U.S. Congressman Garret Graves is calling for the U.S. Department of Commerce to immediately declare a “Fishery Disaster Determination” due to both the biological resources and fishery infrastructure sustaining major damage related to Hurricane Ida. Commerce is able to declare the disaster provided by the provisions within the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act. The declared disaster would provide targeted relief to one of the most impacted sectors of Louisiana’s economy. The funds would help both commercial and recreational fishers begin to recover. >click to read< 18:31
Tag Archives: Hurricane Ida
Ida grounded this shrimper’s boat, then thieves raided it. Now a fundraiser aims to help.
Rita Verdin of Golden Meadow said her husband, Rodney, returns to the marsh to check on his boat, La Belle Idee, and each week finds more is missing. She estimates thieves have stolen about $20,000 so far, including the propeller, rudder, generator and other electronics. Rita said she reached out to the news industry after the family couldn’t find help anywhere else. Hearing the news, Lt. Gov. Nungesser and the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board reached out to New Orleans Chef Amy Sins, who is also president of Fill the Needs, a nonprofit that aids with ongoing hurricane-recovery efforts. >click to read< 17:32 >click here Hurricane Ida- Louisiana Shrimper – Fill the Needs and please donate if you can.
Shrimper hit by thieves after Hurricane Ida stranded his boat
A Lafourche Parish shrimper said Tuesday he is left with nowhere to turn, as thieves have begun cannibalizing his fishing vessel that was washed aground more than a year ago by Hurricane Ida. Rodney Verdin’s boat the F/V La Belle Idee remains stranded in the marshes of Golden Meadow. “It’s selfish of people to take advantage of us when we’re already down,” Rodney’s wife Rita Verdin said. Rodney has been a commercial shrimper in Golden Meadow for most of his life. He grew up in a nearby camp, generations old, from which he later ran his business, until Ida wiped it off the map. “That’s my life, that’s my whole business,” he said. “I can’t really do anything else. I’m almost too old to go find another job. Trying to do what I can … we aren’t giving up hope.” >click to read< 07:09
Delcambre shrimp processor overcoming old and new problems to survive
Gulf Crown Seafood’s Jeff Floyd and his son Jon agree that every year in the seafood business is unique. Each year new problems arise and are added to the same old ones continuously sticking around. Last year new problems arising from Covid and Hurricane Ida were added to the old ones; H2B visiting worker visa, labor shortages, import prices and product availability. “We weren’t affected directly by Hurricane Ida,” said the senior of the Floyds. “But without production this plant doesn’t survive. They only way we get production is with the boats. I don’t know exactly how many we lost out of the fleet from the storm, but talking to those at the docks their were a lot a fisherman whose boats won’t be able to be salvaged.” Gulf Crown Seafood in Delcambre is one of approximately seven shrimp processors left Louisiana. >click to read< 12:58
Barataria Crabber isn’t Giving Up
A large majority of Louisiana’s crabs comes from the waters of the Barataria Estuary, situated between the Mississippi River and Bayou Lafourche. Scott Sugasti has been on those waters working his traps since an early age, and as one of the younger crabbers on the bayou he knows hard work is the key to success. Since Hurricane Ida he has had to work harder at avoiding numerous pitfalls the storm has caused for local fishermen. Now 23, he started crabbing on his own at the age of 13, never afraid to be alone on the water. While in high school he would get up at the crack of dawn and head out in his boat. ‘I used to go before and after school. I would wake up at three in the morning all the time and head out to run my traps.’ Over the years he has started and stopped a number of times, but it became his daily occupation when he bought his first boat from his grandfather, Jimmy Matherne, two years ago. Photos, >click to read<13:21
Grand Isle shrimp dock owner Dean Blanchard takes good with the bad after Hurricane Ida
