has provided electricity through a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority since 1935. It serves about 12,000 customers, most of whom live outside the city limits. While current and past city officials say the utility’s issues are a result of financial negligence over many years, the service failures hit a boiling point during a 2023 ice storm where customers saw outages that lasted roughly two weeks as well as power surges that broke their appliances.

Those living in the service area say those issues still occur periodically, in addition to infrequent and inaccurate billing.

“I moved to Marshall County in 2020 as a place for retirement for my husband and I, and it’s been a nightmare for five years,” customer Monica Wright told the PSC at Thursday’s hearing. “We’ve replaced every electronic device we own, every appliance, our well pump and our septic pumps. It has financially broke us.

“We’re living on prayers and promises, and we need your help today.”

John Keith Perry, Holly Springs City attorney, speaks during a Public Service Commission hearing in New Albany, Miss., on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

Another customer, Roscoe Sitgger of Michigan City, said he recently received a series of monthly bills between $500 and $600.

Following a scathing July report by Silverpoint Consulting that found Holly Springs is “incapable” of running the utility, the three-member PSC voted unanimously on Thursday to determine the city isn’t providing “reasonably adequate service” to its customers. That language comes from a 2024 state bill that gave the commission authority to investigate the utility.

The bill gives a pathway for temporarily removing the utility’s control from the city, allowing the PSC to petition a chancery judge to place the department into the hands of a third party. The PSC voted unanimously to do just that.

Residents listen during a Public Service Commission hearing on whether Holly Springs should retain control of its utility department, in New Albany, Miss., on Thursday, September 4, 2025.

Thursday’s hearing gave the commission its first chance to direct official questions at Holly Springs representatives. Newly elected Mayor Charles Terry, utility General Manager Wayne Jones and City Attorney John Keith Perry fielded an array of criticism from the PSC. In his rebuttal, Perry suggested that any solution — whether a receivership or selling the utility — would take time to implement, and requested 24 months for the city to make incremental improvements. Audience members shouted, “No!” as Perry spoke.

“We are in a crisis now,” responded Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown. “To try to turn the corner in incremental steps is going to be almost impossible.”

Roscoe Stigger, a Marshall County resident, expresses how the Holly Springs Utility Department’s issues have personally affected him during a Mississippi Public Service Commission hearing in New Albany, Miss., on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

It’s unclear how much it would cost to fix the department’s long list of ailments. In 2023, TVPPA — a nonprofit that represents TVA’s local partners — estimated Holly Springs needs over $10 million just to restore its rights-of-way, and as much as $15 million to fix its substations. The department owes another $10 million in debt to TVA as well as its contractors, Brown said.

“The city is holding back the growth of the county,” said Republican Sen. Neil Whaley of Potts Camp, who passionately criticized the Holly Springs officials sitting a few feet away. “You’ve got to do better, you’ve got to realize you’re holding these people hostage, and it’s not right and it’s not fair… They are being represented by people who do not care about them as long as the bill is paid.”

In determining next steps, Silverpoint Principal Stephanie Vavro told the PSC it may be hard to find someone willing to serve as receiver for the utility department, make significant investments and then hand the keys back to the city. The 2024 bill, Vavro said, doesn’t limit options to a receivership, and alternatives could include condemning the utility or finding a nearby utility to buy the service area.

Monica Wright, a Marshall County resident, talks about her frustrating experiences with the Holly Springs Utility Department during a Mississippi Public Service Commission hearing in New Albany, Miss., on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

Answering questions from Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps, Vavro said it’s unclear how much the department is worth, adding an engineer’s study would be needed to come up with a number.

Terry, who reminded the PSC he’s only been Holly Springs’ mayor for just over 60 days, said there’s no way the city can afford the repair costs on its own. The city’s median income is about $47,000, roughly $8,000 less than the state’s as a whole.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post PSC moves toward placing Holly Springs utility into receivership appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a factual and balanced account of the situation involving the Holly Springs Utility Department and the Mississippi Public Service Commission. It includes perspectives from various stakeholders, such as city officials, residents, and state commissioners, without showing clear favoritism or ideological slant. The focus is on the practical challenges and financial issues faced by the utility, reflecting a neutral stance aimed at informing readers rather than advocating a particular political viewpoint.