Hurricanes Add New Hurdles for Hard-Pressed Shrimpers in Louisiana
21 October 2005
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita dealt Louisiana's shrimp industry a blow stiff enough to knock plenty of them down--and some of them out--for good.
Tangled on the concrete floor of Carol Schieffler's Lafitte, Louisiana, workshop lay mounds of netting, the smell of moisture teeming with microscopic life rising from the dank heaps. Before Hurricane Rita swamped the shop, soaking it for four days in 27 inches of water, Schieffler had planned to the turn the material into nets for shrimp trawlers.
Now, the net maker had no choice. With the threat of mold beginning to work its destructive way into the fibers, Schieffler planned to throw the whole lot out—and a good chunk of his annual income with it.
Barreling in on the back of Hurricane Katrina, Rita had dealt Schieffler—and many others working in Louisiana's shrimp industry—a blow stiff enough to knock plenty of them down and some of them out for good. Already, shrimping was a hard way to make a living. The storms added enormous hurdles to the challenge.
"If this business keeps going to the way it is—the imports, the fuel prices—it'll really kill the fishing industry," said Schieffler. "More and more people are getting out. A lot of people lost boats in the storm."
Determined to preserve rural communities and the jobs of the people who live there, such as the shrimp fishers, Louisiana's Southern Mutual Help Association has launched a rural recovery response program with the help of Oxfam America. Among the program's objectives is to defend the needs and priorities of rural communities during the hurricane reconstruction.
Rising Costs, Falling Prices
Up to 88 percent of all shrimp consumed in the United States now comes from overseas. But Louisiana still produces more of it than any other state, and in some years accounts for as much as 45 percent of the shrimp landed in the Gulf of Mexico. Nevertheless, changes in the industry have made it increasingly difficult for Louisiana shrimpers to make ends meet.
"The industry was facing a difficult time prior to the storms," said Kurt Guidry, an associate professor in the Department of Agriculture Economics at Louisiana State University. "Higher fuel costs had a huge impact on their profitability. Plus they were feeling the impact of lower prices for their product, largely because of cheap imports. They're getting squeezed."
Last year, Louisiana fishers earned about $136 million for the shrimp they caught, which was about $18 million more than the year before. But the 2004 catch was also nearly 30 million pounds bigger than in 2003—reflecting an average drop in price of 12 cents a pound.
Falling prices and rising costs have helped to force nearly a quarter of the commercial shrimp fishers out of the game in recent years.
"In 2000, which was perhaps the last great year where we had a combination of high shrimp availability, good sizes, and good prices, we had nearly 6,900 commercial fishermen who reported sales of shrimp," said Martin Bourgeois, a marine fisheries biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. By 2003, the last year for which numbers are available, that figure had fallen to 5,316—or a 23 percent drop in a four-year span.
"They were surviving to a degree," said Helen Vinton, Sisters of Providence, assistant executive director of the Southern Mutual Help Association. "But now the shrimpers have been hit very hard on two scores by the hurricanes."
Not only did many shrimpers' boats suffer extensive damage, so did their homes, she said. Having lost their means of earning an income, they might have difficulty paying for expensive repairs to both those critical assets. One of the goals of the association's rural recovery program is to help shrimpers and other storm-affected residents navigate governmental bureaucracies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to get assistance in rebuilding their lives and communities.
"Shrimp fishing is certainly an industry that has brought nothing but good to Louisiana," said Vinton, "both in the marketing of fish and in a very rich culture."
Shrimping for 50 Years
It's a culture that takes care of itself.
"FEMA is helping some people, but most of us, we ain't getting help from nobody," said shrimper Dennis Austin, as he stalked down the road in Lafitte toward his boat. He was on foot because the floodwaters from Rita had drowned his truck. "That's how we survive back here. Self-sufficient. Wait for help, you'll die down here."
In the small yards all around him lay mud, thick and slippery. Katrina and Rita had taken a toll on the houses in this now-deserted neighborhood, dumping giant trees onto rooftops, smashing windows, wrenching porches from their footings, and soaking every room with floodwaters.
"With Katrina, part of the roof blew away. With Rita, I got flooded," said Austin, pointing to the middle of his chest to show how high the water rose in the trailer he calls home. "The more I dig in, the worse it gets."
But he wasn't complaining. There are ways to survive hurricanes and get back to work shrimping again. Austin had done it many times before—and his father before that.
"I've made a living for 50 years at it," he said. "I like it. It's what my daddy did, and my momma. I work for myself."
One of 11 children, Austin said his father would march everyone onto the shrimping boat when a hurricane was headed their way and find a protected canal in which to secure the it . There they would ride out the storm. And that's what Austin did when Rita blew in.
Though his trailer took a beating, the boat Austin has owned for 25 years survived, and he planned to head out a week and a half after the storm to test his luck on a catch. Word had it that a shrimping friend had just returned from a three-day trip with a haul worth $25,000.
"I'm going to go out tomorrow," said Austin. "I've got a dock that wants to start buying."
Boats on the Bayou
Down at the end of the road, at the Lafitte C-Way Marina, shrimper Steve McDaniel was sitting at the bar. He had been on the water the day before—and just getting out had done his psyche some good.
"Everybody's traumatized. Everybody's wondering where do we go from here," he said. The road to the marina had only opened six days before, and many locals had yet to clean out their homes and make plans for where they would live in the weeks ahead.
While few of the boats at the marina suffered much damage—folks had done what Austin had and parked their vessels on inland canals—the hurricanes had twisted and splintered many of marina's boat sheds.
But with the boats intact, business was sure to follow.
‘Today, we're seeing numerous amounts of boats—the shrimpers—that's a good sign," said McDaniel. "You have to be optimistic. Now all we have to do is pick up the pieces and move on."
A Lake off Limits
But it would be a while before Albert Pierre could move on. Two parishes to the west, in Terrebonne, brackish Lake Boudreaux—Pierre's favorite fishing ground—was still off limits.
"All of the inland waters, because of the hurricane, have pollutish water," said the Dulac shrimper. "The Board of Health don't want us trolling right now. I wouldn't eat the shrimp right now."
Despite the fact that hurricanes have flooded his house five times, he has no plans to give up the shrimping life or move away from the canal on which his boat, the Capt. Pierre, is docked. It bobs virtually in his backyard.
"We don't go past that red light. That's Yankee country," he said. "You cannot take a Cajun from down here and bring him up there to Yankee country. There's no water."
When the fishing is good, Pierre heads out daily, and by sticking to the inland waters, he is able to keep his fuel prices down. Nevertheless, the cost of a six-day expedition can be nearly $2,000 for fuel, ice, and groceries.
"You've got to catch $2,000 of shrimp—and then you come out ahead," he said.
These days, coming out ahead means being very sure the shrimp are there, said Bourgeois, the state fisheries biologist. Shrimpers can no longer afford just to go out and troll for their catch, hoping to stumble on something. Between 2000 and 2003, the total number of trips fishers made where they landed shrimp dropped from 123,000 a year to 77,000 a year.
"It illustrates to me that shrimpers have had to become more efficient," said Bourgeois, adding that he's optimistic that the industry will survive despite the recent turbulence. "We have a product that's hard to beat."
And one of the industries strongest assets is its hardy, multigenerational members.
"They are a people who know how to hustle," said Southern Mutual Help Association's Vinton. "They're hard workers. They have an instinct to survive, and find a way to do it."
