Gustav and Ike hit state fishing industry hard

Gustav and Ike hit state fishing industry hard

by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune Tuesday September 23, 2008, 9:38 PM


DULAC -- At the height of the fall shrimp season, nets are dry and hulls are empty on the scores of boats that line Bayou Grand Caillou.

http://blog.nola.com/news_impact/200...geousphoto.jpgSusan Poag / Times-PicayuneRoyal Trosclair is the son of a fisherman, and currently works aboard the Kimmi Alayna, a shrimp boat out of Dulac.

At Tidelands Seafood Co., workers cart out trash bags filled with soggy insulation and drywall after Hurricane Ike's surges left a foot of mud coating the business. With shrimpers tending to home damage, the power-washed conveyors and sorting machines have been idle.

Ike's flooding carried John Gregoire's 31-foot "Cap'N Gill" across the bayou and deposited it in the middle of "Shrimpers Row, " a main thoroughfare through this seafood hub south of Houma.
"Everybody said, 'If somebody was down here when the tide was high, they could have got it out, ' " Gregoire said as he inspected the marooned boat. "But there was nobody down here when the tide was high."

Look no farther than this bayou town to see the damage that Gustav's winds and Ike's flooding have brought to the state's $2.6 billion seafood industry, responsible for a quarter of the catch in the lower 48 states. From the biggest processors to the smallest shrimp and crab boats, loss of power and flooding from the two hurricanes have ground the state's seafood production to a near standstill for weeks.
Restaurateurs have tailored their offerings to account for a smaller-than-usual selection, particularly a shortage of crab meat. Fresh oysters have been off the menu in the New Orleans area for weeks, as most of the state's beds remain closed due to post-storm health precautions.

"It hurts; financially, it hurts us a lot, " said Tommy Cvitanovich, the owner of Drago's Seafood Restaurant, which has struggled in the absence of its seafood staple. "Virtually every table gets a plate of charbroiled oysters."

Galatoire's has had to scale back its fish selection in recent weeks, and executive chef Brian Landry said he doesn't know when he'll be able to get soft-shell crabs. The only way he and others are keeping up: a similar slowdown in the customer supply.
"One of the other byproducts of the storm is we haven't been feeding as many people, " Landry said. "You don't feel the shortage of seafood as much when you don't have as many people coming in the restaurant."

$100 million loss
Initial estimates from the LSU AgCenter peg losses for the seafood industry at $100 million, not counting losses to infrastructure such as docks and boats.
The slow return of many seafood buyers and ice-making facilities has kept boats tied up to the shore. In turn, the docks and processing plants that have reopened are coping with a lack of boats, as many fishers are trying to repair flooded homes in coastal areas.
"It's kind of like you're sitting there waiting for the work, and there's nothing you can do to push the timetables up, " said Kim Chauvin, who owns Mariah Jade Shrimp Co. in Terrebonne Parish. "That's from the deckhands to the processors, all the way up the line."

Fishers who manage to venture out are encountering submerged debris, which can cause costly damage to equipment.
In Dulac, Gregoire puzzled over his dislodged shrimp boat, which rested partially on the roadway and partially in Trudy Darda's mud-caked frontyard. Though it's a monumental frustration that will put him out of work for months, he admits it could have been worse.
The "Cap'N Gill" managed to float safely across the bayou, dodging a maze of wooden pilings and Darda's two-story raised home. Even the bunk beds inside were still made.
"It doesn't pay to cry about, there ain't nothing you can do about it now, " Gregoire said.

Darda sat on the back of her pickup truck, watching her husband and sons shovel gobs of mud off their driveway. The entire family relies on shrimping for income, and the storms have essentially put them out of business in the peak of the white shrimp season.
Like many commercial fishers, the Dardas tied up their boat farther north to seek safe shelter from the winds. But lack of power for the extensive system of canals, locks and bridges has kept them essentially landlocked ever since.
"It's been awhile -- over a month -- and this is the prime time, " she said. "We need a job. You got a job for us? For now we're getting mud out of people's yards. We're getting pretty good about doing that."

Finding work
Across the bayou, Judith and Alan Gibson managed to clean their conveyors and shrimp-sorting machines, pressure-washing three feet of thick black bayou mud out of their shrimp-processing facility and getting a green light from the local board of health. But no one's bringing in shrimp.
"Most of the guys in this area . . . their homes are in the same shape, " Alan Gibson said as he pointed around to the stripped walls of the office.
Dulac and other south-central Louisiana towns are home to the bulk of the state's seafood-processing facilities, which peel, package and distribute product to stores and restaurants nationwide. Seafood buyers in Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes have largely returned, and Grand Isle shrimp titan Dean Blanchard has been running his dock on an industrial generator for a week.
But the central and western parts of the state are still largely out of commission.

Still catching up
At Gulf Island Shrimp and Seafood on Thursday, the top echelons of management were inspecting the plant, where nearly 400,000 pounds of frozen shrimp had rotted due to lack of power. They switched on the ice plant by the end of last week, and were eagerly awaiting the return of their boats.
"We've got a lot of catching up to do, " said Larry Avery, a managing partner with the company.
Aboard the "Kimmi Alayna, " first mate Royal Trosclair readied the 67-foot boat late last week for the first voyage since Gustav. Though no one was buying shrimp yet in the area, Trosclair's crew was hoping for a better scene upon its return in 10 days. Knowing ice would be scarce, his captain, Archie Dufrene, filled the hull with 25,000 pounds before Gustav.
"They got to wait for ice, they got to wait for fuel, " Trosclair said, pointing to the other silent boats tied up along the bayou. "That's the only advantage we've got, that we had all that stuff before the storms."