Mississippi Today

They own the house. Why won’t they cut the grass?

Published

2 months ago

July 31, 2025

mississippitoday.org – @mintamolly – 2025-07-31 15:36:00

by Molly Minta, Mississippi Today
July 31, 2025

Just four doors down from the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument in west Jackson, a tangled mass of bushes, trees and vines obscure a house with a caved-in roof at 2300 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive.

Inside the only room left standing, pieces of plaster and foam insulation cover the sunken floor. A radio, an ornate console table and floor-length drapes, still hanging behind steel-frame windows, are the sole indications that someone once cared for this place.

In August, the storied home will go up for auction for the 7th year in a row because of unpaid taxes – joining thousands of properties across Jackson stuck in a complicated loop and for which no one claims responsibility.

Nearly 30 years ago, the home’s original owner, a fashionable woman named Arthurine Wansley, impressed her neighbors with the upgrades she’d made to the ranch-style home, recalled Lee Davis, a retired hospital environmental service technician who lives next door. Ceiling fans, wood-paneled walls and a cheerful lime green facade.

“Anybody would want to have a house like that,” Davis, 69, said.

But ever since Wansley developed dementia and her relatives moved her to California in the early 2000s, Davis bore witness as the home fell into dereliction. Wansley, who is still listed as the property’s owner in county records, died nearly 20 years ago. When the waist-high grass started to encroach on his lawn, Davis called the city of Jackson for help.

Lee Davis poses for a portrait outside the blighted property next to his home on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

Then one day a few months ago, Davis noticed a for-sale sign outside the house. It was red, white and blue and said “Best Properties.” So Davis dialed the number on the sign to ask if they were going to cut the grass.

No, the woman who answered said – though the investment company she represented, also known as Viking Investments, is indeed selling the property for $2,500.

“They said they don’t do that, it’s the city’s responsibility,” Davis said.

2300 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive had been sold for unpaid taxes. But that doesn’t mean the government can force the investor to clean it up.

When a property owner doesn’t pay taxes, Mississippi counties hold an auction called a tax sale. The goal is to collect much-needed local revenue.

A home for sale sits in front of a blighted property on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

But in Jackson, where thousands of parcels go to auction each year, properties stuck in a tax sale loop year after year perpetuate blight. The bidders are often not prospective homeowners but investors who seek to profit from collecting interest on the unpaid taxes.

The scope of the problem is hard to quantify. To complicate matters, when investors come to own the properties they’ve bid on, there is no legal obligation for them to secure the property in their name. The outdated recordkeeping keeps the city of Jackson from knowing who owns these properties, impeding code enforcement efforts.

Investors also don’t have to pay the taxes, punting the property back to a tax sale.

“We’re a lien investment company. We’re not really wanting to acquire property,” said Nick Miller, the owner of Viking, which is based in downtown Jackson. “That’s a byproduct of investing in the tax liens.”

Viking has not paid taxes on 2300 since it acquired the property. So unless someone bids on it during this year’s tax sale in August, it will fall to the state.

The government, then, will be responsible for cleaning it up. To work on a property, the city must send notices to whoever is listed as the owner on the Hinds County landroll.

For two years after Jackson opened a code enforcement case on 2300, Jackson sent repeated notices to Wansley’s last known address in California — even though she was not living and lost the home at the 2021 tax sale.

“You just found the perfect storm,” said Bill Chaney, an assistant secretary of state who oversees tax-forfeited properties that do not sell at auction. “This is an indication of all the cracks in the system.”

Outdated records leave properties dangling

2300 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive went up for auction in the fall of 2019 after someone in Wansley’s family failed to pay the initial $1,764 tax bill, according to Hinds County records. Despite repeated attempts, Mississippi Today could not reach any of Wansley’s relatives in California.

Over the next several years, a series of investment companies – some local, some not – bid on the unpaid taxes: GSRAN-Z LLC, Quicksilver Tax Funding LLC, College Investment Co., and FIG 20 LLC. None of these companies responded to Mississippi Today’s inquiries.

In what’s called the “redemption period,” Wansley’s family had two years to pay the overdue taxes. When that didn’t happen, her property became leverage. The winning bidders gained an opportunity to take her home through a document called a tax deed, which according to state law is “a perfect title with the immediate right of possession to the land sold for taxes.”

But none of the companies filed the tax deed with the Hinds County Chancery Clerk, likely because they could not find anyone to buy it and they did not want to become responsible for the condition of Wansley’s home.

A screenshot from the Hinds County Landroll for 2300 Margaret Walker Alexander Dr.

The practice is common. There is no legal requirement to file the tax deed, nor is there a financial incentive. These companies often operate on slim margins, and the tax deed costs money. Plus, they may not want to end up like Wansley – listed as the owner of properties they aren’t responsible for.

