Text Box: Reporter’s Notebook Return to Grand Isle By KEN WELLS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL September 2, 2005 CAMINADA PASS, La. -- Trey Barthelemy and Michelle Boudloche have traveled about 80 miles from the north, inching along part of what the locals call the Longest Main Street in the World, to come to an abrupt halt at this odd place in the outer bands of misery of Hurricane Katrina. It's a surreal and discouraging tableau: battered and decapitated fishing camps; the twisted wreckage of what were once mobile homes; mounds of unrecognizable detritus; a bulldozer straining to push the wrecked frame of a 40-foot houseboat out of the mucky yard of a house whose façade was blown into the ether. A '60s-vintage red Mustang convertible, top down, sits in the front yard, filled with muck and marsh grass. It turns out it was once in a garage 50 feet away, but its next stop is the junk yard. Yet, amid this scene, there are dozens of camps that seem almost unscathed. A half hour before, a ferocious thunderstorm of the type so common that the natives pretty much ignore them had roared up out of the greening marshes and sent blinding rain sheeting across the road. But the storm went as fast as it came and now the sun has reappeared, beating down like a blow torch through stifling humidity and gleaming brightly off the surrounding wreckage. It's about 95 degrees -- a typical afternoon in the Cajun tropics -- and still as the moon. But three full days after Hurricane Katrina roared through here with vicious winds and scouring tides, this is not a typical day. Trey, 20 years old, and Michelle, 18, have abandoned the air-conditioned comfort of their white Hyundai Accent to take their place in a slow-moving line of evacuees trying, for the first time since Katrina blew through, to get to Grand Isle. The six-mile-long barrier island, 110 snaky miles by road south-southwest of New Orleans, is Louisiana's only true seaside resort, home to 1,500 permanent residents and as many as 12,000 who crowd in on the weekends to fish, party and sunbathe. Trey grew up on the island and the young couple has made it their home together for the past year, renting a small apartment mid-island across the road from the beach. But their homeward journey has hit a small snag. The mile-long, two-lane concrete bridge that connects the island to the marshy mainland has, in engineering parlance, "shifted." Or as sheriff deputy, in blue fatigue shorts and a sweat-drenched blue T-shirt, says, "The storm kicked its ass. The bridge is done. It's not safe to let cars across." Ahead in the distance, with heat devils dancing off the pavement, it's pretty easy to see what he means. Hundred-foot-long sections have been whacked badly out of alignment, heaved both vertically and laterally, so that the first third of the span looks like a spray of badly placed dominoes. There are two ways across: on foot or by hitching a ride on open metal trailers, of the kind that usually tote hay, pulled by four-wheel all-terrain-vehicles. We hitch a ride and groan and bump slowly across the bridge, the brown currents of Caminda Bay ripping on a falling tide below. Another souvenir of Katrina: the hulking cargo container of a 18-wheeler, "Food Barn" emblazoned across its side, lies battered where it was blown or pushed into the shallows a good 200 yards from shore. * * * We leave the trailer and walk for a bit, sweating as we go. Mosquitoes rise up from marsh grass. The beach front has been turned into a garbage dump by the storm tides. It's about three miles to the apartment, but we've been assured the fire department will come along at some point and offer us a ride. "We left early on Saturday," says Trey, "and went to Michelle's daddy's house in Schriever [80 miles west and north]. It was pretty easy to get out then." By Sunday, though, Louisiana Highway 1, two lanes crawling through a sprawling saltwater marsh before it connects with a four-lane highway 30 miles away, was a mess. At its highest, Grand Isle is five feet above sea level. Did people stay through the storm? "We heard there were six or seven," says Trey. "Some people said people got drowned. Who knows?" Drowning was certainly possible. The narrow island, in most places less than a half mile across, is a mess, and a testament that Katrina was a fickle monster. The weekend places here range from vintage beach shacks to mobile homes to grand cypress fish camps, jacked up on pilings cemented into slabs, with elaborate wrap-around screened porches. Virtually every mobile home is crushed like tin cans. About every third or fourth of the rest of the dwellings are wrecked beyond repair; in a few cases, only slabs or pilings remain. Based upon marsh grass and detritus draped on a few cars left behind, it looks like the island got swamped in tides four to eight feet deep. The winds and tides have made strange sculptures: a 20-foot fishing boat speared into a camp; a mile-long stretch of wooden utility poles tilted 30 degrees in perfect unison; a small white house, yanked from its moorings, perched perfectly on the iron rail of a bridge. Ten minutes later, a truck comes along and offers us a ride. We get in, happy for the air conditioning. "Hey, Trey," says the driver. "How's y'all's place?" "We don't know yet," he replies. We drive mostly in silence, Michelle occasionally pointing out the homes of people they know. Some are standing, some are gone. We get as far as the fire house. "Sorry," the driver says to Trey, "you've got to walk from here, partner." "I understand," says Trey. "No problem." It's another half mile to the Offshore Motel and Shady Lawn Resort, where the couple pays $500 a month for a tiny studio. Trey's a welder for a Grand Isle company that serves the oil field; Michelle's still in high school but works part time down the highway from their place as a checkout person at a supermarket. From a hundred yards away, the Offshore doesn't look too bad. It's a low-rise, white wooden building, attractive with its green trim and green-painted doors. But by the time we reach the tiny parking lot, we see things aren't right. The doors are all ajar, windows broken. "We're around the back," Trey says. The door is open to their place, and they step in. It's a shocking sight: water, mud, marsh grass; the refrigerator tumbled on its side; clothes, bedding and furniture knotted in a wet heap. The putrid smell of mildew permeates everything. "Oh, s---," says Trey. "Look at this." Michelle notices a watermark on the wall -- about four feet high. "Baby," she says, "look how high the water got." Trey nods and rummages around, looking for something to save. "Want a Pringle?" he says, coming up with a soggy can of potato chips. "We took a lot of stuff when we left, as much as the Accent would hold," says Michelle. "So it could be worse." They find a few other things and drag them out into the sweltering heat, laying them carefully on a dry piece of tin: Michelle's homecoming dress, draped in plastic; a tool kit; a large picture frame with a montage of the couple and their friends; a few small pictures of Michelle. "Look, the stereo's OK; we can take that, too," says Trey. They'd put it up on shelf and it had escaped the water. He brings it out then, seeing the growing pile, thinks better of it. "Aw, let's just leave it. We got too much to carry already. Who knows if we'll get a ride." Michelle thinks about this, then says, "No, all those people in the shelters who have come from New Orleans. They could use something like this." So off we go, the stereo in tow, hoping for ride. But we walk at least a mile before one comes along. Michelle drops her dress at one point, and a picture frame falls to the ground. "Leave it," she says. But it's a picture of Michelle, and Trey picks it up. "It ain't heavy," he says. Text Box:
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Trey and Michelle at  their wrecked studio apartment.

Photo © Ken Wells 2005
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