The docks at Blanchard Seafood plant are about as close to the Gulf of Mexico as possible without getting wet. When Hurricane Ida struck the island, all that changed. The processing plant was not only inundated, but the winds tore away walls and ceilings, leaving owner and wholesaler Dean Blanchard with more than $1 million in damage. “It was Katrina-like damage,” Blanchard said. “There was less water damage but a hell of a lot of wind damage. We thought Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime storm, but apparently it wasn’t.” At 63, Blanchard has seen his share of disasters impacting not only his seafood business but also the whole state. >click to read< 09:38
The Oysterman, the Pirate and Louisiana’s disappearing wetlands
Maurer was in a bind. Hurricane Ida had decimated the supply chain. The storm swept through the heart of Louisiana’s $2.4bn seafood industry, which supports one out of 70 jobs in the state, leaving him with no roads, no power, and very little seed. He decided he needed to find “new routes to market, whether by boat or by land. Go pirate on them.” He meant this literally. As he looked for a solution among the lingering chaos of the hurricane, he thought of the notorious pirate Jean Laffite, who once operated out of Grand Isle. Maurer decided he would follow the same route: He bought Les Bons Temps to see if he could bring his catch to town directly, bypassing the wrecked roads and bridges. photos, >click to read< 15:12
Hurricane Ida turns Houma oysterman’s life upside down
For more than six hours, fifth-generation Houma oysterman Jacob David Hulse; his girlfriend, Lindsey Willis; and his dog, Change; huddled inside a friend’s oyster shop as Hurricane Ida slammed ashore Aug. 29. As the more than 140-mph winds started to subside, Hulse, 33, thought he had gone through the worst of it. But as many Louisiana fishermen are finding out, his troubles were only beginning. “Many in our Louisiana seafood families like the Hulses are still homeless from the hurricanes and not sure from where their next meal is coming,” said Ewell Smith a board member with the Gulf Seafood Foundation and a member of the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition. >click to read< 11:30
Louisiana Fishing Industry Suffered $579 Million in Damages Due to 2020-21 Hurricanes
Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta, and Ida, which swept through Louisiana during various points in 2020 and 2021, resulted in an estimated $579 million in losses to the state’s fisheries infrastructure, revenues, and biological resources, according to a study by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, LSU and Louisiana Sea Grant. The study’s findings, released today, analyzes monetized losses to fisheries infrastructure (including vessels), sales or gross revenue, and resources losses to fish and oysters. The study also projects financial losses that are continuing into 2022. >click to read< 10:14
Hurricane Ida: Local trawler pushing forward, despite changes in the industry
Louisiana – Local trawler Brad Duet has been trawling for all of his adult life. “I make a good living, and I love what I do. It’s just a shame there’s no more people getting into this. I feel like those of us out there now are a little bit like the last of a dying breed.” At 18, he became the captain of his own boat. He partnered with his mother to run a boat and get his start as a full-time captain. By 25, it was time for him to be fully on his own, so he went to the bank and secured financing for the F/V Sassy Sandy the boat he runs today. Hurricane Ida has done a lot to change the local trawling industry, and he’s not sure if things are ever truly going to get back to the “old normal.” >click to read< 17:25
Jean Lafitte-area fishermen struggle with wrecked boats, lost businesses and lots of mud
When Hurricane Ida blew through lower Jefferson Parish in late August, it brought wind, rain and surge. What it left behind was mud,,, Larry Helmer, 70, who’s been fishing local waters his whole life, can’t get either of his boats out from where they’re docked at his home on Anthony Lane in Barataria. “If I can’t get out on my boat, I can’t go fish, and at my age, I can’t go on no job hunt,” he said, chuckling ruefully. Helmer’s son, who lives two canals away, is in the same position. “He can’t even go to work. His boat is just about on bottom,” Helmer said. “It’s terrible, man — it’s just terrible. The mud from this hurricane just filled these canals in.” >click to read< 07:36
For Dulac crabbing family, Hurricane Ida leaves destruction and strain