“Are we going to be on that landroll record for the next 15 years until they update the record?” Miller said.

Chancery clerks need a deed to update a county’s landrolls, according to Lakeysia Liddell, the manager of Hinds County land division. So when companies don’t file a tax deed, the number of blighted properties in Jackson owned by tax investors remains unknown. People who lost their homes because of unpaid taxes continue to receive notices.

“They come in trying to pay those taxes thinking they can keep their property even though the redemption period has expired,” Liddell said.

Jackson’s code enforcement officers also rely on the landroll to send notices to property owners in violation. Robert Brunson, Jackson’s code enforcement manager, said that ideally, the city would take these companies to environmental court, where a judge can levy fines and even criminal penalties for dilapidated properties like 2300.

That accountability can’t happen if the city doesn’t know who the owner is. Brunson said Viking will come to environmental court if they have an interest in the property, because the city can use county records to find out if that is the case. But that doesn’t always happen: Viking is not listed as an one of the “interested parties” on the code violation notice for 2300.

“This is a business deal to them, to make money off the city of Jackson, off of Hinds County, really,” Brunson said. “We need more teeth, to be honest with you.”

To keep the chain of title clear, the companies will file the tax deed if they find a buyer for the property. But they may just let the property fall back to the tax sale to be dealt with by someone else.

Viking, which also hasn’t filed a tax deed for 2300, acquired the home in 2024 after the last bidder – the Jacksonville, Florida-based FIG 20 LLC – transferred its interest in the property to a Viking affiliate called SDG 20, according to a quitclaim deed filed in Hinds County.

Miller declined to say how much SDG paid FIG for the properties, but all told, he estimates he has sunk about $2,000 into the property on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive. If he sells it, he will make a couple hundred dollars.

The tax sale gamble

Miller, a Jackson resident, views his job as something of a public service, because his bids on Mississippians’ unpaid taxes help fund county services like libraries or police.

Spread across hundreds of parcels a year in Hinds County – thousands across the state – Miller can make a profit. His goal is not to get property, but to make money off the financial penalties owed by the original owner, including 1.5% monthly interest on the unpaid taxes.

When that doesn’t happen, and Miller becomes the owner, it’s as if he lost the bet. Acquiring blighted property is just a risk of the game; the gamble then becomes whether Viking can sell it.

Nick Miller, president of Viking Investments, sits in his office in downtown Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, July 31, 2025.

“You’re looking at just returning your investment with interest,” said Andy Hammond, a Young, Wells, Williams attorney who Miller occasionally consults. “You can’t expect to actually get property. That just ends up happening.”

The seemingly accidental way Miller comes to own property in Jackson is why he’s frustrated when Viking is blamed for the city’s blight, which existed before he bid on unpaid taxes.

“How are we the problem if we’re willing to take a risk and invest $2 million in Hinds County a year?” Miller said.

Of course, when Miller acquires a property, he does not usually pay the next year’s taxes, so any property purchase from Viking would also likely come with a hefty tax bill.

If the city wants to hold tax sale investors more accountable for the condition of the properties they own, Mississippi’s tax sale laws need to be changed, according to Miller, Hammond and Sam Martin, a lobbyist who is helping them form a tax lien investor association.

“That gets you to the pickle that all of this has created,” Hammond said. “You have a city that wants certain things done but a law that disincentivizes the tax sale purchaser from doing anything.”

Hammond and his associates said they don’t know yet what the solution is, but one possible idea is to make it easier for the investor to clear title to his or her tax-forfeited properties.

A deteriorating home on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

Original owners who’ve lost their homes through tax sales can often get their property back if they can hire an attorney and go to court, especially if they didn’t receive a warning they could lose their property.

The tax sale buyer will lose the money they’ve put into improving the property, Hammond said. That risk means Viking will not work on its properties without going through a court process called a title confirmation suit.

“Let’s say we go in there without confirming the title first and we fix it up and we clean it up,” Miller said. “What do you think is going to happen? That homeowner is going to have a renewed interest in that property.”

But some in government say these investors should be made to take more responsibility for their properties. Last year, the Legislature considered but did not pass a bill that would have required people who gain properties through the tax sale to file the tax deed within 90 days or else cede their interest to the state.

Chaney, from the Secretary of State’s office, said Viking’s defense that it hasn’t confirmed the titles to its properties is tantamount to “legalese for ‘I don’t want to clean it up.’ ‘We own it, but we don’t really own it.’ Well, trust me, they’ll sell it in a heartbeat.”

That’s if they can find a buyer. Most of the time, the properties that Miller’s companies come to own are as blighted as 2300 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive.

2300 over time:

2014

2019

2022

“This property right here is a prime example of what mostly matures to us,” Miller said. “People walk away from it because they don’t want to deal with it.”

Neither does Miller. But he said cleaning it up could be worth it to someone, if they can afford it.

