Cheniere Caminada | |
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Nickname(s): "Caminadaville" and "Oak ridge Cheniere" | |
Coordinates: 29°12′38.826″N90°3′1.2636″W / 29.21078500°N 90.050351000°W [1] 29.2107845, -90.0503512 | |
Country | United States |
State | Louisiana |
Parish | Jefferson Parish |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
Cheniere Caminada was a fishing community located in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, that was destroyed by what is considered one of the deadliest United States hurricanes, that was unnamed but referred to as the 1893 Cheniere Caminada hurricane. The community was located west of Grand Isle, which was almost destroyed by the same hurricane.
The geographically isolated multi-ethnic fishing village of between 1,500 and 1,600 inhabitants provided seafood to restaurants in New Orleans. In the aftermath of the hurricane 779 lost their lives and over 2,000 were killed by the time the hurricane dissipated. Some residents decided to rebuild but later hurricanes took their toll on the community and there is not much remaining of the once thriving village.
By 1893 the geographically isolated and predominantly French speaking community had between 1,500 and 1,600 men, women, and children that included Creoles from New Orleans, Acadians from Lafourche Parish, Italian immigrants, displaced Germans and Prussians, non-Acadian French, and some of Spanish descent. The religion was predominantly Catholic and the missionary priest, Fr. Gaston d’Espinosa, served from 1883 until 1889 had established the Notre Dame du Lourdes, Our Lady of Lourdes and his successor was Fr. Ferdinand Grimeau. The community, mainly fishermen, supplied seafood and mainly oysters to New Orleans. Some fishing camps, a few residents, and some bait shops is mainly all that can be seen as the Grand Isle bridge is approached. [2]
The island is situated west of Grand Isle, protruding into the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 55 miles from New Orleans by boat, at the southern tip of Jefferson Parish. Aside from oysters the island also supplied sugar cane and oranges for market but the main industry was supplying oysters, shrimp and crabs to New Orleans restaurants. [3]
The hurricane of 1893 devastated the community. The official count was 779 dead or almost half the population leaving very little evidence and even the grave yard was decimated. [4] Anyone that decided to remain would have had to relocate after subsequent hurricanes. [5]
Jefferson Parish is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 440,781. Its parish seat is Gretna, its largest community is Metairie, and its largest incorporated city is Kenner. Jefferson Parish is included in the Greater New Orleans area.
Cameron Parish is a parish in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,617. The parish seat is Cameron. Although it is the largest parish by area in Louisiana, it has the second-smallest population in the state, ahead of only Tensas. Cameron Parish is part of the Lake Charles metropolitan statistical area.
Grand Isle is a town in Jefferson Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located on a barrier island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico. The island is at the mouth of Barataria Bay where it meets the gulf. The town of Grand Isle is statistically part of the New Orleans−Metairie−Kenner metropolitan statistical area, though it is not connected to New Orleans' continuous urbanized area.
Westwego is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located in Jefferson Parish. It is a suburban community of New Orleans in the Greater New Orleans metropolitan area and lies along the west bank of the Mississippi River. The population of the city of Westwego was 8,568 at the 2020 United States census.
Buras-Triumph is a former census-designated place in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 3,358 at the 2000 census. For the 2010 census, Buras-Triumph was split into the CDPs of Buras and Triumph. On the peninsula, Buras has been located higher, with Triumph located southeast of Buras.
A chenier or chénier is a sandy or shelly beach ridge that is part of a strand plain, called a “chenier plain,” consisting of cheniers separated by intervening mud-flat deposits with marsh and swamp vegetation. Cheniers are typically 1 to 6 m high, tens of km long, hundreds of metres wide, and often wooded. Chenier plains can be tens of km wide. Cheniers and associated chenier plains are associated with shorelines characterized by generally low wave energy, low gradient, muddy shorelines, and abundant sediment supply. The name is derived from the French word for wood, “chêne,” meaning oak, which grows on chenier ridges within southwest Louisiana.
The 1893 Atlantic hurricane season ran through the summer and the first half of fall in 1893. The 1893 season was fairly active, with 12 tropical storms forming, 10 of which became hurricanes. Of those, five became major hurricanes. This season proved to be a very deadly season, with two different hurricanes each causing over 2,000 deaths in the United States; at the time, the season was the deadliest in U.S. history. The season was one of two seasons on record to see four Atlantic hurricanes active simultaneously, along with the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season. Additionally, August 15, 1893 was the only time since the advent of modern record keeping that three storms have formed on the same day until 2020 saw Wilfred, Alpha, and Beta forming on the same day; and for the first time, there were two high-intensity hurricanes simultaneously in one month of August, and this was not repeated until the year 2023.
Last Island was a barrier island and location of a pleasure resort southwest of New Orleans on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, United States. Located south of Dulac, Louisiana, between Lake Pelto, Caillou Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico, it was named Last Island because it was the last of a series of barrier islands which stretched westward from the mouth of the Mississippi River, 90 miles to the east.
Hurricane preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of its location.
