“Fishing on the bridge with my grandkids catching fish. When we were like 7 years old my daddy took us to Grand Isle in a 1956 Volkswagen bus. We slept in a tent and a tide came up in the middle of the night and soaked the tent. Sand everywhere! It was probably 1965, that was a memory!”

“Camps. The camp owners lost. I’m thinking 50 percent destroyed or partially destroyed from Hurricane Ida. On the street we are on there were 10 camps. On the street across there were 10 camps. All the camps are gone. 100-year-old camps are gone. There is only one left and it is ours. We built it again after Katrina to match all of the requirements. Every camp is gone. The 10-foot surge and tidal waves took out almost every old camp that was not built to the requirements. I’m sure that’s why we made it. We are on the Cheniere before the bridge. You saw all the pictures like “Alright…ok…it’s bad…it looks bad,” but when you go down there and you look at the structures, it’s overwhelming… it’s gone.”

“I think the future of Grand Isle is ‘build back better’. It is a barrier island which protects everything north of it. They will rebuild. They will rebuild the sand dunes, rebuild with rocks.
If you lose Grand Isle we will have water here in Paradis. Grand Isle ain’t going anywhere. Fishing, tourism, camping, it will come back bigger and better.”