Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous

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

By: Ken Wells / Narrated By: Chris Andrews

Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins

Not quite what I thought it was gonna be…

Okay, I thought Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous and the whole “fighting to save a way of life” was going to be sort of like what I’d thought Chesapeake Requiem was going to be. Sure, different political leaning from my own, yeah yeah yeah okay, but hopefully with less griping, whining, and judgmental jawing, and more about a way of life closer to the earth/water, a way of life I’d like to learn about.

Uhm… maybe… just a tad.

But thank GOD, there IS less griping, whining, etc. etc. as these seem to be a really good sort of people, hearty and more self-determined. And there IS a bit about the disappearing wetlands, but mostly it’s about the journeys of a few people throughout the disaster. A bit before; a bit during; a bit after. There are many threads that run throughout, and while I was really disappointed that the book didn’t teach me much about the lives of those shrimping and harvesting oyster beds, I did wind up caring somewhat about the people featured.

Good Pirates opens with how a few families chose to ride out the storm in St. Bernard Parish, where the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over the eastern portion. Whether they chose to ride it out on land, or they chose to hunker down on the water, the writing is pretty stellar in capturing Katrina’s fury. (One man, Charlo, later goes on to testify in insurance claims that it wasn’t the flooding—they could get outta paying for those claims without flood insurance—but the tremendous winds that stripped houses bare and flung them from their foundations).

Though New Orleans proper gets most of the press, St. Bernard Parish was utterly wiped out too. Almost every structure was damaged or outright demolished, the flood waters that surged in were later kept trapped and standing by the levee areas that remained undamaged. Oil spills, especially in Chalmette, added to the toxins poisoning the land (And never forget the picture of Oily Dog—the abandoned pup covered in oil who was photographed then left… there was a huuuuge effort to find him later!)

Oops… Did I veer into animal rescue again? I can’t help it!

Anywho…

The book tells of the survivors, the cousins Ricky and Ronald, the brave Charlo, a few others, and the will to survive in the aftermath, trekking through devastation and dodging alligators, diving for the odd can of unopened food that miiiiight be underwater, sheltering in what remained standing of a firehouse. And basically, they did it all alone. Though those in power desperately sought assistance from outside, those living through it out in the open, pretty much felt they were all alone and pulled together when they met up, trying to find dry land. Or even just trying to find shoes to protect feet left bare by the power of rampaging tidal surges.

It also tells of survivors’ efforts to stay in the Parish, to stay near their homes, clean up, reclaim their lives. As author Ken Wells is a son of the bayous, he writes about this all with great fondness, great respect for each of them. Narrator Chris Andrews kinda reminds me of narrator Kirsten Potter (Who narrated Five Days at Memorial for this Katrina Remembrance) in that he has the tones of a documentarian—not heavy on what coooould be hard-hitting emotionalism, but not flat and boring with his delivery either.

What killed me was that they all went through so much. And THEN a family leaves their dogs at a school since rescuers wouldn’t let them be taken, and all I could think was : NOT Sebastien Roy Elementary! as animals left there and at St. Bernard High School and at Beauregard Middle School were massacred by Sheriff’s deputies. After all they went through, the family had to deal with THAT also.

Oops… Did I veer into animal rescue again? I can’t help it!

But Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous is a story about trauma. Thank GOD it’s a story about hope and resilience also!!!