Adlar Stelly is 42 years old, which means it’s fair to say he’s been involved in crawfish farming in Louisiana for almost 42 years.

He grew up surrounded by the shallow ponds littered with the lobster traps set by his father. At age 7, he piloted the boat while his older brother hauled in the traps. It wasn’t long before he managed to empty them himself. He and his brother now have about 3,000 acres of their own ponds in southern Louisiana.

He has seen bountiful seasons and others that were scarcer. But in all that time, he has never experienced a season as harrowing as this one, where the pitfalls were so consistently exposed week after frustrating week.

The catch at one pond last day was enough to fill four bags, each about the size of a large pillowcase. In a better year, that catch would have been 25, maybe even 30 bags.

“Here we are, we’re halfway through Lent,” Mr. Stelly said, pointing to what is usually the peak time for live crawfish boils in this heavily Catholic part of the world.

“You’re running out of time,” he added. “The stress is at an all-time high.”

The persistent heat that battered the Gulf Coast during a record summer continues to punish Louisiana. Farmers and scientists say the summer drought has dealt a blow directly to the state’s soul in a way that hurricanes or other extreme weather never have: It has come dangerously close to ruining the crawfish season.

Across the state, farmers have reported harvests as disastrous as Mr. Stelly’s, if not worse, even as they have taken on the enormous costs of pumping water for their dry ponds.

Crawfish prices have skyrocketed, reaching nearly double what they were last year earlier in the season. Boiled crawfish, practically a staple in Louisiana, felt more like a luxury. Last month, Governor Jeff Landry even issued a disaster declaration, saying the industry “needs all the support it can get right now.”

The resulting turbulence and heartache reflects how crawfish play a role in virtually every facet of Louisiana: its economy, its culture, even its blood pressure. (Veterans of crawfish consumption know to take off their rings, as the seasoning’s sodium content can make their fingers swell.)

In Acadiana, the constellation of communities surrounding Lafayette that form the heart of Cajun Louisiana, the smell of boils often wafts through the neighborhoods. Chances are every long Friday night line ends at a popular cooking spot. And images of the decapods—bright red with claws, antennae, and eyes with black dots—are everywhere: crawfish curtains, crawfish tablecloths, crawfish paper towel holders, crawfish caps, crawfish T-shirts, crawfish earrings.

“It should be on the flag, you know what I mean?” Sean Suire, owner of Cajun Table restaurant in Lafayette, said as he put more seasoning on already seasoned crawfish, fresh from the kettle.

“Without crawfish,” he added, “there is no party.”

Crawfish are often grown together with rice in supple fields that are drained in the summer for the rice harvest. The crawfish then retreat into the earth to lay their eggs, emerging in late fall when the ponds are refilled.

Last year alone, many crawfish were killed by the heat or forced to dig deeper to survive, farmers and experts say.

“We know drought can affect crawfish, but we didn’t know the extent to which it happens,” said Mark Shirley, a longtime crawfish specialist at Louisiana State University’s AgCenter. Farmers “spent three to four times as much on fuel and time pumping water,” he added. “The water evaporated almost as quickly as they pumped it into the field.”

The harvest, which typically continues until June, has increased modestly in recent weeks and prices have fallen. Boiled crawfish were selling around Lafayette for about $7 to $9 per pound, according to a recent scan of the Crawfish App that many use to track prices and find nearby boils; they went for $12 or more in February around Mardi Gras. (An average person typically consumes about three pounds at a time.)

Yet the damage has already been done: there is no chance of making a profit this season, Mr. Stelly said. The best he can hope for is to earn enough to cover his expenses.

Mr. Stelly recently traveled to Washington, where he reluctantly called on congressional representatives and federal officials to provide some financial support to the industry.

“I don’t want help,” he said. “I want to go to work, catch crawfish and make money.”

These days, Mr. Stelly doesn’t spend as much time in the ponds as he used to. He also runs a dock where about 50 area farmers bring their catch so it can be sorted and delivered live to Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and even Florida.

His phone rings constantly. Buyers continue to ask if the inventory is finally enough to make the trip worth it. Farmers are expressing concerns about what will happen if they cannot recoup their costs. He tries to listen patiently to concerns that are very similar to his own.

The numbers are alarming: Only 1,281 pounds of crawfish moved through the dock in December. That month, the year before, there had been 78,000. In January it cost roughly £4,340, compared to £158,000 the year before.

“I finally got you a full bag,” Chris Frith, who has a small farm, said to Mr. Stelly as he delivered it. “I wish I had five or ten.”

Mr. Frith had tried to outsmart the heat by using spring water to moisten the burrows.

“It didn’t help,” he said.

“I think cooking them probably helped,” Mr. Stelly said.

