Page 110 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2026

Gulf Coast Working Men Are
Building What Comes Next
story by Cherie Ward
Before much of the Gulf Coast wakes up, somebody is already at work.
Headlights stream toward Pascagoula as another shift begins at the
shipyards. Fishing boats move through the Mississippi Sound. Work boots
hit the ground at construction sites. Linemen, mechanics and tradesmen
begin another day.
And what they accomplish can be seen far beyond the places where their
shifts begin.
At Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, generations of skilled workers
have spent nearly nine decades building and maintaining ships for
America’s military. Today, more than 11,000 employees make Ingalls
Mississippi’s largest manufacturing employer, where welders, shipfitters,
pipefitters, electricians, machinists and other skilled craftsmen continue
building surface combatants and amphibious ships for the U.S. Navy.
Those ships eventually leave Pascagoula to serve around the world.
The hands that built them belong to the Coast.
That reach extends into the skies above some of the world’s most
powerful storms.
Based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, the Air Force Reserve’s
53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron—the Hurricane Hunters—
is the Department of Defense’s only operational military weather
reconnaissance unit.
Its crews fly directly into severe tropical weather aboard specially
equipped aircraft, gathering information forecasters can’t get from
satellites alone. The data they collect can improve forecast accuracy by
up to 30 percent, helping communities make critical decisions as storms
approach.
From a runway in Biloxi, their work helps protect people thousands of
miles away.
In Gulfport, the Atlantic Fleet Seabees carry another Coast skill around
the world—knowing how to build.
110 | October 2026
Ingalls Shipbuilding
Keesler Air Force Base
Hurricane Hunters