Community

Just Doing It

"If we waited for politicians, the harbor master, or the city or the Feds to clean up… well that's what you have right now, nothing. Just a bunch of devastated boats and houses."

In yet another example of the painfully slow recovery for New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, nine months after Hurricane Katrina blasted ashore, the marinas and parks along New Orleans' lakeshore look almost exactly the same as they did the day after the storm: filled with ravaged, sunken boats and with boats littered along the roadways.

But the local sailing community is done with that. Tired of sitting in the yacht club's bars that finally stopped running off of generator power in late April and having to look out on the foundered boats throughout the marinas or disturbed by having to dodge sunken sailboats and powerboats as they head out to race, a group has taken it upon themselves to clear the channels.

Using borrowed truck tire inner tubes and inflatable racing marks, last weekend they endeavored to raise the first of what they hope are many of these boats, most of which are ticking environmental time bombs with diesel, oil and other chemicals onboard.

The first day's work was mostly a fine-tuning of the process as no one in the group had ever attempted this before. Besides the disturbing discovery that most of these boats have become enormous crabtraps and are filled with a foot of mung, there were some positives. They did somewhat succeed in loosening the first sailboat from the clutches of the thick lake mud and also quickly discovered that they had a ready supply of tire tube necks from the flooded out vehicles that rest under sailboats in the street.

Undaunted by not being able to raise this first boat on the first go around, these average citizens will be out again in force in the coming weeks trying to salvage some semblance of civilization from the rubble.

"With the way things are going, we just hope that we don't have to go out there and rebuild our damn levees using our garden shovels."

Note: All quotes from the group are anonymous as they wished. All pictures are from last week.

Troy Gilbert

05/31/06