The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous; Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

by Ken Wells

• ISBN13: 9780300121520
• ISBN10: 0300121520
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2008-09-02
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

With a long and colorful family history of defying storms, the seafaring Robin cousins of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, make a fateful decision to ride out Hurricane Katrina on their hand-built fishing boats in a sheltered Civil Warera harbor called Violet Canal. But when Violet is overrun by killer surges, the Robins must summon all their courage, seamanship, and cunning to save themselves and the scores of others suddenly cast into their care. In this gripping saga, Louisiana native Ken Wells provides a close-up look at the harrowing experiences in the backwaters of New Orleans during and after Katrina. Focusing on the plight of the intrepid Robin family, whose members trace their local roots to before the American Revolution, Wells recounts the landfall of the storm and the tumultuous seventy-two hours afterward, when the Robins' beloved bayou country lay catastrophically flooded and all but forgotten by outside authorities as the world focused its attention on New Orleans. Wells follows his characters for more than two years as they strive, amid mind-boggling wreckage and governmental fecklessness, to rebuild their shattered lives. This is a story about the deep longing for home and a proud bayou people's love of the fertile but imperiled low country that has nourished them.

Author Biography

Ken Wells is a senior editor and writer for Condé Nast Portfolio magazine, as well as the author of Crawfish Mountain and the Catahoula Bayou trilogy. During his career as a journalist he has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a writer and features editor for the front page of the Wall Street Journal. He lives in the suburbs of New York City.

Table of Contents

Map of the St. Bernard Parish region
Prologue	p. 1
The Storm
A Monster Cometh	p. 11
Ricky at the Helm	p. 13
Ronald on the Invincible Vance	p. 19
Susan Robin Goes for a Drive	p. 26
Stormy Traditions	p. 33
Cajun-Spanish Roots and Pirate Connections	p. 37
Charlo's Dawn	p. 49
Matine's Dilemma	p. 56
Ricky's Ark	p. 69
Charlo Adrift	p. 83
The Human Tide	p. 87
Charlo in Limbo	p. 97
Herbie and Mike's Strange Adventure	p. 101
The Long March	p. 108
Cruel Tuesday	p. 113
A Day of Reckoning	p. 126
Aftermath
Nine Days Beyond the Flood	p. 135
The Imperfect Storm: Anatomy of a Not Altogether Natural Disaster	p. 146
Pioneers in the Rubble	p. 162
Dancing with Boats	p. 179
A Short Journey of Hope	p. 193
Hard Realities of the "Federal Storm"	p. 199
The Toll upon the Land: The MR-GO Must Go	p. 208
Epilogue: South Toward Home	p. 217
Notes on Sources	p. 235
Acknowledgments	p. 243
About the Author	p. 245
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.