With Hurricane Ida’s unrelenting winds clocking more than 170 mph, Shane Luke questioned his decision to stay aboard his 38-foot shrimp boat in Bayou Grand Caillou. Outside the tiny windows, he watched helplessly as the rollup door to the family’s concrete crab-processing building flapped in the wind like a piece of paper in front of a fan. As the mast cracked like wooden matchstick, he took refuge in engine room, hoping it would be a final line of defense against Ida’s wrath. Three hundred miles to the east in Kehmah, Texas, Trudy Luke huddled with her husband, Timmy, and the rest of her family, worrying about her son as well as what would remain of her business upon return. photos, >click to read< 11:06
Hurricane Ida: Float the Boat Program offers help to local commercial fishermen
The Helio Foundation, a local community service group that has provided monetary support and other resources for residents down the bayou in Terrebonne Parish, is expanding their efforts with the Float the Boat Program. The program aims to provide monetary assistance for independent commercial fishermen in need of assistance with a boat that was sunk or needs to be moved in Terrebonne Parish due to Hurricane Ida. >click to read< 11:12
Delcambre Shrimper Looses Boat, Livelihood and Dignity As Provider
For every hurricane during the past 40-years Preston Dore has rode out the storms at the Delcambre docks on his shrimp boat. After Katrina, Gustav, Isaac and a host of others, both he and the boat have walked away mostly unscathed. Hurricane Ida was different. The storm has cost him his boat, his livelihood and has stripped away his dignity as a provider for his family. Unlike previous hurricanes his current boat, the Demi Rae named after his 7-year-old daughter, was not in its Delcambre berth, but in a Chauvin dry-dock,,, The boat was an easy target for the storm’s 170-mph winds as it passed over bayou after bayou ripping the heart out of Louisiana’s seafood industry. >click to read< Donate to the Gulf Seafood Foundation’ “Helping Hands” for Hurricane Ida by clicking the “Donate” button. 11:47
‘We take care of each other’ – Volunteers head to Lafitte to help hard hit residents and fishermen
After Hurricane Ida pummeled Lafitte, the fishing town’s fishermen pledge to keep going. The storm destroyed many of their boats, docks and homes. Volunteers distributed 500 meals to the fishing town’s workers and residents. “When someone, a stranger, shows up to lend you a hand, it gives you that little bit of a lift you need emotionally to get back out there to keep fighting and rebuild your life,” >click to read< – Volunteers head to Lafitte to help hard hit residents, and fishermen – Dozens of boats have been damaged or destroyed, and many wonder if the help will arrive before it’s too late. .,, While the food should help fuel recovery workers, homeowners, and shrimpers still have big needs “I lost my house, my boat, crab traps, I lost everything,” said crabber Nathan Fabre of Lafitte. Video>click to read< 13:10
Hurricane Ida: 50% of this year’s shrimp and oyster harvest may be lost
Fishing communities across Southeast Louisiana are down for the count after Ida. In Lafitte alone, some estimate more than 100 boats are knocked out of commission. “The shrimping community is over probably for the next three years you can’t sell shrimp in Grand Isle or Lafitte,” said Ray Champagne of Lafitte. It’s not just the boats, docks have also been wiped out, many still don’t have power, and the state’s one-billion-dollar seafood industry may lose half its production this year. “It’s going to be down at least 50% and that’s my rough guess right now,” said Patrick Banks, with La. Dept of Wildlife and Fisheries. Not only did Ida deal a blow to the shrimp industry but oystermen have taken it on the chin as well. video, >click to read< 08:53
Hurricane Ida: Hard-hit fisheries deserve a helping hand from Washington
Hurricane Ida was among the most powerful storms ever to make landfall in Louisiana, and certainly the most destructive to take direct aim at one of the state’s key resources: its fisheries. Some fishers spent harrowing hours riding out the storm on their boats, but the nightmare didn’t end when the winds died finally down. Ida obliterated property, including boats that fishers couldn’t afford to insure, and it decimated the habitat and the infrastructure that supports the industry. >click to read< 07:46
Louisiana: Young fishermen face uncertain future after Hurricane Ida
