Gulf casinos ride out hurricane

BILOXI, Miss. -- The locals call it the Mississippi Miracle.

But proud as they are of the glittering gambling casinos that over the past six years have turned this once-seedy Gulf Coast town into something akin to Atlantic City South, the people of Biloxi have always had in the back of their minds that, well, if the time ever comes when the chips are really down during hurricane season, Biloxi might need a more heavenly kind of miracle.

For unlike Atlantic City, N.J., and for sure unlike the desert city of Las Vegas, Biloxi is one gambling town that requires, by law, that casinos float.

This is not some kind of enticement concept, anything but. Rather, it is a legal conceit whose intent is to isolate gambling, confine it, so that the sensibilities of those who see wagering as sin or socially destructive are salved. That concession is no small consideration down here in the Bible Belt or in parts of the straight-laced Midwest, where casinos are often required to float on rivers.

If Las Vegas had a floating casino requirement, they'd put the paddle wheeler Delta Queen in the middle of a big pond out among the plastic magnolias and cactus and have some Rhett Butler character -- cigar, riverboat gambler's white hat and all -- greeting patrons at the gangplank. They may yet do that. But here in Biloxi, with a couple of exceptions, casino operators have met the boat requirement by building businesslike, windowless gaming rooms on huge barges, then permanently snugging up the barges so close to waterside hotels that they look like extensions of the hotels.

Many of the 6,000 gamblers who visit almost-tropical Biloxi each day never know they are afloat as they work the tables and slots of what is now the third busiest gambling town in the country, behind Las Vegas and Atlantic City. But they are afloat, hence the concern about the eventual Big Blow.

It came shortly before dawn on Monday when Hurricane Georges pounded ashore, fixing its eye on Biloxi and then battering its already deserted casino row with 100-mph-plus winds.

Trees and billboards went down. Shingles, siding, even entire houses went flying. A 10-foot tidal surge, combined with more than a foot of rain, left water, sand, sailboats, fish and not a few alligators and snakes in the streets.

But the barges -- the anchor, as it were, of a $2 billion investment in Biloxi by gambling operators -- rode it out with only minor damage. So, too, did the adjacent hotels, though several hundred of the 14,000 rooms suffered water damage when their windows were smashed.

"We always said we could build casinos that would ride one out and we did," Harry Joachim, the executive director of the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday, relief in his voice, as repair crews and cleanup teams labored to put everything back in order.

"I don't want to say we weren't lucky," he added, "because the whole Gulf Coast was pretty lucky this time around. But we came through as advertised."

Still, most casinos will probably be shut down for the better part of a week for repairs and refurbishing, which will cost them, together, better than $3 million a day in gambling revenue, and perhaps that much more again in lodging, restaurant and other revenues.

"They're going to come out of this OK but it's going to set them back a bit for a while in revenue and the number of patrons playing," said Jason Ader, a gambling analyst for Bear Stearns.

At least one casino, Treasure Bay, could be shut down for almost two weeks. Its barge, which actually looks like a pirate ship instead of part of a hotel, suffered some hull damage -- above the waterline -- when surging seas slammed it against some pilings.

"It was designed to pull itself away from the shore and ride out storms while moored fore and aft between two sets of big posts," Barbara Shattles, Treasure Bay's executive vice president, said. "But it cut loose a little bit too much and took some hard banging. Still, we consider the system a big success."

Most other Biloxi barges not only do not look like pirate ships or any other kind of vessel but also do not sit as exposed to open water as the Treasure Bay barge, which is docked on the beach front. Some are nestled in coves, while others lie behind breakwaters, protective measures that stood up well against Georges.

Just west of Biloxi, at Gulfport, the Copa, another casino that more resembles a boat than a barge, rode out Georges by taking on water as ballast. It, too, suffered only minimal damage, according to gaming officials.

"We feel pretty good about the way things turned out," Chuck Patton, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, said. "The fact is, for all the dire warnings, the casinos are designed to take a lot more than Georges offered. But let's hope that test never comes."

How much more?

"Upwards of 200 miles an hour," Ms. Shattles of Treasure Bay said. "But that's something you don't even want to think about, especially if you lived through Camille back in 1969. I did. When she came ashore here, she was blowing a 150 miles an hour and more and it was terrifying, just absolutely terrifying. We got flattened."

archive