A Mississippi city's tax break spurred post-Katrina building. But will homes stand the next storm?

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Rocking on his front porch overlooking the Mississippi Sound, former Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes questions how anyone wouldn’t want to live there.

“People are always going to gravitate to the water,” he said. “And we have a beautiful waterfront.”

But it was far from certain that people would return after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina , which killed 238 people in Mississippi and left only concrete slabs in many areas. With beachfront rebuilding crawling along a decade later, Gulfport began offering property tax breaks to those who built near the water. Hewes said the goal was for people to “build back better, quicker, help kick-start the economy.”

Where to encourage building is a thorny decision for local governments in areas exposed to floods or wildfires. Despite ris