Macaluso: Early observations on Gustav’s effects

• By JOE MACALUSO
• Advocate Outdoors writer
• Published: Sep 5, 2008 - UPDATED: 8:35 a.m.

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No, don’t ask my children to name any of their children Gustav.

Not anytime soon.

For the first time in, well I can’t remember when, The Advocate did not have a Thursday Outdoors page. Can’t be 100 percent about prior years, but there’s been a Thursday page since October 1991.

I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count that many weeks. Hope here is there’s a Sunday Outdoors page this week.

Think we’ll talk about the upcoming deer season and all the new regulations you’re going to face when the first effects of this Gustav thing is in our rearview mirrors.

Sitting at the kitchen table a few hours after an 82-year-old giant green ash tree was removed from my home early Thursday morning, it was time to think about what Gustav ravaged and didn’t.

All is first-glance observations and bears watching for further developments. (And, yes, I counted the rings on that tree.)

Grand Isle appears to be OK. Katrina did its damage when the waters swept over the island from the bay side.

Gustav came from the Gulf of Mexico side and wiped out the sand berm across the front of the island from Caminada Pass to the public library.

Yes, the surge covered the island, but, after seeing tapes of a flyover, most structures appear intact.

The east end of the island appeared to take the hardest hit.

Venice bears watching, if only because the main access route, La. 23, is flooded and impassible as of late Thursday. At first report, the two major marinas there are standing and the damage doesn’t approach the pummeling Katrina put on that down-the-river fishing hole.

Rivers and bayous across the Florida Parishes and in north Louisiana continue to rise.