DALLAS MORNING NEWS (Texas) 03 October 05 In Vermilion Parish, they didn't wait for the cavalry; Cajuns roll up sleeves, hustle to save their lifeblood (Pete Slover) {Excerpts}
Pecan Island, Louisiana: The difference between land and water has always been a matter of inches here, in the marshes of Acadiana.
So, as Hurricane Rita turned homes into swamps, roads into waterways and fences into memories, the cattlemen and rice growers, oil workers and alligator farmers of Vermilion Parish didn't need government to tell them what to do: They launched rescue boats from front yards and high-water trucks to pull their neighbors to safety.
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Some of Mr. Granger's other concerns: the second crop of rice (largely ruined by saltwater), crawfish (probably OK) and alligators.
Late in the week, the agriculture agent arranged a badly needed 8,000-gallon shipment of fresh water to local farmer Raywood Stelly, who runs one of the largest alligator farms in the country.
Mr. Stelly's house was submerged and ruined. But his 36 corrugated gator sheds rode out the storm with about 43,000 gators locked inside – about $4.3 million worth of uninsured reptiles.
The water rose about four feet in some areas, enough to turn some of the cinderblock pools inside more brackish than normal.
And, with no electricity, there was no way to pump out all of the old water. Feeding was stopped to prevent poisoning the gators in their own waste. But, it appeared that most of the gators were alive. Lead lizard tender Lorie "Pizza" Miller, 43, sloshed through the darkened, oppressively hot sheds, pulling handfuls of escaped 12-inch baby gators out of a drain.
"It's close to home, and I love working outdoors," she said of mixing feed and working on Mr. Stelly's nearby crawfish farm, a job she's held since she was a teenager.
The reptile cleanup subtly demonstrated the economic interdependence of small-town Acadiana, not easily discoverable in more developed, homogenous communities. Splashing and grabbing alongside Ms. Miller was Ricky Verret, 47, whose usual occupation is not saving the critters, but expertly skinning and cleaning them to be sold for meat (about $5 a pound) and hides (about $30 a foot).
"These gators are what we are going to skin later," he said, laying out the calculus: no gators, no gator skinning. "We're protecting what we do."
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Cajuns roll up sleeves, hustle to save their lifeblood