Stephen F. Austin State University

GULFPORT -- City leaders here are packing up and headed to Galveston, Texas, armed with three years' worth of hurricane-recovery experience.

Mayor Brent Warr said a convoy from Gulfport will leave today to help guide the storm-battered island through the early days of recovery.

"There are a lot of things we would've done differently in those early days after Katrina," Warr said. "And we're basically just going there to help answer questions and help them push through the (red tape)."

Photos of muddy living rooms and debris-choked streets in Galveston are not unlike the scenes of destruction that stretched across South Mississippi in 2005.

Officials in Galveston reached out to Gulfport leaders for assistance. Gulfport's Fire Chief Pat Sullivan, a search-and-rescue veteran, and City Engineer Kris Reimann made the trek to Texas on Tuesday. Warr, Gulfport Finance Director Mike Necaise and possibly Police Chief Alan Weatherford will head to the Texas coast today.

Warr said after Katrina slammed into the Coast, officials in Escambia County, Fla., seasoned veterans of hurricane recovery, sent a bus full of Florida leaders to work with their counterparts in Gulfport.

"That's very similar to what we're doing now for Galveston," he said. "As of Monday at 10 a.m., (Galveston) didn't have ice, water or food, and there's no way that we could just sit here and say 'we wish you well' without doing something to help."

Warr, who went to school at Stephen F. Austin University, a few hours north of the island, said he spoke with Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas by phone once before and again after Hurricane Ike struck the Texas coast.

"We can give them the benefit of what we learned after Katrina," he said. "(Thomas) said they had some pre-service agreements in place before the storm, but I explained to them that now that the disaster is so big those arrangements may have changed."

For example, Warr said, if Galveston had a financial agreement with a debris-removal company or a construction firm before the storm, the prices may have changed because the job opportunities are so vast.

"Let's say they were expected to come in after the storm and get to work, but since the disaster area is so widespread, they could go wherever they want," he said. "You might be trying to pay him one thing and Clear Lake is offering something better. Where do you think he's going to go?"