Pecan Island recovering slowly
Some residents vow never to go; others won’t be back
By RICHARD BURGESS -- Acadiana bureau
Published: May 11, 2006
Pecan Island resident Neil Bourque saws lumber Wednesday as he builds a new house. Bourque's former home was swept off its foundation by Hurricane Rita in September. Bourque is taking on the home-construction task largely by himself.
PECAN ISLAND — Garland Winch can remember when Hurricane Audrey plowed through this tiny Vermilion Parish community in 1957.
The 74-year-old can also remember a time when groceries, mail and visitors came only on a boat that made the trip every day except Sunday.
He was born and raised in a house next to his own, and despite Hurricane Rita or the prospect of another storm, he has faith that Pecan Island will survive. “They said after Hurricane Audrey it would never be the same, but it came back and got better,” Winch said. “It’ll come back. Just give it time.”
Pecan Island rests on a ridge that pushes out of the marsh about 6 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. When Hurricane Rita struck southwestern Louisiana on Sept. 23-24, the storm pushed an estimated 10-foot surge of water over this community, twisting mobile homes around trees and tossing houses off their foundations into the marsh.
Winch said he was lucky. His home is still standing, and he was able to return about a month after Rita.
Most residents were not as fortunate, and only a fraction of the homes are livable.
Some houses have been demolished or await demolition. Others remain in the marsh where Rita left them.
Only one of the two stores in town has reopened, and the Vermilion Parish School Board closed the Pecan Island School earlier this year, less because of damage than because of the small student population — about 50 before the storm and fewer afterward.
But there are signs of life.
Residents have come together to clean the community graveyard and fix up the churches.
A mobile home has been brought in to replace the community’s only lounge, the Coastal Bar.
Travel trailers are slowly beginning to fill lots while residents work to rebuild, most choosing to elevate their new homes several feet off the ground.
Neil Bourque worked Wednesday to finish up the walk-around deck on what he hopes to call home by next year. The large creosote poles he set to support the new home rise 7 feet. “I was 20 years younger when I built the other one. This one is harder,” said Bourque, 49, an oilfield electronics technician.
Bourque is building 4 miles down the road from his first home, which remains pushed up against a tree that stopped the home from washing into the marsh. He had hoped to hire the construction job out, but considering the price and the wait for good carpenters in the wake of the hurricanes, he opted to do the work himself with the help of family. He and his wife are living with his father-in-law, Winch, until the new house is ready.
Bourque estimated that more than half of the community will eventually return. “A lot of people said they weren’t coming back,” he said.
The younger generation, those with children, may not want to return to an area where the nearest school is more than 20 miles away. Bourque said many of the young people most likely would have left anyway. “They didn’t want to be here before the storm. They want to go to Wal-Mart every minute,” Bourque said. “… I like the peace and quiet.”
Some residents are choosing to sell their land for what appears to be an increasing number of hunting camps taking shape in the area, for its waterfowl. “You can’t find property for sale,” Winch said. “There are probably as many camps as residents.”
Betty Broussard said she can’t conceive of coming back after the storm. “I lost my home, like many others,” she said, sitting at a table in the only store open in Pecan Island — The Pecan Island Food Store.
Broussard once worked there as a rural postal clerk. At 69, she is starting over, living with her daughter in Lafayette while waiting for a rent house in Abbeville. Broussard, who had made the trip back to Pecan Island on Wednesday to buy some shrimp and visit, said “city life” in Lafayette leaves much to be desired. “It’s not like here,” she said.
Despite her love for the area, Broussard said, she has trouble even visiting a community that remains tattered. “I’m 69 years old, and I’m sure not coming back,” she said.
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