The Ranger Online

Issue date: 5/18/06 Section: J School Travels

Media Credit: Julie Ann Sanchez Red drum fish waits to be filleted. Most measure about 27 inches long, the size limit.

PORT SULPHUR, LA. - The destruction here is complete and brutal.

Heaps of splintered wood, knotted clothes and tangled metal mark where people lived.

John Dove, 32, was raised in Port Sulphur. Dove was shocked when he returned in November.

"You had to look real hard to recognize your land," Dove said. He now lives in a FEMA trailer with few remnants of his life before Katrina.

Everything in Port Sulphur seems coated with hay, a few feet deep in some places.

"It's marsh grass washed in from the surrounding bayou," explained Nash Roberts, a meteorologist, biologist and fishing guide.

Those three skills come in handy while navigating the waters around Port Sulphur for fish.

Roberts left the dock at 7 a.m. on Dec. 29 where his fishing cottage used to sit. Hurricane Katrina washed it into the man-made bayou where he launches his boat.

Pathology Professor Don Boudreau of Louisiana State University chartered Roberts for the annual fishing trip he enjoys with his son and grandchildren.

The group returned to base just after noon with a stunning catch. Twenty-five red drum fish shimmered in the crisp afternoon air.

"It's an exceptional catch for their size," Roberts said.

As he prepared an area to clean the fish, Roberts said the biggest change is erosion and the lack of wildlife.

"Hurricane Katrina caused more erosion in one day than would be expected in 50 years," Roberts said.

Hurricane Katrina increased the width of waterways by more than a third.

The Gulf Coast has receded in some areas more than a quarter of a mile, he said.

He was surprised most by the vastness of the destruction. An area the size of Great Britain was damaged.

"No inhabitable structures were left within 40 miles of Port Sulphur," he said.

Roberts used an electric converter from his pickup truck to power an electric knife to fillet the morning catch.

He is disappointed by the slow pace at which infrastructure is being restored. He doesn't expect electricity in the area until after April when he will start rebuilding his fishing lodge.

The whirring of the knife excited a group of nearby pelicans waiting for his return for more than an hour. He filleted a fish with expert hands and tossed the leftovers to the hungry birds.

Continued...

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