Wind and water completely dislodged this child care center in Biloxi, Miss., (right) from its foundation (center). (Denise Cox) Click on photo for larger view.

Up to 94% of Child Care Slots Are at Risk in Coastal Counties

OCT. 6, 2005 | From 62% to 94% of licensed child care slots in three hurricane-hit coastal counties are lost or potentially lost because of damage to child care centers, according to research by Mississippi State University (MSU).

The worst losses are in Harrison County, where only three of 115 centers were found to have little or no damage. A survey found that 46 centers in the county were too damaged by Hurricane Katrina to reopen and 58 centers had more than minor damage.

Post-Katrina damage assessments for child care centers, as for other facilities, are subject to constant change as more proprietors are located and contacted. MSU was unable to contact eight child care centers in Harrison County. In the hard-hit area of Bay St. Louis in Hancock County, half of the county’s centers could not be located or contacted despite repeated efforts.

Counting closed, destroyed, damaged, and “could not be contacted” centers, as well as the number of slots in those centers, MSU calculated the proportion of “at-risk” slots in Jackson, Harrison, and Hancock Counties:

Jackson County, Miss. (Chad Landgraf) Click on graphic for larger view.

Hancock County, Miss. (Chad Landgraf) Click on graphic for larger view.

Harrison County, Miss. (Chad Landgraf) Click on graphic for larger view.

In the weeks following the Aug. 29 hurricane, the MSU Early Childhood Institute (ECI) dispatched on-the-ground survey teams to Jackson, Harrison, and Hancock Counties to attempt to telephone or visit all state-licensed child care centers. MSU focused this preliminary survey on the providers’ needs for repairs, but found that few providers were able to predict the costs to repair their centers.

Rural Early Childhood, a national research program in the ECI, used the survey results to create maps of the three counties and calculate losses and potential losses in numbers of state-licensed slots. The program also has posted frequent updates on the status of early care and education services in the region of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on its web site (www.ruralec.msstate.edu).

“The early care and education infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region will need substantial assistance to rebuild. We hope these maps will help pinpoint the areas of greatest need,” Cathy Grace, Ed.D., professor and director of ECI and Rural Early Childhood, said.

The county maps are part of a series of hurricane damage maps in the Rural Early Childhood Atlas, an online, interactive mapping tool created by Rural Early Childhood and the Community Information Resources Center at the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI).
 

 

 

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Updated 12/01/2006