East Houms's Famous Christmas Light Show of 200,000 lights

East Houma house awash with lights

Emily Schwarze/Staff    Buy photo

Earl and Julie McElroy pose in front of their home, which won first place in The Courier and Daily Comet’s holiday lights photo contest, Monday in Houma.

HOUMA — It started as a partnership between husband and wife nearly 30 years ago. Today, the home of Earl and Julie McElroy is known for coming alive with 200,000 lights each Christmas, delighting neighborhood kids and parents alike.

Their house at 142 Cleveland St., awash with multicolored lights on nearly every square inch of the walls, roof and yard, was voted by readers as the first-place winner of The Courier’s holiday lights contest.

Earl McElroy, 70, a native of Ashland and an operations manager for Gulf States Engineering in Houma, puts up the display each year. He often stands outside dressed as Santa to complement the display, greeting those who come by. But for him, the famous light show is about much more than glitz and glamor.

“It’s really not about the lights. It’s about the people,” McElroy said. “They just enjoy themselves.” Read Full Story           

By Kathrine Schmidt/Staff Writer  HoumaToday.com

Santa leads a fleet of boats down the bayou.

Christmas Boat Parade

Santa leads a fleet of boats down the bayou.

Gulf Oysters Replaced By Rhode Island Calamari

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

A worker displays a fresh gulf oyster at P&J Oyster Co. in New Orleans Thursday, June 10, 2010. Work is coming to a halt at the 134-year-old establishment after oyster beds were closed because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Audra D.S. Burch
McClatchy Newspapers

NEW ORLEANS — Celebrity Chef Frank Brigtsen coated the squid in a perfect blend of seasoned cornmeal then dropped the batch into a vat of oil at Charlie's Seafood, a beloved neighborhood joint.

After a lifetime in Louisiana, 38 years as an architect of Creole cuisine inspired by the gifts of the Gulf of Mexico, this was one of the first times he had served diners fried calamari.

Before BP oil's endless flow threatened the supply and upped price of fish and shellfish by up to 30 percent, a hankering for southern fried seafood at this 60-year-old landmark would have yielded a heaping plate of crispy Louisiana oysters.

"'Charlie's is a place that celebrates Louisiana seafood and here I am frying calamari from Rhode Island," says Brigtsen, an award-winning chef who also owns his eponymously named contemporary Creole cuisine restaurant uptown. "I feel like somehow I am betraying my customers by not giving them oysters. I feel like I am wearing someone else's clothes." READ COMPLETE STORY

Louisiana Workforce Commission: Fishermen Job Loss Statistics Unclear

Unemployment Among Fishermen 

Difficult to Measure

	Rodney Pellegrin works in Dulac, La. to attach two sections of  shrimp nets.  Pellegrin said he’s frustrated by how  the fishing waters are opened and  closed so often.

By Kathrine Schmidt 
HOUMA — Following the auto industry implosion of 2008, Detroit’s unemployment rate stands at nearly 30 percent.

But when it comes to sizing up the lost wages and jobs from BP’s catastrophic oil spill to boat captains, deckhands and charter captains in Louisiana, numbers showing the impact on Houma-Thibodaux are much harder to come by.

That’s because many are self-employed and work seasonally, meaning their jobs and income are not tracked by state labor statistics. The state’s Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board doesn’t keep track of that information either, and the Louisiana Workforce Commission did not respond to a request about how they planned to track the job losses. ReadComplete Story            

         

Fishing Boats Outside Barrier Islands Busy Soaking Up Oil

Even though this article refers to "SHRIMPERS" this is an Oyster Boat!

Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Derek W. Richburg/ U.S.Coast Guard

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Workers use improvised mops made of bamboo poles and absorbent pads to clean up oil in the marsh grass Saturday in Terrebonne Bay.

John DeSantis
Senior Staff Writer
COCODRIE — For the first full day in a week, crews on land and at sea scouted for and cleaned up oil Saturday, making what they said appeared to be solid progress against the Gulf spill in Terrebonne and Lafourche.

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“They are heroes,” Lafourche Parish government spokesman Brennan Matherne said of the shrimp boats, which operated around Timbalier Bay and adjacent waters. “I am hearing more and more how impressed the Coast Guard is with our fishermen and their efforts. Had it not been for their hard work and tremendous effort, we would have had much more of an impact.”
Terrebonne Parish, ground crews worked on barrier islands, where large swaths of medium-to-light consistency sheen left its mark on the beaches.
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No large patches of oil such as those seen earlier in the week were spotted heading into the barrier island passes.
“There was a big crew working on Timbalier Island today,” said Terrebonne Parish Public Safety Director Ralph Mitchell. READ MORE

Water Supply Safety Concerns Residents Of Lafourche Parish