Pictured in the front row (sitting), from left: Jimmy Scarabin, Tammy Scarabin Huffty, Danielle Rollo, Theresa Huffty, Brad Huffty, Brittany Gilbert, Tim Ducote, Brandi Rollo, Lance Rollo, Jeffery Scarabin Jr. and Leslie Scarabin-Rollo. Back row (standing): Malcolm Huffty, Marilyn Scarabin, Minos Scarabin, Jenene Scarabin, Bobby Buras, Louis “DD” Scarabin, Deron Scarabin Sr., Andrew Scarabin, Deron Scarabin Jr. and Herbie Scarabin. Photo by Terri Sercovich
When you look at a map of Plaquemines Parish, you’ll see the names of towns once community centers, now abandoned. They exist only on the map or in people’s memories.
But there may be hope for one of these lost Plaquemines hamlets— Port Eads. Once a bustling hub of recreational fishermen and big game fishing clubs, Port Eads, located at the mouth of the Mississippi’s South Pass, is making a comeback with post-Katrina funds.
It’s future was uncertain after Hurricane Katrina, but with construction work scheduled to be wrapping up in about a month, the glory days of Port Eads when a man named Jeffery Scarabin Sr. ran it, could return.
Scarabin, known as Buzzy, died of massive heart failure in 2011, but his love of Port Eads was passed on to his family. This month, near the anniversary of his death, they honored his wishes by scattering his ashes in the waters around Port Eads. They also remembered his brother Wayne Scarabin, who along with a teenage deckhand, died at Port Eads during Katrina.
Port Eads
Family members came from near and far; three brothers, four kids and grandchildren piled on two boats and made the hour long trek from Venice to honor their patriarch’s final wishes and to remember their Uncle Wayne.
As we approached Port Eads and the lighthouse became clear, the family grew silent, faces turned red and tears filled their eyes.
They had a simple white box with their father’s ashes, and two wreathes with colorful flowers, remembering Buzzy and his brother Wayne.
“That was his wishes,” said Leslie Scarabin-Rollo about scattering her father’s ashes in the place he loved. “He was there for so long… that was his life.”
Louis “DD” Scarabin, brother of Buzzy and Wayne, helped out here and there at Port Eads. A history buff, Louis, pointed out that for a time hundreds of people lived very close to the mouth of the Mississippi— communities like Oysterville and Burwood. There were also military posts and temporary housing for surveyors, pilots and others who worked on the river. At one time, there was even an airstrip.
Now, it is a mixture of land and marsh, with a few camps set up, and the historic lighthouse, circa 1881, still standing.
But there are also new docks and wood walkways connecting fuel and ice houses to the docks.
“Daddy would be proud,” said second oldest daughter Jenene Scarabin Ducote. “This will be here for a long time.”
Louis agreed with a caveat.
“Nice new state-of-the-art facility,” he said. “But nothing like the old place.”
Summers at Port Eads
Buzzy started leasing Port Eads from the Parish in the 1980s and worked there until Katrina.
He had been a commercial fisherman but took Port Eads on to get insurance benefits and it kept him close to water and boats. His wife Joann kept the books and cooked, having to make huge grocery runs upriver to feed the family and Buzzy’s employees.
The lease might have been in Buzzy’s name, but operating Port Eads was a family affair.
Everyone tended to the boats that stopped to refuel, weigh-in trophy fish and get ice. There were bunk houses with overnight guests. From indoor cooking and cleaning to outdoor maintenance, there was work to go around to the family of six.
“Working,” said son and youngest child Jeffery Scarabin Jr. “the only thing white on you at the end of the day was your foot line.”
Buzzy’s second oldest daughter Jenene Scarabin remembers cooking, cleaning and waitressing.
“We’d bring ice and beer to the boats or whatever they wanted… most of the time ice and beer,” Jenene said with a laugh.
There was commercial fishing too.
