EX-LSU GOLFER BURNS NEAR TOP OF LEADERBOARD 1C
ADVOCATE THE
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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S u n d ay, a p r i l 12, 2026
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Some coastal Louisiana camps lost power when their utility pulled out, and others could be next
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STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON
The Mall of Louisiana is the largest in the state.
Mall of Louisiana still a go-to destination
While others may have shuttered, it continues to draw shoppers BY IANNE SALVOSA Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By BRETT DUKE
Jake Sanamo holds up a section of an old electrical line once used to power his family’s camp near Lake De Cade in Terrebonne Parish on March 26. BY SAM KARLIN Staff writer
ABOARD THE LIL JAKE — Ben Sanamo hunched in the bowels of the tugboat and clutched one end of a garden hose. His dad, Warren, snaked the other end into a 55-gallon drum of diesel and flicked on a portable pump. The sun fell low in the sky, splashing golden light on their houseboat, the Aqua Lodge, moored next to the tug on the Voss Canal, a waterway cut long ago by fur trappers, deep in the brackish marsh in Terrebonne Parish. No neighbors were home. The swamp was quiet. The Sanamos pumped the diesel until the drum was dry. Ben cranked the generator, and it sputtered a couple times. “That’s the thing with generators,” Warren said. “You never know.” Ben cranked it again and it roared to life. The engine’s hum cracked the remote quiet of their nook in the marsh, where they’ve been coming for over a decade, raising Ben’s son, Jake, and fishing and hunting just about anything that swims or crawls in coastal Louisiana. This is the Sanamo family’s routine now. Their houseboat, which Ben and Warren built from the ground up, is one of nearly 300 properties spanning four remote outposts in
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Salty pretzels, the cool relief of air conditioning, endless products and a free place to hang out with friends. They’re all hallmarks of the mall experience that have cemented themselves into American culture. But in the past 20 years, financial pressures squeezed wallets and the ease of online shopping drew customers away from brick-and-mortar stores and to their phone screens, leaving millions of square feet of vacant retail space across the country. Louisiana’s largest mall, the aptly named Mall of Louisiana, has seemingly not succumbed to the pressures. “People still love to get out and go be with other folks and shop as much as they can to experience new brands and spend time with friends and family,” said Randy Holcombe, vice president of leasing for GGP, the retail arm of Brookfield
ä See MALL, page 9A
Ben Sanamo, left, and his father, Warren Sanamo, pump diesel fuel into their tugboat at their camp in Terrebonne Parish. The family relies on generators for power after electric infrastructure serving the area was not rebuilt following Hurricane Ida. Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes that had the lights turned off — maybe for good. Hurricane Ida damaged some of the electric equipment that powered the camps. For years, the South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association, or SLECA, told the camp owners that they planned to build them back. Then, with little warning, SLECA sent another letter in August 2024
La. lawmaker again pushing ban on fluoride BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
with news: The utility would not rebuild. Its officials filed paperwork with regulators to formally abandon the camps, leaving them without lights, air conditioning and other modern conveniences powered by electricity. Last month, it won formal approval to abandon one of the four camp communities. The decision is a landmark one,
Local governments could hold a vote to stop adding fluoride to their public water systems under a proposal advancing in the Louisiana Legislature, resurfacing a debate that has emerged from the Make America Healthy Again movement. Last year, an outright ban on fluoridation of public water systems sponsored by Sen. Mike Fesi, R-Houma, failed in the Legislature. This year, Fesi again pitched the ban, but other senators pushed him to pare it back. Now, his proposal would give towns and parishes that fluoridate their water the option to hold an election to
ä See END, page 8A
ä See FLUORIDE, page 5A
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101ST yEAR, NO. 286
Celebrating Cel eleleebbra bratattiiinng 80 YEARS eight decades of caringfor your trust!
thhaannnkk you tha thank
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