“The neighbor could buy it for $2,500 if he wanted to tear it down and clean it up,” Miller said.

Blight on historic block

If someone wanted to buy 2300 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive, they might look through public records to determine who owns the home – a common process for people who dabble in tax-forfeited parcels called a “title search.”

That search would end at a piece of paper 435 pages into a thick, leather-bound book on the second floor of the Hinds County Chancery Clerk’s Office. This is the proof of ownership that Arthurine Wansley and her husband, Louis Wade Wansley, received when they bought the home in 1956, on a block known back then as Guynes Street.

With three bedrooms, a carport, and central air and heat, it’s likely the house was built just for them. The Lanier High School graduates had joined a special community, the first-of-its-kind in Mississippi: A subdivision built by Black entrepreneurs for Black middle class families.

At that time, the housing options for Black Jacksonians were subpar and relegated to undesirable parts of the city.

“That community, that stability, that landownership, that power would have been really important,” said Robby Luckett, director of Jackson State University’s Margaret Walker Center.

A teacher in Jackson Public Schools, Arthurine Wansley played bridge with Margaret Walker Alexander, the acclaimed writer after whom the street is now named. She helped run neighborhood Spade and Fork Garden club with Myrlie Evers, the wife of civil rights icon Medgar Evers.

Arthurine Wansley and her husband Louis Wade Wansley hold their grandnephew Michael Wade Wansley at their home on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive.

The families on the block were known for looking after each other’s kids and trading cucumbers and tomatoes they’d grown in their backyards. Wansley’s grandnephew, Michael Wade Wansley, grew up visiting 2300 for parties or holiday celebrations, when residents competed for the best Christmas decorations.

“We didn’t even think about it being a historic block when I was growing up,” he said. “We just knew that Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander lived on that block. George Harmon lived on that block. He owned Harmon’s Drug Store on Farish Street. So it was, I mean, everybody over there was either involved in politics or educated.”

But the tight-knit community ended on the corner of Ridgeway Street, where a working-class white neighborhood began, said Keena Graham, the superintendent of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.

“You’re having a great time on this street, but you don’t go over too much, too far afield,” Graham said. “Two streets over, that’s dangerous.”

Much of that history is recounted in a 2013 application to include the Medgar Evers Historic District — which encompasses Margaret Walker Alexander Drive — on the National Register of Historic Places.

As an original home to the block, 2300 is covered by that designation. But that didn’t stop the home from falling into the tax sale loop.

“I knew it all of my life as a middle-class-type neighborhood,” said Frank Figgers, a member of Shady Grove M.B. Church just around the corner from 2300. “When that’s where your teachers lived, where your pharmacist lived, I just don’t think I’ll ever see it as blight.”

In search of a responsible party

Some family members of the original residents of Margaret Walker Alexander Drive still live in their homes. But the block today is mostly retirees like Davis, renter, and empty houses, surrounded by overgrown land, that are falling apart.

In neighborhoods like this, nonprofits, such one run by Jackson-area state Rep. Ronnie Crudup Jr, have used the tax sale to buy homes and rehabilitate them.

“I always tell people it’s good to have a good attorney on hand to do those title searches for you,” Crudup said.

More often, though, the tax sale loop creates a cycle of frustration.

Lee Davis stands in his backyard on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. From his yard, the deteriorating condition of the neighboring blighted home is visible.

When private individuals can’t or won’t fix up a property, the government must step in. The state owns more than 1,800 tax-forfeited properties in Jackson, according to data from the secretary of state — plots that no one wanted to buy at the tax sale auction.

“We got it in even worse condition than it was when it was in a bad condition,” Chaney said.

Brunson feels similarly. He has a handful of code enforcement officers for the entire city, but some Jacksonians complain his team is nowhere to be found.

“They won’t cut the grass, but they’ll sell it,” Brunson said of tax sale investors. “There should be a law against that, taking these people’s money, saying, ‘Oh well, you didn’t do your title search, thank you for $3,000 down.’”

But if the city started fining tax sale investors for the blight, Miller said some of them may stop bidding.

“People are going to drop out of the system,” Miller said. “If nobody is there to bid on these liens, what’s going to happen to the $19 million deficiency every year – struck to the state?”

It doesn’t seem likely anyone from Wansley’s family will save the property. Michael Wade Wansley, the grandnephew, is retired and lives in Pennsylvania. He said he doesn’t think he has any relatives left in Jackson. He wondered why Davis and his neighbors let the home deteriorate.

“I would think if people were still living over there they wouldn’t have let it go down to that level of poverty,” he said.

Barbara Walker, a retired teacher who lives directly across from 2300, used to go half and half with another neighbor to pay someone to cut the grass.

“To me, it was worth the investment,” she said. “I didn’t want the place looking as bad as it’s looking.”