“Daddy kept us on the boat and then we’d sell shrimp out the back of the truck in New Orleans,” oldest daughter Tammy Scarabin Huffty remembered.
But the summer job also came with summer fun.
“We played cards,” said Leslie. “My dad loved to play cards. I remember I beat him once and one of the men on the boat gave me $100. He said, ‚ÄòYou had to be good to beat Buzzy!‚Äô”
“It was us three girls,” recalled Tammy. “We’d ride our bikes and go carts [on the walkways].”
“Daddy treated us like boys,” Tammy continued. Over the years he brought them a menagerie: baby alligators, raccoons, geese, rabbits. “One time he brought home a nutria rat!”
And being around new people was exciting.
“It was fun to see the fish getting weighed-in during tournaments,” said third daughter Leslie Scarabin-Rollo.
“Being down here was fun,” she said. “You’d bring your friends with you, you’d suntan, do different things. There was a beach at the end of South Pass. We’d go when it wasn’t busy.”
And there was fishing too. Not just with their father, but sometimes with friends Buzzy made over the years. At one tournament, on a whim, Dickie and Pam Meyers took the girls with them on their boat the Wet and Wild. They returned with a blue marlin weighing more than 1,000 pounds and won the tournament.
Katrina
“I would come down every summer to spend with my grandparents,” said Brad Huffty, a 2004 Buras High graduate. Buzzy would put his family to work picking up trash, getting ice, cleaning bunk houses.
Brad remember the lighthouse.
“I would just stay up there and look out,” Brad said. “You could see everything from there.”
In the mornings, when the tide would come in, you would have to wade through water that would overtake the walkways. At other times, Brad recalled hundreds of little crabs crawling over the walkways and docks.
Like most of Plaquemines, Port Eads was devastated in Katrina.
Brad returned to Port Eads to help the family clean up, but all the cabins were destroyed, the office was caked with mud and the “fancy houses” had no roofs.
“We stayed in one of those houses with no electricity,” Brad remembered.
The offices, bunk houses and the ice and fuel docks could, and have been replaced.
But the Scarabin family was one of a handful that suffered a casualty in Katrina.
Wayne Scarabin
It wasn’t just Buzzy’s heirs who were part of this family business. His brothers were also involved. Wayne Scarabin was Buzzy’s younger brother and volunteered to ride Katrina out at Port Eads. He and a teenage deckhand were staying on a houseboat in the air conditioning. The plan was to take a flatboat to the lighthouse when the storm got too bad. But they didn’t make it.
The houseboat they were taking shelter in was completely washed off of its barge foundation.
“The flatboat he would have taken was still tied up to the barge,” said Jenene.
Neither body was ever recovered.
Final wishes
The family described Buzzy as generous, a great Bourre player who made friends easily, but beware if you got on his bad side.
The family recalled a yacht tying up to the dock and the man aboard being rude and condescending, ordering that he be fueled up immediately.
“Daddy cut the ropes and told him to go to Venice,” laughed Jenene.
Because construction of Port Eads is only 4-6 weeks away from completion, the family only had access to a single dock. The kids and grandkids climbed into one of the boats, drove into the middle of the canal and took turns scattering the ashes. They returned to the dock but the driver cut too sharply at too fast a speed and they bumped into both the dock and the second boat, the Port Authority.
“You know what Daddy would have told you?” Jenene teased the driver.
“If you don’t know how to dock that boat, get out of here!” her sister Leslie finished the thought.
The sun and happy memories dried tears and the family departed for the Gulf, passing the beach the daughters used to get dropped off for the day to sunbath.
The two flower wreaths were thrown into the water, a prayer was said and the grandchildren scattered the rest of the ashes.
“I just miss him a lot,” said granddaughter Brittany Necaise. “I miss all of them a lot.”
Remarkably, the two wreaths drifted together through the choppy water.
“Mama’s here in spirit,” said Jenene looking into the water. “They're all home.”