Devin Verdin kept his boat tied near one of the camps along Bayou Grand Caillou during Hurricane Ida. Despite the widespread destruction, Verdin remains certain he’ll remain a shrimper. Along with Evan Solet and Elise Garibotte, Verdin was heading up to David Chauvin’s Seafood Company to gather ice as they prepared to go shrimping Tuesday night. The company is one of few in Dulac able to operate since Ida hit Aug. 29. Seth Billiot said he has tried to apply for help from FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration but was told he doesn’t qualify. >Click to read< 08:16
After Hurricane Ida: Louisiana’s struggling seafood industry is teetering
The Category 4 hurricane that struck Louisiana late last month fractured some parts of the industry even worse than 2005’s Katrina, which cost seafood businesses more than $1 billion. No one yet knows how many boats, docks and processors were lost because of Ida’s relentless, 150-mph winds. Vessels that made it to the safest harbors fared the best, yet even some of them were destroyed by the storm’s fury. Unable to speak for a decade since cancer surgery, Dale Williams gets by on disability payments of $1,300 a month. Living in a mobile home at Port Sulphur on the west bank of the Mississippi River, he supplements his income by catching shrimp with a little boat he parked in his front yard for Hurricane Ida. Ida’s Category 4 winds flipped Williams’ trawler on its side, bending the frame and tearing nets,,, The goal is to get back on the water by October, he said, either with the damaged boat or another one that fared better. >click to read< 10:44
Hurricane Ida: Commercial fishers in Louisiana – “That’s our living. I have nothing to fall back on,,,
“I was just trying to save every little thing I could and ended up losing it anyway,” Darrel Domangue said. “It’s hard to leave when you got nothing else. I know other people will say it’s just material things, but to us poor people, the material things is all we got besides one another. That’s our living.” Domangue didn’t have insurance on his home, boat or bait shop. “I have nothing to fall back on, and I have no education,”,, “I don’t think a minimum wage job is going to help me rebuild my house. I’m going to have to find some way, some how. photos, >click to read< 07:11
Hurricane Ida: In this bayou town, Louisiana fishers team to feed neighbors in need
Milton Naquin would otherwise be running his shrimp boat out of Delcambre with white shrimp season in full swing. But instead last Thursday he and his family and a crew from his Jessica Gail Seafood company rolled into Montegut with a long, covered trailer rigged up to cook huge batches of jambalaya and alligator sauce piquant. Word spread quickly around the small bayou town and soon people were pulling up for a free, hot meal. “I like to cook, cuss, drink and tell lies,” Naquin proclaimed, while doing at least two of those things. photos, >click to read< 19:26
U.S. Coast Guard continues to support Hurricane Ida recovery efforts across Southeast Louisiana
The Coast Guard continues to respond to impacts to the waterways and assess the environmental threats across Southeast Louisiana Thursday, post-Hurricane Ida. In partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV), the Coast Guard is continuing efforts to re-open waterways impacted by Hurricane Ida in the areas of Bayou Lafourche, Houma Navigation Canal, and portions of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. To date, 25 obstructions comprised primarily of fishing vessels, crew vessels, and offshore supply vessels have been identified in the Bayou Lafourche channel. Photos, more info, >click to read< 18:06
Hurricane Ida: “The supply chain is completely broken” – Restaurants can’t recover if suppliers don’t recover
Two weeks after Hurricane Ida, New Orleans restaurants aim to shift attention down the Bayou. Next week, two of New Orleans’s most highly acclaimed chefs and restaurant owners, Nina Compton and Melissa Martin, join forces to fund Hurricane Ida relief, and a primary goal, in addition to raising money, is to direct the public’s attention to New Orleans’s neighbors down the bayou. >click to read< 10:12
Mississippi shrimp season in state of uncertainty thanks to storms, heavy rains
At Forte Seafood in Pass Christian, they say ever since Hurricane Ida came through, the white shrimp have been pretty big and plentiful. That makes up for an awful brown shrimp season, as those shrimp never got a chance to grow due to low salinity from heavy rains. “Starting out, the brown shrimp never really grew. They were all around 50-60 to 60-70 count for the majority of the summer,” said Jeremy Forte. “Once the storm came through, it actually made them bigger. I don’t know if it’s different shrimp from somewhere else or what,,, Video, >click to read< 14:50
