GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) – Bonnie McNamara laughs when she talks about the two guys who separately offered to pump gas for her during a recent visit to a self-serve station in this hurricane-ravaged city.

“We may be devastated, but we’re not desperate,” the 31-year-old said of the surplus of single men who have crammed into this city to help rebuild the Mississippi coast.

Gulfport and its neighboring towns – from Waveland in the west to Pascagoula in the east – were epicenters of destruction when Katrina came ashore Aug. 29. But more than two months later, with the reconstruction in full swing, Gulfport has the feel of a latter-day frontier boomtown.

Traffic clogs the streets around the clock. A visit to the Wal-Mart at the intersection of U.S. Highway 49 and Interstate 10 can feel like the final hours before a hurricane, with aisles jammed by shopping carts and 45-minute “express” checkout lines.

Fourteen daily flights land at Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, nearly always full. As people get off the plane, men outnumber women by at least three to one, and the logos on their shirts tell why they are here: Salvation Army Relief; Local 1137 of an electrical workers’ union; a mobile home transport company.

At night, restaurants like T.G.I. Friday’s, Hooters and Chili’s are packed, with hourlong waits for tables and a lively, manly bar scene.

Chance Wicker, 22, in Gulfport to help rebuild railroad lines between here and New Orleans, said the numbers favor the women these days. And after 12, 14 days on the road, all sorts of women look good, he said as he waited to get into Michael’s, a recently reopened nightclub.

Scott Counts, a 45-year-old roofer who came to the area six weeks ago from Florida, said there is too much competition.

“It seems like a lot of the chicks are covered,” he said. “I’m not the kind of guy who will stand in line with 10 other guys to talk to a woman. You’ve got a million guys coming here.”

Gulfport has a semi-intact infrastructure of motels, restaurants and retail stores – all clustered around I-10 – that are shakily supporting the migrants who have flocked here to help rebuild and make a buck.

About a quarter of the city’s 26,000 housing units were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by Katrina. The pre-storm population was 72,000, but officials have no idea how many people are living in the city now. Some residents left, while newcomers have crowded in searching for work.

Residents are doubled up with friends and relatives. A few have landed FEMA trailers. New arrivals scramble for hotel rooms and apartments, or settle for tents. That leads to tension, stress – and worse.

“People who work long, hard shifts, they get out, they want to let off a little steam,” said Gulfport Police Capt. Pat Pope, who heads the department’s narcotics division. “It’s the Wild West, Tombstone. … The streets are safe, things aren’t out of control, but we do have a drug problem.”

Money is fueling the activity. Insurance settlements and cash payments from FEMA and the Red Cross have many locals feeling flush. Workers labor from dawn to dusk six or seven days a week and have money burning in their pockets.

Businesses are eager to reopen and take advantage, but are struggling to find staff. Restaurant tables sit empty as long lines of people wait outside due to a lack of servers.

Desperate to keep his business open, a friend of McNamara’s talked her into working at his fast-food franchise on her days off from her regular job as a hair stylist.

It took manager John Dudney six weeks to hire the staff he needed at Michael’s nightclub. He was able to hire high-volume bartenders who lost work at the casinos, but had to raise wages from $6 to $8 an hour to attract security and other workers.

“If I’d put $8 out there before the storm, it would have taken two days to staff up,” he said. “Now, it’s taken two months.”

With its eclectic mix of country, rock and rap tunes, the club has been packed every night since it reopened. The local women who come to dance said there are no shortage of suitors.

“Sometimes it’s nice,” said Robyn Perkett, 21, “and sometimes you just want to come out and have a good time.”

Brooke Conover, 22, a waitress at Chili’s, said she’s been getting phone numbers written on credit card slips for weeks – but she’s not interested. “All these guys are either married or they’re lying.”

When McNamara, the hair stylist, and a friend spent a couple hours at the bar of the Gulfport T.G.I. Friday’s on a recent Friday evening, they met a young man from Texas in town to work for a railroad subcontractor repairing tracks, a female insurance adjuster in from New Orleans to cut checks for Katrina victims and a mortgage broker from Vancouver, Wash., who was buying investment properties.

Less likely to be hitting the town are the transient workers camped in tents on a city-owned golf course. The city council is debating what to do about them, but for the time being they’re being left alone.

On a recent morning, Edwin Ramirez, Victor Soto and Handerson James pulled up in a battered red Buick Century and pitched tents after driving overnight from the Orlando area.

“There’s work to be done, to help out,” said Soto, 27.

The three men work in a Florida junkyard. Asked what kind of work they would seek in Gulfport, Soto responded: “Anything that pays good.”

Law enforcement officials blame newcomers for a surge in drinking and drug offenses.

“We’ve arrested a lot of people who are not local people,” Gulfport Deputy Police Chief Paul Bennett said. “We’re getting a lot of reports of bar fights, or parking lot fights.”

Harrison County Sheriff George Payne said his department saw arrests for drug offenses and driving while intoxicated roughly double in October over their October 2004 levels.

And while each day brings recovery another day closer, everyone acknowledges it will be months – if not years – before Gulfport returns to its relatively placid pre-storm pace.