PEARL, Miss. (NNPA) - Although the death toll remains at six, new reports show that the number of destroyed and damaged homes continue to rise due to the devastating May 1 storm systems that caused major flooding and produced two tornadoes in North Mississippi. Nearly 250 residences were destroyed or have major damage and 482 homes received minor damage. Mississippi Emergency Management Agency personnel and the Mobile Operations Command Center have been in the affected counties since the storm hit.

MEMA also distributed tarps and water to assist victims.

The following counties are reporting damages to the State Emergency Operations Center in Pearl:

• Alcorn: One death; 10 homes and seven mobiles homes destroyed; 107 homes and 40 apartments with major damage; 13 homes with minor; 100 roads with major damage; 11 bridges with minor damage; one publicly owned building with major damage; three nonprofit utilities with major damage; assistance needed with shelter support.

• Benton: Two deaths; four injuries; 11 homes and 13 mobile homes destroyed; seven homes and three mobile homes with major damage; 56 homes and 23 mobile homes with minor damage; 10 injuries; 20 roads with major damage; 40 roads with minor damage; one bridge with major damage; 75 people displaced.

• Lafayette: One death; two homes/ mobile homes destroyed; two homes with major damage and 40 homes with minor damage; shelters are closed, but monitoring needs of victims; clean-up efforts continue.

• Lee: One death; one home with minor damage; trees downs; one bridge with major damage

• Marshall: Twenty one homes/ mobile homes with minor damage; 8 roads with major damage; 17 roads with minor damage.

• Montgomery: Two homes and six roads with minor damage.

• Prentiss: Ten roads and two bridges with major damage; 100 roads minor damage; city of Booneville issues proclamation.

• Tippah: Six homes/mobile homes destroyed; 29 homes/mobile homes with major damage; 58 homes/mobile homes with minor damage; Nine roads destroyed; eight roads with major damaged; two roads with minor damage; two bridges destroyed; one public building with major damage; one nonprofit building with major damage; city of Ripley issues proclamation.

• Tishomingo: Nine homes with major damage; one mobile home with major damage; one business with minor damage which is a church that has two buildings; nine roads destroyed; six roads with major damage; 16 roads with minor damage; five bridges/culvert destroyed; three bridges/culverts with major damage.

• Union: One death; 14 homes and 6 mobile homes with minor damage; 15 businesses with minor damage; 28 roads with major damage; one bridge with major damage; one public owned building with minor damage.

• Webster: One injury reported; one home with minor damage; two roads destroyed; three roads with major damage; 70 roads with minor damage.

To report damages contact your local emergency management office. Homeowners with flooding should contact their local floodplain administrator.

For more information, contact the State Emergency Joint Information Center at 866-920-MEMA (6362), or visit us online at www.msema.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook using the keyword MSEMA.

PEARL, Miss. (NNPA) - Although the death toll remains at six, new reports show that the number of destroyed and damaged homes continue to rise due to the devastating May 1 storm systems that caused major flooding and produced two tornadoes in North Mississippi. Nearly 250 residences were destroyed or have major damage and 482 homes received minor damage. Mississippi Emergency Management Agency personnel and the Mobile Operations Command Center have been in the affected counties since the storm hit.

MEMA also distributed tarps and water to assist victims.

The following counties are reporting damages to the State Emergency Operations Center in Pearl:

• Alcorn: One death; 10 homes and seven mobiles homes destroyed; 107 homes and 40 apartments with major damage; 13 homes with minor; 100 roads with major damage; 11 bridges with minor damage; one publicly owned building with major damage; three nonprofit utilities with major damage; assistance needed with shelter support.

• Benton: Two deaths; four injuries; 11 homes and 13 mobile homes destroyed; seven homes and three mobile homes with major damage; 56 homes and 23 mobile homes with minor damage; 10 injuries; 20 roads with major damage; 40 roads with minor damage; one bridge with major damage; 75 people displaced.

• Lafayette: One death; two homes/ mobile homes destroyed; two homes with major damage and 40 homes with minor damage; shelters are closed, but monitoring needs of victims; clean-up efforts continue.

• Lee: One death; one home with minor damage; trees downs; one bridge with major damage

• Marshall: Twenty one homes/ mobile homes with minor damage; 8 roads with major damage; 17 roads with minor damage.

