Hell or High Water: How Cajun Fortitude Withstood Hurricanes Rita and Ike

How Cajun Fortitude Withstood Hurricanes Rita and Ike Ron Thibodeaux 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Regional Non-fiction Winner 2013 Independent Publishers Silver IPPY Award in Southern Regional Non-ficton Americans will long remember 2005 as the year of the hurricane, when so many storms formed in the north Atlantic that we ran out of names and had to use letters of the Greek alphabet to identify them. In the midst of that turmoil, one of the decade’s most imposing hurricanes set itself apart from all others. It was, for a time, the largest hurricane ever measured within the Gulf of Mexico, and one of the strongest Category 5 hurricanes ever recorded. When it struck South Louisiana, its enormous storm surge and intense winds threatened more than just tens of thousands of local residents—it took dead aim on a culture and a way of life unique to all of the United States as well. But this is not the story that most Americans think they know. This was not Hurricane Katrina, which