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Major damage changes status of Beau Rivage

October 10

At first, online casinos news readers were hearing that the Beau Rivage looked in pretty good condition. As good as really possible after being slammed by a major hurricane. Now, it seems the casino is in worse condition than previously believed. The $800 million Mississippi Gulf Coast casino resort in Biloxi looked okay on the outside, but once officials got a good look inside, they realized that the storm surge left it severely damaged.

Currently, the resort's Las Vegas-based parent company, MGM Mirage Inc., calculates the Beau Rivage will be the single biggest loss of any of the more than a dozen casinos along the coast.

Casino officials are now guesstimating that repairs to the giant casino resort could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take well over a year to finish fixing. This means that the employees will be set-back even further.

Originally, the Beau Rivage was built to hold up against a category 5 hurricane. Even thought the outer walls of the casino resort stayed intact for the most part, the real devastation is clearly now inside the structure.

After examining the damage first hand, MGM Mirage officials saw storm surge damage reaching two complete stories of the casino resort.

Remaining fixtures such as the front desk are hard to recognize as they are piles of office wear rubble.

MGM Mirage had spent millions improving the Beau Rivage in recent months, adding a nightclub and new restaurants. Those investments were flushed out to sea. The new $4 million club is gone save the center bar and the coral glass above it.

Regrettably, the four 10,000-gallon aquariums that held sharks and other marine life were washed out to sea. It is not known what happened to all the animals inside the tanks. We are hoping that they are all at sea in new homes, but it is probably not the case.

Architects who inspected the Beau Rivage say it is structurally reliable because the design helped diminish and deflect the force of the winds. The barge on which the casino rested managed to remain in place thanks to the technology utilized to build it.