• Montgomery: Two homes and six roads with minor damage.

• Prentiss: Ten roads and two bridges with major damage; 100 roads minor damage; city of Booneville issues proclamation.

• Tippah: Six homes/mobile homes destroyed; 29 homes/mobile homes with major damage; 58 homes/mobile homes with minor damage; Nine roads destroyed; eight roads with major damaged; two roads with minor damage; two bridges destroyed; one public building with major damage; one nonprofit building with major damage; city of Ripley issues proclamation.

• Tishomingo: Nine homes with major damage; one mobile home with major damage; one business with minor damage which is a church that has two buildings; nine roads destroyed; six roads with major damage; 16 roads with minor damage; five bridges/culvert destroyed; three bridges/culverts with major damage.

• Union: One death; 14 homes and 6 mobile homes with minor damage; 15 businesses with minor damage; 28 roads with major damage; one bridge with major damage; one public owned building with minor damage.

• Webster: One injury reported; one home with minor damage; two roads destroyed; three roads with major damage; 70 roads with minor damage.

To report damages contact your local emergency management office. Homeowners with flooding should contact their local floodplain administrator.

For more information, contact the State Emergency Joint Information Center at 866-920-MEMA (6362), or visit us online at www.msema.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook using the keyword MSEMA.

Special to the NNPA from the Mississippi Link

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - FEMA's botched response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 reduced the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to a different four-letter word in the eyes of many, especially African-American New Orleans residents, who were disparately victimized and displaced by the storm and the floods that killed more than 1,800 people.

In an effort to reduce future disastrous responses from FEMA in heavily Black populated Gary Flowers, chief executive officer of the Black Leadership Forum, hosted the organization’s first annual FEMA Black Leadership Summit at a Washington, D.C. hotel last week. The conference allowed FEMA executives to engage and form critical relationships with Black local government officials and representatives from key Black non-governmental organizations across the nation.

"Hurricane Katrina in 2005 led us in the Black community to understand one basic fact - The federal government, by way of FEMA, did not know us. And we, by way of the Black Leadership Forum, did not know them,"

Flowers said, "We were not convinced in the months that followed that FEMA knew the links of the Black organizations or knew the Black mayors and local elected officials."

Like FEMA, the Black Leadership Forum is wide and expansive. Made up of 51 national Black organizations, which has almost 7,000 chapters and affiliates between them and a combined membership base of almost 12 million people, the Black Leadership Forum is the largest organization of its kind. When the Obama administration came in, he promised to close the gaps through FEMA's currently appointed administrator Craig Fugate, Flowers said.

"I want to be in the initial meetings," Flowers said. "I want to receive one of the first calls or emails so I can more quickly distribute the information to our nearly 7000 chapters and affiliates across the country who are all on the ground."

Flowers hopes to take away a new construct between the federal government and states so that the resource deployment is more equitable to communities of color. As of now, the constitutional construct limits

FEMA's authority to only respond at the behest of a state's governor but that doesn't mean that FEMA isn't allowed to work with and build better relationships with community partners.

"We would like stronger communication channels between the federal government and the Black Leadership Forum," Flowers said. "Also, we would like to serve as third party responders on the ground so grants and contracts can go to Black organizations to train their people on the ground."

Building strong community partnerships are critical for FEMA's mission, said Tim Manning, deputy administrator of FEMA's Protection and National Preparedness Bureau.

"Historically, FEMA would respond to disasters and would work with anybody that we would come across as far as elected leadership at the gubernatorial and mayoral levels," Manning said. "In working with the Black Leadership Forum we have an opportunity to strengthen relationships across the country and across service and leadership organizations and all levels of government. We can actually plan for our communities and work with them and not just with those that we traditionally work with."

He added, "The best thing that we can take away from this forum is how we can do our jobs better."

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, flying in from a severely-flooded Nashville, served as the summit's keynote speaker. His remarks surrounded how his background as a paramedic, fire fighter, a director of Florida's disaster response agency in a hurricane heavy state helped him "get it", as one attendee described him.

"[One] thing we cannot do is continue this process where we say that it's going to be government-centric, that the government has the answers," Fugate said in a down-to-earth key note address that seemed to connect with the conference attendees very well. "The government doesn't have all of the answers."

