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January 2006 29 Gulf of Mexico Report mately midway between Grand Isle and Venice, " is boats stacked on top of one another." It's a broad territory served by Capt. Griffen, with such unorthodox undertakings as the removal of boats from atop houses. We saw some up in trees. Sea Tow franchisees from across the southeast set-up camp in Gulfport, Miss., alongside a vast field — we did- n't count the acres — of recreational boats of all types and sizes and levels of ambition. Some were trashed, some looked good to the eye, and all, in nor- mal times, would be settled by standard procedures. "In past years," said Hank Johnson, who operates The Boat Doctor, in Harahan, "if a boat was totaled, usually the insurance company would give the customer the opportunity to bid on it and buy it back. Based on a number of reports I've heard, now apparently that's not happening. I had a gentleman call, an independent marine surveyor, and his response was they can't legally do that. Whether or not it's truly, totally illegal, I couldn't tell you." Mr. Johnson under- stands how insurers might need to trim steps in so vast a number of settlements. But what of boats written-off that are still fixable or, perhaps, better than that? Where do they wind-up? "On eBay? In Louisiana, we don't have titles for boats. I have no reason to think there's any- thing suspicious, but it's important to ask who's doing the recycling." "I Lost Everything" While plenty of people voiced plenty of concerns about plenty of things south of I-10, the refrain most common was the three words above. It was stated mat- ter-of-factly, with the same stoical rou- tine as "I'm forty years old," or "six feet tall" Nowadays, in southern Louisiana, that's what is normal. Aboard the Authority II, one of two firefighting launches of the Plaquemines port authority, a crewmember requested a brief stop ashore, to actually see what he'd already imagined — the place where his house once stood. Charles Bondi, on our airboat cruise down Highway 23, showed us the roof of his business. In more than three weeks, every skipper we met, every deckhand, engineer, crane operator who came from the region all said the same: "I lost everything." With almost a shrug. "It's a remarkable thing," said John Witte, Jr., "a working environment where the lead organization didn't know where they were going to live, sleep at night, get their next meal," He was speaking of the Coast Guard. States a USCG website, "Many local Coast Guard employees continue to manage the service's response to Hurricane Katrina yet face partial or complete loss of their own homes and possessions from this unnatural natural disaster." The instructions to employees on a Corps of Engineers website begins with this note: "We are doing everything we can to assist our employees, but employees MUST begin the healing and recovery process for themselves and their fami- lies. If you have been impacted by Hurricane Katrina, you should not delay in taking care of your personal busi- ness." But besides the insurance adjusters, if you were insured, what do you have for personal business, if you've lost every- thing? Well, there's the business you make — or that's been set-out for you. If you're lucky, there's still purpose. And on the Gulf Coast, Louisiana and elsewhere, rebuilding provides plenty. How do you lift a 450-ton tugboat out of a drydock? Very slowly. The tug has just been raised off the blocks, angling toward the right. If set down now, the hull would no longer meet the blocks, so it looks like we're committed. (Photo: Don Sutherland) The overpass near Empire, with the broken hulls and tangled outriggers of shrimpers marking where the surge met the highway structure, shoving then dropping whatever was on its course. (Photo: Don Sutherland) MR JANUARY2006 #4 (25-32).qxd 1/3/2006 3:32 PM Page 29