When her neighbor moved away, Walker couldn’t afford the landscaping on her own. That’s when Davis started calling the city, hoping they’d cut the grass.

Informed that Miller said he could buy the property, Davis seemed puzzled.

“Who, me?” he said.

Every now and then, Davis will ask his lawn guy to mow a patch of grass by Viking’s for-sale sign. But until the overgrowth is addressed, Davis won’t let his 6-year-old granddaughter play outside when she comes to visit. He’s killed too many snakes in his yard.

In November, the city council declared the home a public nuisance, the first step to tear it down. Jackson will have to hire a company to do the demolition, which requires attaching a lien, or a debt that must be repaid, on the property. Whoever buys it next will have to repay that lien.

On a recent Tuesday, Davis looked at the pink and yellow notices – orders condemning the home – that Brunson pinned inside the decaying carport. When he opened the carport closet, he realized the water heater had been stolen. The only items left were glass Coca-Cola bottles, silver tinsel and a Santa Hat.

Walker said she hopes 2300 can become a park once the house is demolished: “It’s already tearing itself down.”

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

The post They own the house. Why won’t they cut the grass? 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

The article presents a detailed examination of systemic issues related to tax-forfeited properties and blight in Jackson, Mississippi, with a focus on the human and community impact. The tone is sympathetic toward residents affected by neglect and highlights failures in local and state policies. While it reports on investors and government actions, the language and framing emphasize social justice concerns and the need for reform. This aligns with a center-left perspective that prioritizes community well-being, accountability, and government responsibility, without overt partisan rhetoric or ideological extremes.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi prepares for another execution

Published

4 days ago

September 12, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-09-12 13:06:00

by Mina Corpuz, Mississippi Today
September 12, 2025

The Mississippi Supreme Court has set the execution of a man who kidnapped and murdered a 20-year-old community college student in north Mississippi 30 years ago.

Charles Ray Crawford, 59, is set to be executed Oct. 15 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, after multiple requests by the attorney general’s office.

Eight justices joined the majority opinion to set the execution, concluding that Crawford has exhausted all state and federal legal remedies. Mississippi Supreme Court Justice T. Kenneth Griffis Jr. wrote the Friday opinion. Justice David Sullivan did not participate.

However, Kristy Noble with the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel released a statement saying it will file another appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

“”Mr. Crawford’s inexperienced trial counsel conceded his guilt to the jury — against Mr.
Crawford’s timely and repeated objections,” Noble said in the statement. “Mr. Crawford told his counsel to pursue a not guilty verdict. Counsel did just the opposite, which is precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court says counsel cannot do,” Noble said in the statement.

“A trial like Mr. Crawford’s – one where counsel concedes guilt over his client’s express wishes – is essentially no trial at all.”

Last fall, Crawford’s attorneys asked the court not to set an execution date because he hadn’t exhausted appeal efforts in federal court to challenge a rape conviction that is not tied to his death sentence. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Crawford’s case.

A similar delay occurred a decade ago, when the AG’s office asked the court to reset Crawford’s execution date, but that was denied because efforts to appeal his unrelated rape conviction were still pending.

After each unsuccessful filing, the attorney general’s office asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to set Crawford’s execution date.

On Friday, the court also denied Crawford’s third petition for post-conviction relief and a request for oral argument. It accepted the state’s motion to dismiss the petition. Seven justices concurred and Justice Leslie King concurred in result only. Again, Justice Sullivan did not participate.

Crawford was convicted and sentenced to death in Lafayette County for the 1993 rape and murder of North Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray.

Days before he was set to go to trial on separate aggravated assault and rape charges, he kidnapped Ray from her parents’ Tippah County home, leaving ransom notes. Crawford took Ray to an abandoned barn where he stabbed her, and his DNA was found on her, indicating he sexually assaulted her, according to court records.

Crawford told police he had blackouts and only remembered parts of the crime, but not killing Ray. Later he admitted “he must of killed her” and led police to Ray’s body, according to court records.

At his 1994 trial he presented an insanity defense, including that he suffered from psychogenic amnesia – periods of time lapse without memory. Medical experts who provided rebuttal testimony said Crawford didn’t have psychogenic amnesia and didn’t show evidence of bipolar illness.

The last person executed in Mississippi was Richard Jordan in June, previously the state’s oldest and longest serving person on death row.

There are 36 people on death row, according to records from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Update 9/15/25: This story has been updated to include a response from the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel

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

The post Mississippi prepares for another execution appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a factual and balanced account of the legal proceedings surrounding a scheduled execution in Mississippi. It includes perspectives from both the state’s attorney general’s office and the defense counsel, without using emotionally charged language or advocating for a particular political stance. The focus on legal details and court decisions reflects a neutral, informative approach typical of centrist reporting.

Mississippi Today

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

Published

1 week 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

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

1 week 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.