Hurricane Ida: Bayou Community Foundation Assisting Lafourche, Terrebonne Recovery
The executive director of the Bayou Community Foundation says the organization has raised several million dollars thus far. She says they have begun issuing grants “to local non-profits who are providing critical relief services on the ground.” Jennifer Armand says money keeps pouring into the foundation’s fund that has helped pay for fuel, food and the various other needs of residents who remain in recovery mode more than two weeks after Ida slammed the two parishes, including Grand Isle. She says that about three million dollars have come into the fund thus far “and we know that every cent will be needed as we look to the weeks, months and year ahead.” If you’d like to donate to the fund you can visit the website bayoucf.org and click on the banner Bayou Recovery Fund. >click to read< visit bayoucf.org 10:44
Hurricane Ida: A Bad Time on the Bayou
Hurricane Ida struck the heart of Louisiana’s seafood industry as a Category 4 hurricane, wiping out homes, boats, trucks, plants and icehouses…. ‘This is just a bad time to be on the bayou it seems,’ said Venice shrimper Acy Cooper, a member of the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force. ‘Before the storm we were being hit hard by Covid. Covid is still here, but now we have to face the difficulties brought on by Ida,’ he said, adding that he has been fortunate compared to those to the east of him. ‘Here in Venice, we lost three or four shrimp boats, but over in Chauvin and Dulac, it’s more like half that fleet. People have lost their homes, their boats. They don’t have power, gas or food. These are people that aren’t going to ask for anything, but let me tell you they need it, and they need it now.’ Click to read >Pt.1< and >Pt.2< 18:55
Hurricane Ida: Dozens of Groundings and Sinkings Block Louisiana’s Inland Waterways
Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard released an update on the full extent of the impact of Hurricane Ida in the vicinity of Bayou Lafourche, the working waterway that leads inland from Port Fourchon. The area was right in the path of the hurricane’s eye, and while Port Fourchon has reopened, navigation remains closed on Bayou Lafourche because of dozens of sunken and grounded vessels.,, So far, 25 vessels requiring salvage and removal – fishing vessels, crew boats and OSVs – have been found in the Bayou Lafourche channel. 30 more submerged targets have been identified in the Houma Navigation Canal, including 15 that have recently been cleared or removed. photos, >click to read< 09:51
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
Commercial fisherman rides out Hurricane Ida in his boat before 140 mph winds flipped it
Kimothy Guy, 57, is one the few people who did not evacuate from the coastal shrimping, crabbing and fishing community ahead of Ida’s arrival Aug. 29. He and three others in the immediate vicinity rode out the storm on their fishing boats in an attempt to save their livelihoods. Instead, the commercial fishers barely lived to tell the tale, as their boats snapped free from the ropes tying them to the shore and flipped over during the Category 4 hurricane. “We had four of us, me and three others, that had stayed to try to save our boats, but we didn’t save none of them,” Guy said, 
noting that if he knew then what he does now, he would have evacuated. “Now I know we don’t have nothing to stay for. We don’t have no more house. We don’t have no more boat.” “I ain’t got no choice. I have to stay,” Guy said. “That’s all I ever did all my life, commercial fish. That’s what I do for a living. I’m a water person. I need the water to survive.” photos, >click to read< 17:13
Southern Louisiana bayou fishing community left tattered by Hurricane Ida
Chad Portier of Faith Family Shrimp, a fishing operation in Chauvin, La., stands inside his 80-foot-trawler, the F/V Jenson Joseph, where he and seven family members and neighbors rode out Hurricane Ida. The wind damage of Hurricane Ida has left small fishing vessels scattered and destroyed along Bayou Little Caillou in Chauvin, La. With the scattered debris, sunken ships and damaged lock systems along the coast in southern Louisiana, locals fear it could be months before the fishing industry can make a full comeback. 11 photos, >click to read< 07:29