He said that his agency needs "more voices" and "more connections."

"The message that came from Administrator Fugate was especially powerful for me," said Laura Hall, a state representative for Huntsville, Ala. She said that Fugate didn't speak what she calls "bureaucrat language" and that he has a good understanding of how things should go.

"I think that they are actually trying to reach out is the most important thing," said State Representative Charmaine Marchand Stiaes, who represents New Orleans 9th ward, the heavily African-American district of the city that sustained the most damage.

"Those coming into the community to assist us didn't look like the community," Marchand Stiaes said. "It made you feel like there was a disconnect of community efforts or getting that message that those that are trying to help you look just like you."

Stiaes said that she found out that during disaster response, recovery and rebuilding periods like the one that's been gripping her city for the past five years, she will be able to better navigate the emergency process.

"I found out about how things trickle down,” Stiaes said. "At first, we were told that the monies were not going down to our mayor only because we heard that they didn't trust our mayor [Ray Nagin]. On May 3, Mitch Landrieu succeeded Ray Nagin as mayor of New Orleans.

Stiaes resolves, “So hopefully that we have a new mayor, the dollars will flow down to New Orleans with regard to recovery efforts and getting our buildings and roads back online."

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – In what could be considered as the most powerful public appeal to President Obama thus far on behalf of racial justice, 28 Black women sent the President a letter early this week, expressing concern that he might appoint Solicitor General Alena Kagan as the successor for retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U. S. Supreme Court and reasserted a request that he consider a Black woman instead.

But, the May 9 letter was too late. Less than 20 minutes after receiving the document, emailed to the NNPA News Service around 10:37 p.m. from Melanie Campbell, CEO and convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable (BWR), a breaking news email from the Washington Post came headlined, “Obama to pick Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court”. By morning, the news was out and widely reported.

Still the letter was strong and clear, sending an “end-of-honeymoon” type message that President Obama must begin to listen to those he credits for having put him in office with hopes for Black progress.

“As we have throughout history, African American women played a significant role in the 2008 election because we were especially aware of the impact this presidency would have for generations to come,” states the letter, dated May 9. “Our trepidation regarding General Kagan is premised on the lack of a clearly identifiable record on the protection of our nation’s civil rights laws. As women leaders, we greatly respect General Kagan’s intellectual capabilities and highly accomplished record in the Administration and academia. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of a specific emphasis on the civil rights laws utilized in the protection of racial and ethnic minorities and those traditionally disenfranchised in this nation.”

The letter also asserted, “Especially disconcerting is the perceived lack of real consideration of any of the extremely qualified African American women as potential nominees. While we were very pleased to witness the placement of the Honorable Leah Ward Sears and Judge Ann Claire Williams on the reported lists of potential nominees, there did not appear to be any serious consideration of their candidacy, once again.”

The women’s names, listed on the bottom of the letter, represent a broad section of leadership in the Black community. The letter described them as members of the “Black Women’s Roundtable of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP) and African American female faith leaders and legal scholars”.

The letter not only appeals to the President’s espoused sensitivity to the plight of African-Americans, but reminds him of the staunch position of the late Dr. Dorothy Height who he eulogized only two weeks ago: “Mr. President, the nominations and appointments you make today will be far-reaching, particularly for the Supreme Court. As we continue to promote the legacy of our late founding leader and Co-Convener, Dr. Dorothy I. Height, we will always seek to highlight the concerns of Black women, our families and our communities. Thus, as Dr. Height stated in our previous meeting with your Administration, we believe it is time for African American women to be represented in all sectors of government – including the Supreme Court of the United States, which in its 221 year history has not had a Black woman nominated to serve on our highest court in the land.”

Supreme Court appointments are rare given that justices serve for a lifetime. Still Obama has nominated Kagan, a former dean of Harvard Law School rather than seize the opportunity to not only make history, but to further diversify the court with different perspectives. The BWR also cited “Justice Stevens’ leadership in protecting and defending civil rights on the Supreme Court” as a compelling need to appoint someone with similar views.

Political scientist and Black political strategist Dr. Ron Walters says the Supreme Court appointment is yet another revealing moment for the administration of America’s first Black president as close to 100 percent of African-American voters supported him.

