Still reeling from Ian, Florida shrimpers are desperate to get back on the water
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
When Hurricane Ian landed in Florida, one industry that was especially hard hit was shrimp fishing. For decades, it has been an important part of the economy in Fort Myers, integral to the region's culture and identity. And now, more than a month after the storm, it remains at a standstill. NPR's Danielle Kaye met some shrimpers to hear what it's going to take to recover.
DANIELLE KAYE, BYLINE: Outside his flooded home, 85-year-old Jimmy Driggers says he got into the fishing business when he was 13 years old. He walks with a prosthetic leg from an injury he sustained on his boat about a decade ago.
JIMMY DRIGGERS: I was a mullet fisherman, a commercial fisherman around Lee County, Charlotte County back in my younger days.
KAYE: Driggers owns one shrimping boat, the Miz Shirley, named after his wife. It can carry 50,000 pounds of shrimp. He says the industry has been hurting for decades and that he was paid more back in the '80s than he is today. And fuel prices have skyrocketed.
J DRIGGERS: You have to produce a lot of shrimp to stay afloat. And that's what we were doing for the last year, just staying afloat, not making enough to fix anything that broke. It was tough.
KAYE: Then came Ian, and the Miz Shirley was pushed partly onto a seawall, unusable.
J DRIGGERS: We thought about selling out, but I don't want to do that if we can hold on, if we can get the boat off and get it repaired and back in working order. There's going to be quite a lot to do.
KAYE: His home backs a water channel. It will have to be demolished. It got 4 inches of water, and he and his wife Shirley don't have flood insurance. The couple has been sleeping in a camper in their front lawn. They're hoping boat insurance will cover enough of the repairs to keep them in business, but they haven't been able to assess the damage yet.
SHIRLEY DRIGGERS: Right now, the shrimping industry needs help desperately because there's some boats that are not going to make it. They're too badly damaged.
KAYE: But they won't consider retiring.
S DRIGGERS: No, he's not going to leave the water.
J DRIGGERS: There is a smell when everything is natural. There's a smell here that is nowhere else. I've been to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. But here, there's a smell to me.
S DRIGGERS: It's the smell of the water.
KAYE: Down at the Fort Myers Beach shrimp fishing docks, piles of boats are on the seawall and roads. A hydraulic excavator with shears tears a boat apart to haul to the landfill.
CHRISTINE GALA: We're standing in the parking lot, and the boats are up here. This is the Big Daddy. It's named after my husband, George.
KAYE: Christine Gala is the owner of Trico Shrimp Company, a fleet of 12 boats. None are insured. On the Fort Myers coast, only 45 boats are licensed to fish for shrimp. They mostly catch pink shrimp, a highly priced delicacy.
GALA: All of the people that worked for us, whether they worked on the boats, in the fish house, in the market, even me, we no longer have a paycheck. We have no job except to call people and beg them to put our boat in the water.
KAYE: Gala is calling crane operators and state officials asking for help to get boats on the water. So far, only one boat has been moved, and it will likely take weeks, if not months, before it can set out to fish again. Its motor, generator and freezers still have to be repaired. Gala is also looking for help to rebuild critical infrastructure.
GALA: The docks are all gone. The building is gone. They've got a red sticker on it. They're going to knock it down completely.
KAYE: Shrimp fishing is a small but valuable industry in the country. It's valued at $37 million. Andrew Ropicki, who teaches marine resource economics at the University of Florida, says the industry has been struggling to compete with foreign imports since the '80s, but he's optimistic it can rebound from Ian.
ANDREW ROPICKI: If federal and state agencies and others involved can look at it and see how important this is, you know, one of the last true working waterfronts that's in a very urbanized area, I am hopeful. I know there are people working on it and trying to help these folks.
KAYE: Over 75% of the pink shrimp harvested in the U.S. comes from the west coast of Florida.
RICKY MORAN: I ain't going nowhere. I'm going to stay here and help clean up. I love Fort Myers Beach. I've been here 35 years.
KAYE: Fifty-eight-year-old Ricky Moran started shrimping with his dad when he was just 9 years old and says he finds serenity in the water.
MORAN: We walking between two boats, one sitting on the top of the other one.
KAYE: At the docks, Moran leads us through the wreckage to the site where his boat landed.
MORAN: There's my boat, The Galante. And as you can see, everything is laying right on top of it.
KAYE: The Galante landed on its side, wedged between two other big boats next to a severely damaged mobile home park. Folks have begun to clean up the devastation here. Moran not only lost his boat but his home. He lived in The Galante and rode out the storm on board. But right now, he wants to be on land. He's still haunted by memories of the storm. Unable to return to his boat, Moran is now living in a tent in the marina and applying to FEMA's unemployment plan.
MORAN: I took a loving to this thing. I'm a commercial fisherman. I'm Captain Ricky. I could leave, go up to Mobile and get a boat. But I want to see this right here come back.
KAYE: For now, he's stuck in limbo, waiting like dozens of others to be back on a boat in the industry that provides not just his home but also his way of life.
Danielle Kaye, NPR News, Fort Myers.
CHANG: And NPR's Marisa Peñaloza produced this report.
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