Katrina's forgotten victims

At the six month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the largest slice of national media coverage went to New Orleans, just as it did during the hurricane's aftermath. To the frustration of Magnolia State residents and to the shame of parachuting media types who invariably go for the easiest story, Mississippi is a distant second in terms of news coverage, both then and now.
(For a collection of out-of-the-ordinary stories on the hurricane's toll look here. I recently toured the Gulf Coast with these editorial writers.)

However, there is one Katrina story in Alabama that has been ignored by the big news outlets. In Bayou La Batre, a small coastal town in Alabama that is heavily dependent on the fishing industry, 23 shrimp boats remain grounded. (Click here for a photo.) The reason those boats remain on land while the government has removed hundreds of others from Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana is a frustrating tale that once more points a finger of blame at the federal government.

After the boats were grounded and the storm had passed,local officials decided the best plan would be to remove the gas and oil from the vessels. It turns out that ecologically friendly move landed local shrimpers in bureaucratic hell.

The feds won't pay to get the boats back to water because - get this - they no longer pose an environmental threat. Yes, we know that, the locals say, we're the ones who removed the threat before it could pollute anything.

These stranded boats represent jobs. Shrimpers are getting increasingly frustrated. One told a reporter from The Anniston Star, "You sit there and you see multi-million-dollar recovery projects going on in Pakistan and Iraq and Indonesia and you think, 'If they can do that over there, why can’t they do it here?' "

You can read more about their plight here. (Warning: You'll have to either subscribe or sign-up for a day pass to read the story.)