Looking into the future the Pelican feeding its young from a self-induced wound in its own breast (as depicted, mysteriously, on the state flag of Louisiana) is accepted as an appropriate symbol of both self-sacrifice and rebirth. Through his selfless efforts, man is raised from the slavery of ignorance to the condition of freedom conferred by wisdom. Given the current state of affairs in Louisiana, one hopes that the understanding of the Pelican as a symbol shall point the way towards a new consciousness of ourselves as a whole, and lead us to face our futures with strength, grace, wisdom and faith, to learn from our mistakes and carry our successes and zest for living to future generations.

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Images of the Destruction in Eden Isles Subdivision Caused by Hurricane Katrina

“When I was a young boy, this tract was full of wild ducks and poule d’eau. In the fall, the Mire Brothers (JuJu, Jimmy and Tommy Mire) and I would ride our ponies (Little Joe and Dan) to the end of Howze Beach Road to watch thousands of wild migrating Dos-gris, teal, pintails, land into Grand Lagoon. It was beautiful and spectacular.”

Many times before going fishing into Lake Pontchartrain we would throw our shrimp nets into what is now Eden Isle. We would catch a hundred or more wild shrimp in a short time. Then use these live shrimp for bait to catch large speckle trout. If we decided not to catch shrimp, we could always purchase a hundred shrimp for one cent each at Tykes Place.

Tykes Place also rented skiffs for one dollar and fifty cents a day. Sometimes we would rent a skiff attaching my 18 horsepower Mercury outboard motor to its stern and fish for speckled trout with the live shrimp we had bought.

I had saved up for the outboard motor by selling sno-balls. The Mire brothers and I would hitch up Little Joe to a wagon. We then would travel to the icehouse, and pick up a fifty-pound block of ice. We would scrape the ice off the block with a hand sno-ball scraper. The Mire family owned Mire’s Hardware store and they let us sell our hand-made sno-balls out front of their place.

Below are pictures of the Eden Isles Subdivision taken a month after hurricane Katrina roared through. SOWL has litigated several times in the past against the developement of this subdivision which is smack dab in the middle of a hurricane tidal surge pathway.

The pictures below are of a canal in the Eden Isles subdivision. These canals were illegally dredged without a permit. Dredging canals in a hurricane tidal surge pathway allowed the storm surge to penetrate deeper inland.

The next set of pictures are of the damage caused by hurricane Katrina in Eden Isles subdivision off of Highway 11.

From these pictures below one can imagine how the Eden Isles area looked before it was developed into a subdivision. This thesis written by a Louisiana State University student in 1951 is an excellent window into the past. The reader can imagine the pristine fragile existance of the lakes habitat before the pollutants of the late 1960's and early 1970's turned Lake Pontchartrain into a hazardous-poisonous body of water for both man and creature. The details of water salinity levels and the hydrology of the area (North Shore St. Tammany Parish) given by the writer are important examples that show the precarious balance and sensitivy of this estuarine.