NEW ORLEANS -- The impact of Hurricane Rita had retailers last week wondering how they would be able to source oysters, shrimp, crawfish and other popular Gulf seafood items.
Even as federal and local agencies began assessing the state of the area's seafood supply, Hurricane Rita struck and dashed the hopes of retailers and others in the industry who had felt optimistic after Hurricane Katrina.
For instance, oyster beds on Louisiana's western shores and the Texas coast had not been affected by Katrina, nor had shrimping operations in that area. Yet the arrival of Rita changed that.
Right after Katrina, in a surge of optimism, retailers and processors told SN they believed recovery of the Gulf's fishing industry would be quick. Shrimpers promptly returned to their boats to catch white shrimp in the open ocean and processors made arrangements to get back in business, even those that took a direct hit. Indeed, one shrimp processor/packer in Biloxi, Miss., had his processing plant destroyed by Katrina. But he partnered with another processor further inland and was back in business before Rita landed.
Officials at Rouse Supermarkets, Thibodaux, La., meanwhile said they did not expect much of a dip in supply because the western shore of Louisiana and the Texas Gulf coast could provide the Gulf seafood they needed.
But that was before Rita hit. Flooding, power losses, damage to the infrastructure and fuel shortages were taking their toll.
"Fishing boats have been pushed up on the land," said Jim Gossen, president of Louisiana Foods, a Houston-based wholesaler and processor. "A levee broke on Grand Isle Saturday, sending water from the Gulf right across to the bay. There's at least three feet of water. And now there's flooding in areas south of New Orleans where there hadn't been any before. Even if shrimp boats go out, you can't unload them without electricity."
While Louisiana Foods, with its processing plant in Houston, had no significant power loss, it was processing at just 30% of its normal level.
"We didn't want to get caught with a lot of product in the pipeline when this storm [Hurricane Rita] struck," Gossen said. "So we didn't bring a lot of product in. In fact we took four tractor-trailer loads of frozen product out of here to another location. Our biggest problem right now is that we can't find any diesel fuel."
After Katrina, some shrimp boats were going out, but most fishing operations in Louisiana were down, if not closed by the first hurricane, then by Rita. Processors said they hadn't received any seafood from the Louisiana part of the Gulf since before Katrina.
Oysters have taken the biggest hit. They require brackish water -- a mixture of salt and fresh water -- and they can also literally be smothered by silt in the first wave of a hurricane.
"As far as I know, all oyster beds on the Gulf Coast are shut down now. The biggest impact will be on oysters, and crab may be tight for a while," Scott Gosnell, sales representative at Louisiana Seafood, Baton Rouge, told SN last week.
"We're getting some Gulf seafood [mostly finfish] from Miami, and product from other areas," Gosnell said.
After Katrina struck, Rouse Supermarkets' meat and seafood director Charles Hamblen said Rouse had been confident it would get enough crawfish and crawfish tails from the western shore and the Texas coast when the season comes in later in the fall. However, Rita's impact has made even that uncertain.
