Tag Archives: Bayou Barataria
1 of every 70 jobs in Louisiana is in seafood. Many of those in them are still struggling a year after Ida
Stacks of crab traps and fishing nets lay idle on the shoreline. Occasionally, there is the whir of a propeller, which barely registers above the sound of wildlife, puttering as it pushes a boat around debris on the bottom of the bayou. Gone, for the most part, is the constant sound of diesel engines turning over and the salty language of the fishermen loading and unloading the catch of the day. Many of the docks, including the 200-foot dock that has been in Randy Nunez’s family for 71 years, won’t return. “It looks like a ghost town. It’s hard to see. The bayous are empty. The boats are tied up. The shrimp prices are too low,” Nunez said as he sat on the side of the bayou near what used to be one of the largest docks in the area. “Before you’d see boats coming out and boats coming in. Boats were constantly passing on the bayou.” >click to read< 09:33
Hurricane Ida: Shrimper Norman Bouisse survives 13 hours on capsized boat. Grant Bundy came to get him.
As a shrimper, he’s called Lafitte home for seven decades. “To me, it’s the best place,” he said. He thought he’d seen it all. “This is the worst. This is the worst,” he said while looking at what Ida left behind. Bouisse planned to ride out the storm with a friend in Lafitte. He thought he had time to check on his boat in Bayou Barataria, but Ida was too quick and too strong. “I was on my boat and my boat broke loose and rolled over,” he said. “I spent almost 13 hours laying on the boat and the next morning my friend came and rescued me.” His friend’s name is Grant Bundy. Video, >click to read< 08:14
