Tag: Featured
The cold north wind blew through the open Oak Ridge Community Park shelter in Golden Meadow like an express train passing a through a station. A sweater-clad chef stirred a huge pot of gumbo, while others wearing red aprons with the familiar Shell logo served fried catfish and French fries. At a table at the end, King Cakes anchored a paper tablecloth whipping in the constant breeze. But it was the smiles of the fishermen filling their plates that would be most remembered by the volunteers from across Louisiana
LSU Sea Grant, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and members of the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition have crafted a five-page “white paper” on the extreme damage and loss of revenue to the Louisiana seafood industry as a result of four hurricanes during the years of 2020-21. All five sectors of the industry have suffered; commercial fishermen, recreation fishing, docks, processors and marinas.
A recently released report detailing infrastructure, revenue and resource loss to Louisiana Fisheries have prompted a Louisiana Congressmen to ask the Department of Commerce (DOC) to expedite a Fishery Disaster Determination due to major damage related to impacts of Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta and especially Ida.
The recently released Infrastructure, Revenue and Resource Losses to Louisiana Fisheries From the Hurricanes of 2020 and 2021 report is historic. “This gives us a golden opportunity to correct a problem that’s longstanding, how the marine industry, particularly the seafood industry is treated in disasters,” said Dr. David Veal, director of the American Shrimp Processors Association.
God gave Louisiana crawfish and Gulf Menhaden to catch them. What God failed to do is correctly synchronize the seasons for their harvest. For the first time crawfish may not be on the Easter dinner menu because bait dealers have ran dry on fish in their warehouses.
Four hurricanes over the course of two-years has cost the Louisiana seafood industry almost a $580 million dollar loss to infrastructure, revenue and resources. A recently released report by Louisiana Sea Grant and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries documents extreme damage and loss of revenue over all five sectors of the industry; commercial fishermen, recreational fishing, docks, processors and marinas.
Life has been like a bowl of gumbo for James Carville, Louisiana’s most famous political consultant. For 77-years he has stirred the hot pot, not always sure of success. But when it comes to making real gumbo, with real seafood, there’s only one he accepts, Louisiana Gulf seafood.
For more than six hours fifth-generation Houma oysterman Jacob David Hulse, his girlfriend Lindsey Willis and his dog Change huddled in an the oyster shop of friend Kenneth (Keno) Templet struggling to keep the walls and roof from caving as the more than 140-mph winds of Hurricane Ida continuously battered away at the structure. When the winds started to subside, Hulse thought he had gone through the worse of it. Like many Louisiana fishermen are finding out, his troubles were only beginning after the storm was finished.
The Twin Parish Port District has received a two million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for infrastructure at the Port of Delcambre. The MARAD Port Infrastructure Development Program grant will fund dock restoration on two aging structures, as well as the construction of a new industrial fabrication facility.
On August 29, 2021 Hurricane Ida blasted ashore along the Louisiana coast almost complete destroying everything in its path. Infrastructure was hard hit, especially infrastructure vital to Louisiana’s $2.4 billion seafood industry. Four months later little has changed, and the state’s fishermen, docks, processors, fish houses and restaurants are wondering if it will ever return.
For more than 50-years Lafayette locals joined tourists from around the globe to dine on plates of Cajun crawfish and crabs, then dance off the dinner to the sounds of a Acadiana music. That era has ended. Restaurateur Frank Randol has closed the doors on his restaurant and associated seafood processing business.
Louisiana Sea Grant and LSU AgCenter have partnered with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to compile an economic assessment of fisheries infrastructure damage from hurricanes that have devastated one of the State’s largest industries during the past two years.
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.
For almost two hours Louisiana’s seafood leaders from all sectors of the industry gathered via zoom, mobile phones at restaurants or in cars, and in a conference room in Baton Rouge to discuss the damage of Hurricane Ida’s wrath on the State’s seafood industry. The consensus; the hurricane laid a path of destruction that has crippled almost every sector.
As one of her sons rode out the wrath of Hurricane Ida’s 170 mph winds on his shrimp boat at the dock of her seafood processing business in Dulac, Trudy Luke and her husband Timmy with the rest of the family worried what they would find when they returned home.
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