GRAND ISLE, La. (AP) — It was bad news, and it traveled fast.
Most of the southern end of the old bridge at Grand Isle, a wooden-piling structure converted into the state’s first saltwater fishing pier, was consumed by fire.
At daybreak Sept. 19, telephones rang and e-mail alarms sounded to send word that the destructive blaze had taken what Grand Isle Mayor David Carmardelle called, “A historic structure … everybody caught fish off that bridge.”
The official word was that the fire was started by an electrical problem. As part of the repairs to the bridge-pier after Hurricane Katrina, lights were installed over the length of both the Chenier and Grand Isle sides of the 70-year-old structure, though rumors among islanders blame the blaze on someone lighting a barbecue pit near the end of the pier.
Laying blame wasn’t where Carmardelle headed. Nor was it tops on the list for Rufus Heyse, who works at the nearby Bridge Side Marina and fished the pier in his off hours.
“Don’t know what we’re going to do without it,” Heyse said. “We’d get off work late at night, get a few live shrimp and most nights catch a limit of speckled trout. Just this summer, lots of people, thousands, had rediscovered the bridge. The couple of years after (Katrina) came and the people stayed away. But the bridge was packed this summer, and lots of people left happy with lots of fish.”
The pier also served as a platform for families to catch crabs, and the run on blue crabs since late June was the best most folks had seen this decade. Catching six or more dozen crabs on a night’s outgoing tide was common.
“I just wonder what’s going to happen,” Heyse said.
The answer already could be answered.
Work is under way, albeit preliminary, on a new vehicular bridge spanning Caminada Pass. It will be constructed just east of what locals call “the cement bridge” that carries traffic from the Chenier to Grand Isle, the state’s only inhabited barrier island.
“I’m adding the cement bridge to my list,” Carmardelle said.
It’s a list every mayor keeps, but a list that’s swelled to several pages since hurricanes Katrina and Rita and last year’s storms, Gustav and Ike.
“Now, we want the cement bridge for a fishing pier,” Carmardelle said. “It would make a permanent fishing pier that would outlast all of us. It’d be there forever.”
That wasn’t in the plans when the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development released the contract for the new bridge.
DOTD acting Communication Director Sherry Dupre said plans call for removal of the cement bridge.
Dupre said the buckling of bridge spans in the cement bridge caused by Katrina brought about concerns that the cement bridge could break away and damage the new spans that are designed to rise to 45 feet above Caminada Pass. The cement bridge is about 20 feet above the water.
Carmardelle said the fishing pier is a tourist attraction for the island community and that “we need to fix the fishing pier. We can get the cement bridge, cut the middle out of it, then try to get funding we’ll need to modify railings and convert it to a fishing pier.”
Carmardelle said he discussed the conversion, and other items, with Louisiana’s congressional delegation on a recent trip to Washington, D.C.
“We want to work with everyone on this project. We know it’s going to be a fight, but we can handle it. We want to save the bridge so the people can have a safe place to catch fish,” Carmardelle said.
Carmardelle said with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, state Wildlife and Fisheries, the Port of Grand Isle and volunteer groups, most of the debris from the bridge fire has been cleared.
“There was a lot of debris from the fire, and, thank God, there haven’t been any accidents because of it. We just want everybody to be watchful and careful,” Carmardelle said.
 
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