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Progress slow to come on home insurance
Legislature stays the course on current bills BY SAM KARLIN | Staff writer
THE RIVER’S RECKONING
The Mighty Mississippi created Louisiana, but the state and nation are struggling to contend with its challenging new era BY MIKE SMITH | Staff writer First in a series ABOARD THE HURLEY — Mayo Broussard is back at a familiar bend in the Mississippi River, looking over its deep, muddy currents, helping solve a problem. The world is depending on it. The 78-year-old, with a bushy white beard and a pack of Marlboros in his pocket, is maneuvering across the deck of an Army Corps of Engineers dredge ship downriver from Baton Rouge. Barges and tugboats are lined up nearby like an armada of commerce. Louisiana’s State Capitol building shimmers in the far-off distance. Broussard has been up and down this stretch of the Mississippi, watching it and measuring it, clearing out the muck buried deep below its surface so the giant vessels stacked with freight from across the globe can pass safely. For him, the calculation is simple: The goods must flow. “Bottom line — and whatever it takes, we do it,” Broussard said.
STAFF PHOTOS By CHRIS GRANGER
ABOVE: Mayo Broussard, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, takes a break on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge. ‘The river’s constantly trying to change itself. We’re trying to control it,’ he said. TOP: The Mississippi River looking upriver with New Orleans toward the right, with Lake Pontchartrain in the background. STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD
But along the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to the Gulf, that vital mission is colliding with new realities on the river that hold profound consequences for everyone living beside it. And as
the new era emerges, Louisiana and the nation are struggling to contend with it. Broussard recalls his early years in the industry, doing the dirty work of managing the mud
being dug up from the depths. There were goods to be shipped and money to be made, and the river, despite all its twists and turns, provided a direct path to prosperity. That’s even more true now, and underneath the ship, the Hurley, is one of a dozen curves in the river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that stack up with mini-mountains of mud, threatening navigation. It can take more than a month to finish the job here, even for the Hurley, the largest dredge of its type in North America. A giant dustpan-like machine drops down from the ship, vacuuming sediment and spitting it back out from a long pipe to be swept downriver with the currents. When it’s deep enough for vessels the size of three football fields to pass, the work is done. For now. Few see or understand the world that exists along the river. But Broussard, from the tiny town of Coteau Holmes near the Atchafalaya Basin, knows its high-stakes implications.
ä See RIVER, page 6A
ä For an interactive version of this story with a video and map, go to theadvocate.com.
Loss of federal money puts La. history, culture projects at risk ‘It’s a huge message that what you care about isn’t important’
third-oldest city, behind Natchitoches and New Orleans. A neat trivia fact, but what’s less known is that St. Landry Parish had the second largest population of freedmen residing in it after the Civil War. That history might have been forgotBY STEPHEN MARCANTEL | Staff writer ten if it hadn’t been for the work of the Director Patrice Melnick walked museum did to document it in its 2023 among the rooms of the Opelousas exhibit titled “Still Rising: Free People Museum and Interpretive Center on of Color in St. Landry Parish.” The Opelousas’ North Main Street. The ä See AT RISK, page 5A rooms detail the history of Louisiana’s
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Business ......................1E Deaths .........................3B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................2B Living............................1D Opinion ........................4B Commentary ................5B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
A year after Republican leaders ushered in a series of pro-industry changes in a bid to alleviate the home insurance crisis in Louisiana, officials are confronting a hard truth: there are few immediate signs of relief. Insurance rates are not likely to come down dramatically, at least in the near term. And while the ongoing legislative session has put the focus on auto insurance rates, many homeowners in south Louisiana still face the threat of losing their homes over high property insurance bills. With homeowners’ insurance rates ticking upward for most homeowners since the changes the Legislature adopted last year, lawmakers appear poised to stay the course on a pro-industry strategy. They’ve rejected bills this session that would require insurers to reveal more information Landry about their finances and to mandate certain levels of discounts for homeowners with fortified roofs. A broad tax break for homeowners paying high premiums appears Temple unlikely. The lack of progress has frustrated Gov. Jeff Landry, who is at odds with fellow Republican Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, the architect of the insurerfriendly plan. But industry groups and Temple say they are starting to see signs of improvement. A handful of companies have won approval to start writing home insurance policies in the past year. And a handful of companies have filed rate decreases, though an analysis of state data from The Times-Picayune | The Advocate shows that rate increases are outpacing the declines.
ä See INSURANCE, page 4A
Patrice Melnick, director of the Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center, stands in front of an exhibit on the history of the free people of St. Landry Parish. STAFF PHOTO By STEPHEN MARCANTEL
100TH yEAR, NO. 322