Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties
Ten coastal towns, three counties, and three different permit regimes. Knowing which applies before a roof is quoted is half the job.
We cover the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Waveland in the west to Gautier in the east. That is a deliberate boundary rather than a limitation: the towns along this stretch have genuinely different permit rules, different storm histories and different housing ages, and working a coast properly means knowing which is which before a quote is written.
Harrison County
Gulfport is home. A city of 76,506 with a median build year of 1986, 9,571 houses damaged or destroyed by Katrina, a port, the Seabee base, and thirty-three square miles annexed to the north in 1993. Gulfport requires a permit on every reroof, with a one-square maintenance exemption, and a nailing inspection whenever decking is replaced. Biloxi next door is our second-largest patch — a peninsula with water on both sides, Keesler Air Force Base, eight casinos, and no published reroof rule, so we ring the Building Division. Long Beach and Pass Christian run west along the beach, both rebuilt after Katrina took nearly everything near the shore — Pass Christian recorded the 27.8-foot high-water mark that still stands as a United States record. D'Iberville sits across the Back Bay to the north, incorporated only in 1988 and built mostly since.
Hancock County
Bay St. Louis is the county seat, where Zeta gusted to 103 mph in 2020 and the US 90 bay bridge had to be rebuilt after Katrina. Waveland has been levelled twice in living memory, by Camille in 1969 and by a 26-foot surge in 2005 that destroyed almost everything south of the CSX line. Diamondhead is a wooded 1970s resort community that only became a city in February 2012, with the highest owner-occupancy on our list at 89.7 per cent.
Jackson County
Ocean Springs has the oldest housing we work on — a 1979 median — and the newest code, working to the 2024 IRC and IBC at 160 mph, with permits required on all reroofing. Gautier is the eastern edge of our regular coverage, on the Singing River beside the Sandhill Crane refuge, where tree cover and humidity shape roofs more than salt spray does.
Also covered
Pascagoula, Saucier and Lyman are all within reach and we take calls there regularly; they simply do not have pages of their own yet. If you are on this coast and unsure whether you are in range, ring and ask. The answer is usually yes, and when it is not you will be told rather than booked and let down.
Three permit regimes, one coast
This is the practical reason local knowledge matters here. Gulfport permits every reroof and inspects decking nailing. Ocean Springs does the same under a newer code. Biloxi publishes nothing and has to be asked. A contractor working all three without knowing the difference will either over-promise or leave you with an unpermitted roof, and the second one surfaces when you sell. The permit guide sets out what applies where.