https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Gulf_Coast
Waveland is between Louisiana and Bay St. Louis. It was obliterated. As was Pearlington, a little further north on the Pearl River. Long Beach is between Pass Christian and Gulfport-knocked out. The mayor of Biloxi famously said "This was our Tsunami" Biloxi there are famous pictures of the casinos sitting on top of Antebellum mansions. The "Point" in Biloxi was always a fisherman's village until recently. It was a very poor area that was inundated with water from the Biloxi Bay and the Gulf. BIL is a firefighter in Biloxi. They had to go house by house in destroyed neighborhoods and look for bodies and survivors. Will never forget the big "X"s spray painted on the damaged/destroyed houses in every town across the coast to indicate that emergency personnel had been by looking for survivors and deceased. Each quadrant of the "X" meant something and in one of those quadrants was the number of bodies they found.
So yea, every town across the Mississippi Coast including Biloxi and even Ocean Springs and Pascagoula/Moss Point and communities into Alabama were very much affected by Katrina. It's hurricane wind field was massive and 2.5 hours away in Pensacola, there were hurricane force winds-my kids played in the yard at my brother's until it was too dangerous due to the winds. We can not forget all of the towns in Louisiana that were hit by the hurricane, either. New Orleans problems were man made due to the failure of the levies. All other towns took the brunt of the storm.
The reporting and forecasting for Katrina was pitiful. Our local main meteorologist was away for the weekend for his wife's birthday. There were no "hurricane is coming alarms" on WLOX until Sunday.
I distinctly remember getting my info on the storm from the stations out of New Orleans on Saturday because before storms, I like to get a variety of information from many sources to make my family's decisions. Most people were enjoying a late, hot August weekend. The weather immediately before and after hurricane landfall is often beautiful. So people were out doing weekend things.
Bob Breck on WVUE in New Orleans started with concern late on Saturday afternoon. That's when we started boarding our house, washing clothes and dishes, etc. to prepare for a possible direct hit. Went to bed Saturday night thinking we were staying home. Got up Sunday morning and our local guys were now with it and alerting people that the storm had built into 155 mph winds and was increasing in strength over the wam Gulf and heading our way.
By the time we left Sunday late morning, a normal 2.5 hour drive to Pensacola took us 5 hours. My brother left later as his wife worked at a grocery store and could not leave until they closed had an 8 hour drive for a normal 2.5 hour trip.
Again, so much to personally consider when deciding to evacuate or not that I get why some people stay.