“It is another one of those pin pricks where African-Americans are not happy with the president’s decision. These things were inevitable, but they continue to happen. And this was just another one,” Walters says.

Walters sought to explain Obama’s decision as disseminating from the “elite crowd of Harvard law school that’s the other world that he’s been traveling in since he was a very young person.”

He warns, “Don’t underestimate the strength of that culture because it is certainly there. And he is a part of that culture. As a matter of fact, I would dare say that he is more a part of that culture than he is of the civil rights culture.”

Another disappointing issue has been the President’s handling of Black economic justice as he has maintained a “rising tide lifts all boats” philosophy even as Black unemployment remains stagnant or continues to rise month after month.

A push for greater diversity on the court had been a major topic of discussion over the past weeks since Stevens announced his intent to retire late this spring. In a recent column, NNPA Columnist George Curry quotes Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer and former civil rights litigator, as predicting that Obama’s next appointee would be more conservative than Stevens.

The column quotes Greenwald: “‘(1) Kagan, from her time at Harvard, is renowned for accommodating and incorporating conservative views, the kind of ‘post-ideological’ attribute Obama finds so attractive; (2) for both political and substantive reasons, the Obama White House tends to avoid (with few exceptions) any appointees to vital posts who are viewed as ‘liberal’ or friendly to the Left; the temptation to avoid that kind of nominee heading into the 2010 midterm elections will be substantial… and (3) Kagan has already proven herself to be a steadfast Obama loyalist with her work as his Solicitor General, and the desire to have on the Court someone who has demonstrated fealty to Obama’s broad claims of executive authority is likely to be great.’”

Curry adds, “The most disturbing aspect of a possible Kagan appointment is her admiration of the Federalist Society, a network of conservative and libertarian students, law professors, attorneys and judges whose goal is to advance the conservative agenda by pushing America’s legal system to the right.”

According to the letter, “The Black Women’s Roundtable network comprises an intergenerational membership of Black women civic leaders of international, national, regional and state-based organizations and institutions that works collectively to advance policies and strategic initiatives that help to improve the lives of underserved women and girls. Our BWR members work in a wide range of social justice, civic, corporate, labor, academic, women and youth organizations.”

The following women were listed as co-signers of the BWR letter:

Melanie L. Campbell, CEO and convener, Black Women’s Roundtable, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; Barbara Arnwine, national convener Black Women for Justice; Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams Skinner, president, Skinner Leadership Institute; co-facilitator, National African American Clergy Network; Dr. Barbara Shaw, interim chair of the board, National Council of Negro Women; Dr. Elsie Scott, president, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation; Lezli Baskerville, president, The National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher education (NAFEO); Clayola Brown, president, A. Philip Randolph Institute; Vanessa Williams, executive Director, National Conference of Black Mayors; Ms. Felicia Davis, president, Just Environment; Makani Themba-Nixon, executive director, The Praxis Project; Rev. Dr. Judith C. Moore, executive director, Sisters Saving Ourselves Now; Lisa Fager Bediako, president, Industry Ears; Constance Berry Newman, member, Black Women’s Roundtable; Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, executive director, Center for Community and Economic Justice, Inc.; Rev. Marcia Dyson, member, Black Women’s Roundtable; Eleanor Hinton Hoytt; president & CEO, Black Women’s Health Imperative; Kathi Wilkes, president, Wilkes & Associates; Letetia Daniels Jackson, president and CEO, Tandeka, LLC; Sandra Fowler, founder and president, Brewton Enterprises; Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever, director of Research, Policy, and Programs, National Council of Negro Women; Reverend Cheryl J. Sanders, senior pastor, Third Street Church of God and professor of christian ethics, Howard University; Barbara Perkins, executive life coach, Image Builders Etcetera; Claire Nelson, president & CEO, Institute of Caribbean Studies; Lakimba DeSadier, member, Black Women’s Roundtable; Gaea L. Honeycutt, president, G.L. Honeycutt, LLC; Carlottia Scott, board member, NCBCP; Rev. Gloria Miller, associate minister, First Baptist Church Glenarden; Joycelyn Tate, telecommunications policy advisor Black Women’s Roundtable.