Concert, flotilla set for Sunday

When the America’s Wetland Foundation began the Storm Warning campaign in June 2005, it was to show New Orleans’ vulnerability to hurricane flooding.

The alarm proved prophetic when Hurricane Katrina inundated most of the city less than three months later.

“Our plan was to focus on the probability that a hurricane would hit southeast Louisiana,” said Val Marmillion, managing director of America’s WETLAND Founda-tion. “We didn’t think it would happen that soon.”

For the first time, the annual event that spotlights Louisiana’s wetland loss shifts its focus from the Big Easy to the Bayou Region. The main rally point for Storm Warning IV: Last Stand for America’s WETLAND takes place Sunday at Houma’s Downtown Marina at 2 p.m.

The advocacy group decided to come to Houma to highlight rapid land loss due to coastal erosion.

“It’s the site where everyone is starting to feel the encroachment of the Gulf of Mexico,” Marmillion said. “This year we decided that with the accelerated land loss we needed to get down and do something on the water. We need to rally and send out a storm signal that this area is vulnerable and in danger.”

Local boat owners and operators are invited to join either of two flotillas that will meet at 9 a.m. for a boat blessing and launch at 10 a.m. toward Houma for the rally.

The eastern flotilla will meet at the intersection of Bayou Lafourche and the Gulf Intra-coastal Waterway in Larose and cruise westward. Simultaneously, a western flotilla in Morgan City will embark from the Amelia Boat Launch eastward along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Once gathered in Houma’s Downtown Marina, the boats will meet watercraft and land-based participants for Storm Warning. Musicians Zachary Richard, Rockin’ Dopsie Jr., Waylon Thibodeaux and Chubby Carrier and the Oppressors will perform.

Motorcyclists and recreational vehicles are also invited to come out en masse and “raft up” at the Houma Downtown Marina.

All participating watercraft will sound the alarm by blowing boat horns and foghorns. Additionally, participants will create a light show for onlookers by pointing large reflectors skyward to catch and bounce the light of the sun

There will also be contests for the best-decorated boat and a boat parade finale.

America’s WETLAND officials will be handing out “Right Now” petition cards, which attendees can fill out and send to members of Congress to express their concern about coastal erosion.

Marmillion said America’s WETLAND does the Storm Warning dramatizations so that national and international media will find it interesting enough to carry.

In 2005, Royal Street in the French Quarter was wrapped in blue tarp symbolizing New Orleans flooded by a hurricane. In 2006, a map of the United States was drawn at Tad Gormley Stadium to illustrate which states’ Congress members had visited New Orleans post-Katrina and which had not.

In 2007, members of Women of the Storm arrived by the Coast Guard vessel General Kelly to highlight the importance of the Delta to the upper states along the Mississippi River.

America’s WETLAND is taking a long-range approach to its public awareness campaign.

“Everyone is on the ticket to make this a great event,” Marmillion said. “We hope the people of Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary parish get in their boats with their families and take a look at what is so beautiful around us and take a stand to save it.”