Ingalls awards $68M contract to rebuild Mississippi shipyard

A construction company says it has won a $68 million contract to help rebuild part of a Pascagoula shipyard that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Associated Press reports.

Los Angeles-based Tutor Perini Corp. says Huntington Ingalls Industries has awarded the contract to Roy Anderson Corp., a Gulfport-based subsidiary.

The company says work is supposed to begin in the next 30 days and be completed next fall.

Ingalls Shipbuilding will build covered areas on the east bank to construct parts of ships, and restore a pier to outfit ships, the Virginia-based company said in a press release.

The yard on the east bank of the Pascagoula River was swamped by Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge, leading to the relocation of all work to Ingalls’ larger yard on the river’s west bank.

According to Sun Herald archives, the company, then owned by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, sustained $850 million in losses in Pascagoula, Gulfport and New Orleans from the storm that struck Aug. 29, 2005.

A 10-foot storm surge washed through Ingalls, causing damage throughout the production yard. The computer center and human resources buildings were destroyed and 200 vehicles were lost in the storm, according to a story published in 2006.

This story was originally published August 31, 2018 at 1:35 PM.