 "Photo: Julie Ann Sanchez")
PORT SULPHUR, LA. - The destruction here is complete and brutal.
Heaps of splintered wood, knotted clothes and tangled metal mark where people lived.
John Dove, 32, was raised in Port Sulphur. Dove was shocked when he returned in November.
"You had to look real hard to recognize your land," Dove said. He now lives in a FEMA trailer with few remnants of his life before Katrina.
Everything in Port Sulphur seems coated with hay, a few feet deep in some places.
"It's marsh grass washed in from the surrounding bayou," explained Nash Roberts, a meteorologist, biologist and fishing guide.
Those three skills come in handy while navigating the waters around Port Sulphur for fish.
Roberts left the dock at 7 a.m. on Dec. 29 where his fishing cottage used to sit. Hurricane Katrina washed it into the man-made bayou where he launches his boat.
Pathology Professor Don Boudreau of Louisiana State University chartered Roberts for the annual fishing trip he enjoys with his son and grandchildren.
The group returned to base just after noon with a stunning catch. Twenty-five red drum fish shimmered in the crisp afternoon air.
"It's an exceptional catch for their size," Roberts said.
As he prepared an area to clean the fish, Roberts said the biggest change is erosion and the lack of wildlife.
"Hurricane Katrina caused more erosion in one day than would be expected in 50 years," Roberts said.
Hurricane Katrina increased the width of waterways by more than a third.
The Gulf Coast has receded in some areas more than a quarter of a mile, he said.
He was surprised most by the vastness of the destruction. An area the size of Great Britain was damaged.
"No inhabitable structures were left within 40 miles of Port Sulphur," he said.
Roberts used an electric converter from his pickup truck to power an electric knife to fillet the morning catch.
He is disappointed by the slow pace at which infrastructure is being restored. He doesn't expect electricity in the area until after April when he will start rebuilding his fishing lodge.
The whirring of the knife excited a group of nearby pelicans waiting for his return for more than an hour. He filleted a fish with expert hands and tossed the leftovers to the hungry birds.
Happy Jack, the mile-long stretch of fishing cottages where Roberts launches his fishing charters, was the least affected area in Port Sulphur.
Katrina landed east of Happy Jack.
"Water here lowered, and was higher to the east of that water tower," Roberts said, pointing to a pale blue oblong tank sitting on stilts less than 10 miles away.
Water pushed forward by Hurricane Katrina overpowered Port Sulphur's levee system.
"The levees erected in the 1930s to protect Port Sulphur from tides worked against it," Roberts said.
Hurricane Katrina's storm surge topped the levees and poured destruction into the town of 3,200.
After Roberts finished cleaning the morning catch, he boarded his boat again.
Happy Jack Canal is a man-made waterway about 3 feet deep. It connects the fishing community to Grand Bayou, a waterway that leads to the Gulf of Mexico 18 miles away.
As Roberts throttled the engine, he pointed out patches of dead live oak that thrived before levees were erected. The levees keep fresh water out of the bayou.
Salt water slips in from the Gulf of Mexico making it a salt marsh.
Roberts pointed to an area that used to hold several small fishing camps built on stilts. Only the stilts remain.
"Everything had to be hauled in by boat," Roberts shouted over the roar of the engine. He guessed the camps would not be rebuilt.
Debris lay on the marsh at every turn. A tractor-trailer rested against a distant line of trees. A powerboat was marooned on the banks of the marsh.
"It'll probably be there until the next hurricane puts it somewhere else," Roberts said dryly.
Roberts is concerned about mammals that used to forage the banks of the bayou.
"When the tide is low, you used to see mink, otter, muskrat, raccoons, nutria and coyotes on the marsh edge," Roberts said. "In a day, you'd see 50 raccoons. Now you're lucky if you see one or two."
The changed environment has some benefits.
More areas are now accessible by boat than before. The new shape of the land makes good habitat for fish hatcheries.
"During a hurricane, fish stay in the same place, probably staying low in the water column," Roberts said.
When he came back to fish two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, the fish were exactly where Roberts expected them to be.
Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of Louisiana's fishing industries. There are no places to live. Most boats were lost or damaged. There are no marinas and few places from which to launch boats.
"There are more than 400,000 fishing licenses granted every year, but no one can go fishing," Roberts said.
Less fishing pressure means abundant sea life.
"The fishing right now is fabulous," Roberts said.
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