Lester, my Acadian friend sent this letter. I'm not sure how it fits into the hunnerd dollah laptops for po' folks model of world changing intentions, but it's poignant and it resolves one of my questions regarding the recent bad weather. Avery Island survived with little damage...
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Dear Friends,

A few years ago my wife and I, my son Lucas, and her daughter Jody, spent part of our vacation in Holly Beach, Louisiana. It's fondly known in south Louisiana as the Cajun Riviera, and to reach it one drives south from Lake Charles across miles and miles of marshland populated by waterfowl, nutria, and alligators. There wasn't much to it--a few rows of houses and cabins raised up off the beach on on pilings made of telephone poles, a few trailers, a little store and gift shop, a seafood wholesaler, the water tower. The year-round population was only about 175. The beach was a rather dark-colored sand and the Gulf waters were far from clear--they were sort of muddy, actually. But that didn't keep us from enjoying the beach and the surf. Lucas, who is blind, was bothered a bit. It was hard to get him out of it. We stayed overnight in a "resort"--a few trailers owned by a family who lived in one of them, and a couple of mature fig trees with delicious fresh figs ripening on them. One of the children had a chronic illness, and my general impression of the family was that they had a hard time making ends meet.

Holly Beach was Ground Zero for Hurricane Rita. Nothing is left of the town but the water tower. A few miles to the northeast, the town of Cameron was also devastated. Hurricane Audrey killed 600 people in Cameron Parish in 1957. Rita killed few people, but did more damage. No structure was untouched, and fishing boats were washed up onto the streets. The city of Lake Charles and the small towns of Hackberry, Johnson Bayou, Creole, Pecan Island, and Erath, suffered the same sort of damage. If the winds did not shatter the homes and businesses, the storm surge carried them away. Mobile homes, refrigerators, and wreckage dot the marshes. The storm had no respect for the dead, either; above-ground tombs and mausoleums were destroyed and corpses and coffins were seen floating in flood. The floors of buildings that remain are covered with mud and marsh grass; mold as thick as moss is growing on the walls. 6000 homes in all were destroyed in the area south of the Intracoastal Waterway, home to 10,000 people.

The main industries in this region are fishing, ranching, and the petroleum industry. I remember visiting the shrimp fishing port of Delcambre when I was a child, to be present at the annual "blessing of the fleet." Delcambre was hit hard. Some shrimp boats weathered the storm, but the hurricane demolished wholesalers all along the coast--there's no one to buy the shrimp. Thousands of cattle drowned, and ranchers on horseback are trying to round up the surviving herds and move them to pasture on higher ground. Dozens of oil well platforms in the Gulf were sunk, and all of them are currently out of production. The economy is a shambles.

[img_assist|fid=31|thumb=0|alt=Tabasco] One business that survived is the McIlhenny Company, which manufactures Tabasco sauce and is headquartered on Avery Island. Avery Island is not really an island--it's located on a salt dome that rises about the marsh and is the highest spot on the Gulf coast between Brownsville, Texas and Key Largo, Florida. They had enough sauce on hand to resume bottling as soon as power was restored, but the homes of many employees near Avery Island were destroyed by Rita, after the homes of others located in New Orleans were destroyed by Katrina.

The survivors of Rita have been as scattered as the Katrina survivors were. Shelters that had closed have been reopened, and the inhabitants of other shelters were sent further north to make room for the newly dispossessed. The Cajundome in Lafayette is full again. More than 20,000 people have ended up in Lafayette Parish. There are still 3000-4000 The shelter in Mamou, emptied out a couple of weeks ago, is full again with 140 guests from south Louisiana. This time, at least, the Red Cross showed up, but when I spoke to shelter director Lisa(?) Soileau, she requested funds to buy food. She wanted to cook the survivors a hot meal of gumbo or jambalaya to break the routine of MREs. The Ville Platte shelter was to reopen today. Katrina survivors staying in Chicot State Park were evacuated before Rita; I have no news yet of where they will go.

FEMA has offered to move mobile homes for the survivors into Ville Platte and Opelousas. Ville Platte has accepted the offer; Opelousas leaders are still thinking about it. Though these small towns were generous with immediate aid, welcoming survivors in the aftermath of Katrina and caring for them on their own without the aid of the Red Cross or FEMA, many residents worry about what will happen in the long run. These towns are not wealthy. Many poor or jobless people live there already. The tax base is already strained. They fear that big city problems might come along with the people from the big city.

In the mean time, the survivors and the locals helping to feed and house them are grateful for our contributions of money...

Lester