Before Katrina, heaven was as close as the back porch for Tony and Edith Nata. With a wood-frame house on stilts over Lake Pontchartrain, the couple fished without ever leaving home. Louisiana lived up to its "Sportsman's Paradise" nickname every day at sunset.
SLIDELL, La. — Before Katrina, heaven was as close as the back porch for Tony and Edith Nata. With a wood-frame house on stilts over Lake Pontchartrain, the couple fished without ever leaving home. Louisiana lived up to its "Sportsman's Paradise" nickname every day at sunset.
Sadly, paradise got lost somewhere amid the docks, marinas and hunting lands destroyed last month by the monster hurricane.
While a nation debates what happened across the lake in New Orleans and trucks haul entire neighborhoods to the dump in Mississippi, thousands are mourning the loss of a quieter side of life on the coast. The region's fishing, boating and hunting industries were wiped out by the storm, and no one is sure when they will recover.
The loss was too much for Edith Nata to consider as she sat by a travel trailer parked where her home once hovered over the water northeast of New Orleans.
"This was our life. We loved fishing and going out in our boat. Now, it's all gone," she said.
Experts are assessing the environmental damage from Katrina, which barreled through freshwater and brackish marshes in southeastern Louisiana and laced them with salt water. The Coast Guard estimates Katrina may have spilled more than 7 million gallons of petroleum in the area.
Hurricane Rita compounded problems when it slammed into the western side of Louisiana, which had escaped the worst of Katrina. Throughout the southern end of the state, docks were splintered, marinas were leveled and boats were sent to the bottom.
"Now the entire state has been hit," said John Roussel, an assistant secretary with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Things aren't much better in Mississippi, where boats were thrown across roads and bayou canals are filled with cars, homes and pine trees tossed around by Katrina.
Even if all the fish, deer and other wildlife survived -- which wildlife experts say is impossible -- people can't get to the water or woods to enjoy two of the great pleasures of the rural Deep South: hunting and fishing.
Most boat ramps are blocked or covered with debris. Downed trees crisscross dirt roads and paths in forests, meaning hunters will have a hard time getting into the woods for hunting season.
State officials in Louisiana have banned deer and rabbit hunting in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes because of hurricane damage in the woods, and delayed the opening of alligator season because of the destruction of processing plants and the unknown number of gators killed by the storm.
"The most profound impact of the storm was on the fishing infrastructure," said Todd Masson, editor of Louisiana Sportsman magazine. "(Also) there's so much down timber that you can't walk 50 feet without stepping over a tree."
Even a temporary loss of the outdoor industry will hurt a state that had an unemployment rate before the hurricanes of 5.8 percent, above the national average. Post-storm jobless rates in coastal Louisiana and Mississippi could exceed 20 percent, according to government estimates.
Part of that high unemployment rate could be tied to the loss of outdoor sports, officials say. Fishing, hunting and boating had a total economic impact of $7.1 billion and accounted for 77,690 jobs in Louisiana in 2003, according to state estimates released this summer.
Commercial fishing was the biggest piece of the pie, accounting for nearly 30,000 jobs and $294 million in sales. Sport fishing generated $895 million in retail sales in 2004, according to the state, and supported 17,000 jobs.
Wildlife losses from Katrina and Rita are virtually impossible to calculate until people can get into the woods to survey the damage. But Roussel said the state lost $1.3 billion worth of the fish harvest because of Katrina alone.
"And Rita picked up where Katrina left off," he said.
In Slidell, Tony Plescia's Angler Marine boat store made it through Hurricane Camille in 1969. But Katrina brought five feet of floodwater from Lake Pontchartrain into his showroom, ruining his stock of motors, parts and boats.
Typically after a storm, fishing is better in part because fewer anglers than normal are out, allowing fish populations to swell. But no one is sure what to expect after Katrina because of the salt water inundation and debris.
On top of the uncertainty over the environment, Plescia said the loss of thousands of residents from New Orleans could kill the market for new boats, fishing gear and other supplies.
"If they don't get things straightened out over there, I don't know what's going to happen," he said.
Source: Associated Press
