Diane Barhanovich sits in a swing in the backyard of her Biloxi home, destroyed along with most of the neighborhood by Hurricane Katrina. Photo by John Locher. Bobby Lee Blackmon prepares his line while fishing from Point Cadet in Biloxi. Blackmon lost his house, which was near the Boomtown Casino in Biloxi, when Hurricane Katrina hit the area Aug. 29. In the background is the Highway 90 bridge that connected Biloxi with Ocean Springs, Miss. Photo by John Locher.

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Review-Journal reporter Howard Stutz and photographer John Locher recently visited the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast region to examine the effect on the gaming industry. This is the fourth in a weeklong series of articles looking at how the industry and its employees are dealing with the disaster.

BILOXI, Miss.

Kenny Barhanovich is a historian on Point Cadet, a community of working-class families at the Biloxi peninsula's far eastern tip.

Barhanovich, a burly charter boat captain, remembers when Biloxi was a mix of shrimp-boat docks and seafood-processing plants that dominated the oceanfront along Highway 90, just a few blocks south of his home. His family has owned the small residential parcel since the early 1900s, and he and his wife, Diane, lived in the two-story cinder-block home for more than 40 years. They also owned the guest house next door.

The Barhanovich home backs up to the parking lot of St. Michael's Catholic Church, a distinctive Biloxi landmark with its circular white chapel.

When the gaming industry emerged in the 1990s, supplanting the seafood factories and shrimp boats, Barhanovich supported it.

"I liked the casinos. I think they did a lot for this community and they also got rid of the smell from the seafood plants," Barhanovich said as he stood on what had been the front yard of his home.

He sipped from a can of Bud Light and gazed sadly toward an endless sea of devastation. The small homes, businesses and community gathering places had been closely knit until Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore Aug. 29. Nearly all of the 1,000 homes on Point Cadet were either destroyed or heavily damaged.

"I cried for two weeks after the hurricane," Barhanovich said. "Who knows, maybe it will be up to the casinos to rebuild this community. I hope they do."

Katrina wiped out 13 floating casino barges and their adjoining hotels, from Biloxi to Bay St. Louis. Two casinos, Isle of Capri and Imperial Palace on Biloxi's Back Bay, plan to reopen next month.

Barhanovich said he is convinced Point Cadet, which is directly across from Isle of Capri, Casino Magic and the Grand Casino, will no longer be an area of small residences.

"The casinos will probably buy up all this land when they come on shore," Barhanovich said, referring to the new Mississippi law allowing gaming along the coast to move 800 feet from the water's edge.

"I picture this place as one large convention center; maybe even some retail," he said. "They might build some condos, but it's the casinos that will take over."

Many Biloxi residents think the casinos will need to spearhead the rebuilding so the tourists will return, much the way they ushered in growth in other businesses along Highway 90, including restaurants, small hotels and motels, and shops. The casinos also employed 17,000.

"The casinos were responsible for a lot of jobs, and not just their own," said Don Marie Jr., whose clients were the casinos in his job as a sales representative for the area's Budweiser distributorship.

The casino barges that were washed across Highway 90 have become oddities for the area residents.

Martha Wood and Cathy Powell were exploring the area behind the Tivoli Hotel where one of the two Grand Casino barges landed. Wood lost her home in Biloxi; Powell, who grew up in Biloxi, now lives in Gulfport.

Wood plans to rebuild because she said she can't imagine living anywhere but Biloxi. She said the casinos were entertaining. Her 82-year-old mother loved playing slots and eating in the buffets.

"I don't think the casinos will leave," Wood said. "This was too good of a place for them."

Powell blames the casinos for her son's gambling addiction, which caused the loss of his family, job and their relationship. She doesn't miss the casinos now, but admits they did provide some good to the community.

Biloxi casino executives, many who grew up in the area, believe the gaming industry can give the hurricane-ravaged community a much-needed economic boost.

Speaking not for their companies, but as long-time southern Mississippi residents, the gaming folks predict the industry will return stronger.

"It will take time, but there is a strong sense of community and resilience here," said Bruce Nourse, public affairs director for Beau Rivage, Mississippi's largest casino. It is owned by MGM Mirage and will be rebuilt throughout 2006.

"Gradually, it will come back," said Nourse, who lost a 108-year-old home to the hurricane.

Nourse, a Biloxi native, spent 16 years in Nevada working for the Gaming Control Board before returning as the first executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

Jim Hoskins, general manager for Harrah's two southern Mississippi casinos, grew up in Pascagoula. He said that the company has done much for its employees who lost jobs because of the hurricane; caring for others is the Mississippi lifestyle.

"We tried to salvage personal effects from the office on the (destroyed) barges," Hoskins said. "For some people, those were the only pictures they had left of the their families. Their homes and everything else was washed away."

Barhanovich's home remains standing -- sort of. It was knocked askew on its foundation and one wall collapsed. Hurricane relief workers have deemed the building unlivable.

The guest house was washed away, as was a home behind them, where a casino dealer who lived there tried to ride out the storm.

"He didn't make it," Barhanovich said quietly. "I think they found him somewhere up the road."

While Diane Barhanovich searched the home site for lost items, especially toys that belonged the couple's three young granddaughters, Kenny Barhanovich reflected on the area's past. He pointed a block to the east where a wrecked Slavic community center sat. In the 1950s, guests had been entertained in the building by a not-yet-superfamous Elvis Presley.

Barhanovich reminisced about Biloxi. He remembered how his sister, also a budding singer, performed at the restaurant next to the Biloxi Police Station and in the officer's club nearby Keesler Air Force Base.

Spend time with Barhanovich, and you begin to understand the idealistic sense of community that was and is Biloxi. Despite the disaster around him, Barhanovich hasn't lost his sense of humor.

When hurricane relief crews drove by offering water, sandwiches and other necessities, Barhanovich simply raised his beer and said, "We're good."

Diane Barhanovich spoke of raising the couple's three daughters in their now-ruined home and how the granddaughters each had a room. On a postcard that shows "Old Biloxi" before the casinos, the Barhanovich home is clearly visible behind the church.

Kenny Barhanovich said he paid $9,200 to build the home and buy the land from his family. He asked what land and homes are going for in Las Vegas.

When told Strip property is being valued at $20 million an acre, Barhanovich smiled and proclaimed he already had a price in his mind for his Point Cadet property.

"$1.2 million," he said with a grin. "That's where the negotiations start."

THURSDAY: Two Gulf Coast residents plan to remain.