Too many hurricanes threaten La. bayou way of life
JEAN LAFITTE, La. (AP) — Three monster hurricanes in three years have walloped this Cajun town, which like many others in south Louisiana, barely rises above the waterline of the bayous and fragile wetlands leading to the Gulf. First there was Katrina, then Rita and now Ike.
And that’s not counting Gustav, the Labor Day spoiler that came close but didn’t quite flood this fishing town just south of New Orleans.
“It’s been a nightmare,” said Annette Claverie, standing inside a flooded food store called Herb’s, not far from what little dry ground was left in the days after Ike pummeled the Texas-Louisana coast.
Most of Louisiana’s 250-mile coast was flooded by Ike, and at least 700 people had been rescued since Saturday. Tens of thousands of homes remain without power, taking a toll on some residents who stayed behind after the storm struck last weekend.
Many here, amid marshes 25 miles south of New Orleans, are still recoiling from the hurricanes that came before.
For the past century, south Louisiana has lost staggering amounts of wetlands — about 2,000 square miles. Hurricanes accelerate the loss of wetlands, marsh land and barrier islands, which has made the fragile delta a permanent disaster zone as the Gulf of Mexico gets closer with each passing storm season.
For Claverie, Ike meant more than 2 feet of water in her store. Now most of that water has begun flowing back into Bayou Barataria — but the damage has been done.
“We’re just too low,” Claverie said, tears welling in her eyes. “Without our wetlands, which used to be our barrier, we do not have the protection we had in the past.”
Claverie lost all her inventory from Gustav, which struck on Labor Day and knocked out power to the region. Less than two weeks later, Ike took her wares again. She values her loss at $200,000 per storm — not counting the store refrigerators, a freezer and a forklift lost to Ike.
The community, named for the pirate and hero of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, is a resilient mix of blue collar workers, fishermen and those who just like to live close to the water. But the battery of hurricanes is making it tougher to do so amid the marshlands.
Residents waded through their homes and lawns with white knee-high rubber boots Tuesday, and in one of the tiny cemeteries along the bayou, water covered many graves and statues.
In what was once a thriving fishing community — with picturesque shrimp and fishing boats lined up dockside — boats have been dwindling and many left behind were mangled by the storm.
The fishing industry has taken the biggest hit: there’s been a large dip in working fishermen since Katrina and Rita, and she worries that Ike will drive even more out of business — and out of town.
“Each storm knocks a hole in our community,” Claverie said. “They buy their groceries from us, and without them, it’s a hole in our business.”
Across Jean Lafitte (pronounced Zhan La feet’) many have spent their days after Ike sopping up water from their homes with mops and wet vacuums.
Jean Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner estimates roughly 2,000 homes and buildings in the community flooded. He said it will take days before all the water is pumped out.
“This is disgusting,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s this bad.”
Kerner said he didn’t expect so much water to come from a storm that hit so far west in Texas. But, he said, water levels in the area were still high from Gustav when Ike blew ashore.
“It’s just bad. I think everyone’s in shock,” he added.
Take town Constable Albert Creppel.
He sat in one of the few dry spots, Jean Lafitte Town Hall, but didn’t bear to go back home.
“I don’t even want to go in my house,” Creppel said. “I’m not ready to deal with another mess.”
At least two feet of water, driven in by hurricanes Gustav and Ike, stands in his home.
Just three months ago he’d completed repairs from flooding caused by Hurricane Rita in September 2005. His new furniture arrived in August.
“This community is beaten,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s too much. My wife says she doesn’t want to come back.”
Creppel’s story is familiar to many across southern Louisiana, where thousands try to rebuild after Katrina and Rita in 2005 and now Gustav and Ike.
Low-lying areas in Vermilion and Cameron parishes remain flooded, but water is slowly receding.
In Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes, the Louisiana National Guard is coordinating helicopter drops of sandbags near a canal to prevent water from topping over a levee — near a pumping station struggling to bring water levels down.
In Plaquemines Parish, authorities are managing two new breaches — one about 200 feet wide and 20 feet deep, the other about 50 feet wide and seven feet deep — on the Citrus Lands nonfederal levee. The breaches are not in the same area as those caused by Katrina or Rita, officials said.
Figures released Tuesday by the state Public Service Commission show about 69,000 electric customers in the state are still without power. That’s down from an estimated 93,000 a day earlier. The PSC also said the total number of telephone lines out of service is 24,674.
Ramona Guidry returned to her childhood home near here to check on damage and begin restocking the house for her 77-year-old mother, who lives there but had to be evacuated.
“I’m just trying to straighten up a bit, but there’s no water, no power,” said Guidry, standing on a front porch as water sloshed across her lawn.
Guidry said she will never part with her family home no matter how many hurricanes nor how much highwater may come. And never mind the stench of drying mud and sewage that follows each flood.
For Guidry, this is still home.
“This is where I went to school. This is where I grew up,” she said matter of fact. “This is where we want to be.”
gulflive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-22/122160535118840.xml&storylist=miss_news
September 17th, 2008 by Ragin Cajun /
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