Mobile Mardi Gras to benefit from Katrina

updated 11:28 a.m. ET Jan. 24, 2007

MOBILE, Ala. - Mobile's Mardi Gras parades couldn't be staged without float builders like Stephen Mussell, who has built a career on the carnival's demand for rolling showpieces of splashy colors and lights.

His year-round work was seen by an apparent record number of Mobile Mardi Gras revelers last year, an uptick attributed partly to Hurricane Katrina. The port city, with more than 30 parades over the weeks culminating on Fat Tuesday, may benefit again this year as coastal Mississippi's festivities in Biloxi will remain cut back to one parade due to Katrina damage.

New Orleans, which has long enjoyed the nation's largest carnival, is also trying to revive its celebration and expects a parade schedule comparable to pre-Katrina levels.

Whatever the numbers, Mussell's 10-member team is turning the floats - most averaging 35 feet in length - into pastel perches for the Mardi Gras organizations, known as krewes, whose members ride them and throw heaps of trinkets, candy, beads, Moon Pies and stuffed animals to thousands lining the streets for two weeks of parading.

Major parades begin Feb. 2 and run through Mardi Gras Day, Feb. 20, giving businesses an economic bonanza. Many reap an entire year's profit during carnival - if the weather is good.

Mobile has about a half-dozen float builders and designers like Mussell whose teams twist chicken wire into dragons, tigers, goofy characters and scenery. Each float has a light-hearted theme.

"To do five parades takes all year," Mussell said, wearing a paint-splattered sweatshirt while putting the decorative touches on 11 floats parked in a huge warehouse near Mobile's waterfront.

Mussell, who has been building floats for 29 years, buys gallons of latex house paint, then tints it to "kick it up" before it's sprayed on. The electrical lighting comes last and is needed because some parades roll at night.

His 22-year-old son, Nathan Mussell, is part of the team. With a history degree from Auburn University, the younger Mussell leaves in June for the Peace Corps. But when he's home, he's float-building, a family obsession.

"I was born on Mardi Gras Day in 1984," he said.

High school French teacher Will Edmond has worked part-time with Mussell on the floats during holidays and school breaks for the last eight years.

"It's unique, that's for sure," said Edmond, 33, who says his family has attended Mardi Gras events for 30 years - standing at the same spot to view parades.

Another Mussell worker, 17-year-old Greg Thornton, said he works on the Mardi Gras floats "so I can be around it all year long."

After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Mobile advertised its "family-oriented" carnival in markets within a 150-to-200-mile radius, including Jackson, Miss., Hattiesburg, Miss., Baton Rouge, La., Birmingham and Montgomery, to counter reports about damages. Mobile was largely unscathed by Katrina.

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