Grand Isle, A place of hope

It is rare for me to be at a loss of words, but I have had a hard time writing this entry. Grand Isle has been hit by so many hurricanes, many major, but this time Hurricane Ida left the worst devastation I have ever seen, and yet…… Some places are completely bare. The house had disappeared, and the lawn has been covering by sand. At many places the surge rolled over the top of the levee and found a place to erode.

People had driven their golf carts and four wheelers over it and destroyed the vegetation leaving a path which the sea exploited. It washed away the sand and then made a waterfall as it passed over the inner burrito, ( a structure the Corp of Engineers had designed and placed at the levee’s core). There it created a waterfall and undercut thru the levee leaving deep plunge pools of water. The trench than allowed the sea to surge over and much of the destruction was from the surge. There were a few places where the Corp had built pathways of interlocking concrete and these all survived with their surrounding levees containing the surge.

What the surge didn’t get the winds took but still some of the structures survived. It was probably a matter of luck, but still why are there some areas with lesser damage? Regardless many of the younger newcomers to Grand Isle have decided to never return. Carpetbaggers, VRBO, and others are calling trying to get the places for cheap and are not respected, perhaps even hated by some.

In spite of everything many have cleared away the debris and the sound of nail guns fills the air. So many still have hope, or stay perhaps because that they have friends there, and they are rebuilding. After all, for the locals, Grand Isle is their home My sister’s two houses both survived and escaped with some damage, but Gary repaired the damage and both are as good as new. Yet questions remain. will the Corps repair the damage levee? There is an argument about money and the estimate I heard was three point six million to rebuild the levee. Will the Coast Guard return to their base?

The new requirement for any insurance is that your house must be raised to twenty feet although the older places that survived are grandfathered in. A typical small structure’s flood insurance costs are over eight thousand dollars a year, if you can get it…… The state park is filled with FEMA trailers and the people there were all renters, you do need a work force. Who knows when it will open. The beaches of Elmer’s Island are open, and Gary took me fishing. We caught a keeper red and a keeper speckled trout and had a fish fry.

So, some things are normal. The school is open again but it has very few students. The road in, is still being repaired and in places corduroy logs are in place to prevent further road damage. A lot of the road is one way, and the pilot cars escort you past the workers. I am still amazed at all the places that are gone and many places so completely that I can’t remember what was there. I read an article that said that the levee must be repaired before the next big hurricane or the island may/will be cut it two.

The shrimpers have returned to the beach and the crabs are back.

The birds will not find much after flying across the gulf as so many trees are gone or damaged. Yet there is hope.

As I always end, Clear skies