The hills of the Kiln are filling up fast with new neighbors.

On two-lane highways where little but old rural homesteads once stood, Clark Breland now counts house after house with families that have recently moved to the higher ground north of Mississippi's coastline.

Some have planted palm trees just down the street from dense pines. And dusty bulldozers keep cutting more clearings where gleaming new homes will soon rise.

“Everything’s for sale,” Breland, who moved to the Kiln from Bay St. Louis a few years ago, said as he drove through the countryside’s bustling traffic. “Everybody just started buying the land up.”

He turned a curve and kept winding through one of the many Mississippi Coast communities north of Interstate 10 that are becoming a refuge for natives weary of waterfront

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