by
NARRATION 1
Here's what Venice looks like today: flattened houses, fishing boats tossed onto embankments, downed phone lines, and coffins, churned up out of the graveyard and thrown yards away from their original resting places.
Town councilman Joseph Clark spoke to a contractor who was having problems moving debris because his tractor was sliding in the mud.
AX1-Joseph Clark and worker
Joe: "Go ahead. What's your problem?"
Worker: "We got problems out here."
Joe: "Can we do it without bad words?"
Worker: "What are we going to do about the Melon road?"
NARRATION 2
Clark says clean up is only just starting here. That may be because Venice feels like the end of the earth. If you drive as far south as you can from New Orleans you wind up in this town.
AX2-Joseph Clark
"Geographically you're coming down the river. // You start up on the upper and you work your way down. And we're like 70 miles down. That's why they're just getting here now."
NARRATION 3 (bulldozer low and under)
Most yards are still strewn with debris -- ROOVES, wooden planks, wrecked furniture, children's toys, and appliances. Cars rest at odd angles on the mounds of rubble. On this March afternoon, only two or three bulldozers were busy pushing debris to the side of the road.
AMB1-debris removal
Most people who lived in Venice before the storm came back to salvage whatever they could from the wreckage, but they didn't stay. They settled further north in Plaquemines Parish where houses are still standing. Clark estimates that 4,000 people lived in Venice before Katrina. Now only about 40 do.
Dale Scarabin, his wife, and their five children were among the first ones to come back in October. There was nothing left on their property but two roBUST palm trees, and the floor of Dale's boat repair shop. Dale built a shack on that floor and that's where he and his family lived for seven months: five kids, no electricity, and no hot water. He says that since the school in Venice hasn't re-opened, it means the children hang around all day.
AX3-Dale Scarabin
"No school since the storm.// Now there's a school in Belle Chase. But it's just so far. We're talking 60 miles away. There's no way I can afford the gas everyday to run back and forth to get them to school and back home everyday.// I hate to see my children not being in school, because it's putting them behind."
NARRATION 4
But that hasn't the hardest part according to his wife, Rodelle. No grocery store has re-opened in Venice since the storm, so she constantly worries about running out of milk for the children.
AX4-Rodelle Scarabin
"The only thing you can get down here is gas, beer, cigarettes and coke."
NARRATION 5
The story with groceries is the same as the story with school. The nearest store is 60 miles away - gas prices are high, and so Rodelle can only afford to make the trip twice a week. When she forgets something, or runs out of food for the kids, she has to rely on her relatives. For example she calls her mother on a walkie-talkie cell phone to put in an order.
AX5-Rodelle Scarabin and mom on phone
Mom: "Beans and the mash potatoes. Extra beans?"
Rodelle: "Yep. And a dozen of biscuit. I want an extra dozen of biscuits and an extra thing of red bean and rice."
Mom: "All right."
Rodelle: "All right."
NARRATION 6
Rodelle can't keep enough food in the house because the fridge is tiny -- the kind you see in hotel rooms. About a month ago, the family moved out of the makeshift shed and into a small mobile home they borrowed from friends. But it's really not big enough. So they're eagerly awaiting the larger trailer that federal authorities have promised them.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has already delivered 3,000 trailers to the parish. But as long as there's no power, sewage and water, the agency can't release any more. That's according to Leo Skinner, a FEMA public affairs officer in New Orleans.
AX6-Leo Skinner
"People feel that they're not getting the kind of attention because their individual homes are still damaged, and they can't get into a trailer. // But this disaster is none like you've ever seen before.// Things just take time."
NARRATION 7
The 3,000 families already living in FEMA trailers wonder whether they will withstand the next big hurricane.
Skinner says they won't. He says FEMA's main preparation for the coming hurricane season is to plan for an evacuation.
AX7-Leo Skinner
"We have encouraged those people who live in FEMA travel trailers if they feel threatened by the wind or by the storms, they need to find other shelter. And that could be in their damaged home, in a local church, in a school. And if they need to evacuate, they need to do that as well."
NARRATION 8
People in Venice also wonder whether the levees that protect the town from the Mississippi River are up to the challenge of the next major storm. After Katrina, the hurricane surge rolled right over the levees, and flooded Venice with 14 feet of water.
Army Corps of Engineers workers are fortifying the levees in town. Mark Gonsky, a project manager, says the restored levees STILL won't be able to resist a category five hurricane like Katrina.
AX8-Mark Gonsky
"The game plan here is for us to bring the levees back to pre-Katrina. That's what Congress has authorized us to do. And it will be done by the 1 June deadline, which is the beginning of this hurricane season."
NARRATION 9 (Marina AMB down and under)
Fishermen down at the Venice Marina aren't planning for hurricane season because it coincides with shrimp season -- and that's when they earn most of their money. Venice is one of the country's most productive fisheries. Shrimp, oysters, and snapper are pulled easily from the water. But Katrina wrecked the docks, picked up hundreds of boats, and stranded them miles in land.
Fisherman Berlin Moreau Junior says it's tough for him and his colleagues to earn a living.
AX9-Berlin Moreau Junior
"A lot of people is out of business. And a lot of people ain't got the money to fix their boats or get another boat to go back fishing. It's hard."
AMB: Moreau's catch of the day.
NARRATION 10
Moreau says the destruction in Venice is so vast, he's afraid the town won't get re-built in his lifetime.
AX10-Berlin Moreau Junior
"I'll probably never see it up like it was again. No matter how long I live. I won't see it like it was."
NARRATION 11
Town councilman Joseph Clark says it may not make sense for residents to move back.
AX11-Jospeh Clark
"Do you wanna go through this? Do you wanna spend this much money? // Maybe move. Something a little more sturdy, a little further away. // Plus we're waiting for FEMA to give us guidelines. Can we build back like we are?"
NARRATION 12
FEMA is redrawing flood maps for most of Plaquemines Parish. In flood-prone areas like Venice it might recommend AGAINST re-building. Leo Skinner at FEMA says that as a home-owner himself he understands how people in Venice might feel about having to leave.
AX12-Leo Skinner
"But anytime you live anywhere in an area that continues to be flooded, I think that as a home-owner you have to make a decision on whether you want to continue to be flooded out every year or to you want to make a decision and find a place that's a little bit safer as far as flooding goes?"
NARRATION 13
But Venice resident Dale Scarabin has made HIS decision. He's not moving away.
AX13-Dale Scarabin
"If it happens again, we'll just do it all over again. // This is our way of life. // Our family's been here all our lives. So automatically we've got to come back no matter what. If this happens again next year, or the year after, we're going to keep coming back, because this is what we do."
NARRATION 14
Dale says that Venice had almost 40 years of relative calm between Katrina and the last hurricane that tore apart his town. So he's willing to take his chances again.
Meanwhile federal meteorologists predict that this year's hurricane season might be as bad as last year's.
Tamara Rosenberg, Columbia Radio News.