The Chenière Caminada hurricane, also known as the Great October Storm, was a powerful hurricane that devastated the island of Cheniere Caminada, Louisiana in early October 1893. It was one of three deadly hurricanes during the 1893 Atlantic hurricane season; the storm killed an estimated 2,000 people, mostly from storm surge. The high death toll ranks the hurricane as the deadliest hurricane in Louisiana history and the third deadliest hurricane in the continental U.S., behind only the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane.
Louisiana Highway 574 is a collection of eight current and four former state-maintained streets in Grand Isle, located in lower Jefferson Parish. All twelve routes were established with the 1955 Louisiana Highway renumbering.
Delacroix is an Isleño fishing community and census-designated place (CDP) located in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. It was first listed as a CDP in the 2020 census with a population of 48. The community is also popularly known as Delacroix Island. The community was established in 1783 with the settlement of Canary Islanders along Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries – Enforcement Division (LDWF) is the fish & game regulatory agency of Louisiana. It has jurisdiction anywhere in the state, and in state territorial waters. The agency enforces both state and federal laws dealing with hunting, fishing, and boating safety. The agency also enforces criminal laws in rural areas including DWI enforcement both on highways and waterways. Most of the Department's Wildlife Agents also carry Federal law enforcement commissions issued from the United States Department of the Interior - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and United States Department of Commerce - U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). These federal commissions allow these state officers to enforce federal migratory waterfowl laws and federal marine fisheries laws in state and federal waters off the coast of Louisiana. Besides their traditional role as a "game warden", Louisiana Wildlife Enforcement Agents also have a number of other responsibilities, including conducting board of health inspections on some portions of the state's commercial fishing industry. Agents are trained in and conduct numerous search and rescue operations, both in remote land areas and on the state's waterways. Agents ensure that hunters, anglers, boaters, dealers, breeders, farmers, and transporters are in compliance with regulations governing equipment, quotas, licenses, and registrations. Agents also assist other State departments and law enforcement agencies in the coordination of educational and professional endeavors, as well as national and state emergency alerts by the Federal Office of Emergency Preparedness. In addition, agents perform search and rescue missions alone or in conjunction with other local, state, and federal agencies.
The effects of Hurricane Georges in Louisiana included $30.1 million in damage and three deaths. Forming from a tropical wave over the Atlantic Ocean, Georges attained a peak intensity of 155 mph (249 km/h) on September 20, 1998. Over the following several days, the storm tracked through the Greater Antilles and later entered the Gulf of Mexico on September 28, the Category 2 storm made landfall in Mississippi before dissipating on October 1. Before landfall, about 500,000 residents in Louisiana evacuated from low-lying areas. The mayor of New Orleans declared a state of emergency to allow federal assistance into the state. After nearly 1.5 million people were urged to evacuate coastal areas, officials described the evacuation as "probably the largest [...] we have ever achieved".
Grand Isle State Park, lies at the eastern tip of Grand Isle, a barrier island in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, U.S.A. Grand Isle is the only inhabited barrier island in the state.
Jefferson Parish Library (JPL) is the library system of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. It has its headquarters in the East Bank Regional Library in Metairie, an unincorporated area in the parish.
Manila Village was a settlement of Filipino sailors, fishermen and laborers located on an island in Barataria Bay, in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States. The settlements of Saint Malo in St. Bernard Parish was occupied by Filipino sailors who had jumped ship from their Spanish captains, near New Orleans in the year 1763. In later years, other Filipino countrymen arriving in port at Louisiana would also escape Spanish galleons. This group would later found the Manila Village settlement in the mid-19th century. The newly liberated sailors became fishermen who caught and dried shrimp for export to Asia, Canada, South America, and Central America. On July 24, 1870, the Spanish-speaking residents of St. Malo founded the first Filipino social club, called Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Hispano Filipinos, to provide relief and support for the group’s members, including the purchasing of burial places for their deceased. In 1938, the community had a population of 200 people, mostly Filipinos, but also Chinese, Mexicans, and Spaniards.
Isleños are a Spanish ethnic group living in the state of Louisiana in the United States, consisting of people primarily from the Canary Islands. Isleños are descendants of colonists who settled in Spanish Louisiana between 1778 and 1783 and intermarried with other communities such as French, Acadians, Creoles, Hispanic Americans, Filipinos, and other groups, mainly through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
SS Alice McGuigin was a two-masted schooner that sank in Lake Borgne off Pearlington, Mississippi, United States in the 1893 Cheniere Caminada hurricane. Under the command of Captain Wm. Delavier with five crewmembers, the schooner was owned by the Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company before lost at sea on October 2, 1893.
SS Joe Webre. was a 100' long, 40 ton, wooden steamship owned by the New Orleans and Timbalier Transportation Company, of Gretna, Louisiana and that foundered at her wharf while docked at Grand Isle, Louisiana, United States in the 1893 Cheniere Caminada hurricane. The steamer was constructed in New Orleans in 1878 and lost on October 2, 1893 while under the command of Captain Michael McSweeney, the ship's engineer, George Rolf, Jr. and a skeleton crew of six onboard.