Thanks Jarrod,

I've searched records in a couple of New Orleans parishes in the past. Interesting article.

Here's the content of an article about some of the problems faced by Hancock County, Mississippi. The eye of Katrina came ashore in Hancock County. I've been down there a few times since the storm and it is true that words and pictures can not come close to presenting an adequate view of the devastation.

Here's the article:
http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/2005/11/preserving_the_.html#posts

Posted: Tuesday, November 8 at 05:42 pm CT by Sean Federico-O'Murchu

Books containing housing deeds for Hancock County fill a trailer outside the county's courthouse after their contents were scanned. (John Brecher / MSNBC.com)

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- Operating in an anonymous trailer behind the County Courthouse off Main Street, a team of 14 workers has quietly saved Hancock County’s records from the next hurricane.

Over the past six weeks, two shifts of seven employees from the LMI company have salvaged, catalogued and scanned in the entire archive of titles, deeds, federal tax liens, transforming the musty and sometimes moldy paper into images that can be retrieved at the click of a mouse.

“We had to finish those before we could take off Saturday or Sunday,” said Bridgette Ladner, a member of the crew that has been splitting 17-hour days recovering records.

Now the staff is on a more normal schedule, scanning the Chancery Court records. So far they’ve reached back as far as 1994, and they will continue the tedious task for another three weeks.

LMI President Richard Greenlee says the first 32 years of documents were recorded by the Image Track 2 scanner within four days of beginning the project.

Without the data, nobody could buy or sell property or make insurance claims in Bay St. Louis, Waveland or elsewhere in the county.

Eventually, the company scanned titles and land records going back to the 1800s, documents that are more historical artifacts than essential for day-to-day business.

Most of the records survived the brunt of the hurricane, although some were damaged and had to be dried and sprayed for mold before they could be copied.

Yet, the destructive power of Katrina highlighted the vulnerability of such records and other counties have retained LMI for the same job.

“If you lose those, you are in the dark ages,” Greenlee said.


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