“That’s right,” Mr. Frith replied. “It cooked them in the ground – without salt and without pepper.”

Crawfish farming is an amalgamation of science, art, faith, superstition and hard work. The formula varies from farmer to farmer. It is said that a successful day follows a storm, as thunder awakens the crawfish from the earth. Another credits his wife’s prayer. Many adhere to practices passed down from generation to generation.

And even then, the crawfish can remain a mystery.

“It’s a lot of luck,” said Mr. Suire, Lucas, 60, who farms the same few hundred acres as his father and grandfather. “I don’t understand crawfish. I’ve been doing this for 39 years, and I still don’t know crawfish.”

The torturous summer was widely blamed on an El Niño weather pattern. And while some in the crawfish industry have been reluctant to blame climate change, here in a state bombarded by powerful hurricanes, ice storms, wildfires and an ocean voraciously eating away at the coastline, there was another vivid display of nature’s volatility .

“Mother Nature had everything to do with it,” said Barry Toups, who owns a crawfish farm in Vermilion Parish.

Unlike many other farmers, Mr. Toups, 63, later turned to crawfish after working in maintenance for the local school board for 30 years. Still, he moved like an experienced hand when he checked his traps one afternoon in his flat-bottomed boat, which had a hydraulic outboard motor designed for water about 18 inches deep.

His fluid movement – ​​pulling the mesh nets out of the water, exchanging the old bait for a fresh piece of porgy – was interrupted only by the occasional water hose on top of a trap or a turtle in it. He dumped his catch on a metal grate on the boat with two chutes, one pointing to a bag and the other back to the pond.

“The little ones fall through,” said Mr. Toups, “and the big ones end up in the crawfish boil.”

He has insulated himself somewhat from the vagaries of the market by opening a bed-and-breakfast and taking tourists from far-flung places like France and Nova Scotia on what he calls “lobster excursions,” where for $75 (or 50 dollar if he spends the night), they have the opportunity to harvest crawfish.

“I figured out a way to get people to do my work,” he said, “and they love it!”

Mr. Stelly has his own ambitions, including expanding the radius where live crawfish can be delivered. He also thinks about his daughters. His eldest is studying agricultural business at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, with plans to bring what she learns back to the family business.

He wants to one day hand her a robust operation, but recent events have shaken his certainty.

“Right now, the future?” he said. “I really do not know.”

One morning last week, he navigated his pickup truck through the narrow, muddy paths that wound between his ponds. The view provided an overview of the reasons why the operation was not thriving: the engine for a pump that cost $22,000 and another $32,000 in fuel. A raccoon, one of the bandits who were extremely efficient at searching traps. A traditionally productive pond that yielded him very little.

Still, he noticed that while he was there, his phone wasn’t pressed to his ear. The migraine that haunted his mind had subsided. The warmth and breeze matched the balance of a beautiful day.

That horizon of swampy terrain, he said, had brought him more than just an income. It offered purpose, and now, when he needed it most, a measure of peace.

His phone lit up again.

A buyer from Arkansas inquired about his inventory and, like everyone else, complained about how tough the season had been.

“Hopefully it will change somewhat,” Mr. Stelly told him, his optimism replenished, if only slightly. “It’s coming.”

A truck driver is facing charges including negligent homicide in connection with his role in a highway crash during a dense “super fog” in Louisiana in October that caused a massive traffic jam and killed seven people and injured dozens, authorities said this week .

The man, Ronald Britt of Lafayette, was driving a 70,000-pound vehicle at about 60 mph on Oct. 23 when he failed to slow down despite heavy weather and struck the car in front of him on Interstate 55 northwest of New Orleans. Louisiana State Police said Tuesday in a press release. The impact killed a 60-year-old man, James Fleming of Missouri, and seriously injured his wife, Barbara Fleming, 69, police said.

“It was determined that Britt was operating at a negligent speed based on the driving conditions at the time,” police said, leading to the man’s death and his wife’s injuries.

Poor weather conditions and limited visibility prevented vehicles from safely leaving the highway, police said, causing congestion and “several accidents.” Mr Fleming had managed to stop his vehicle safely, they said, but was “unable to move his vehicle to a safer location off the road.”

Louisiana state law requires drivers to maintain a safe speed appropriate for the prevailing driving conditions.

Mr. Britt, 61, surrendered to authorities Monday and was also charged with negligence, battery, reckless driving and other traffic violations, police said. It was not immediately clear whether he had legal representation.

In Louisiana, negligent homicide carries a maximum of five years in prison, a $5,000 fine, or both.

The crash was one of several that day, authorities said, as an impenetrable fog enveloped the area. Seven people were killed and 63 injured in the major traffic jam involving at least 168 vehicles, police said. They originally reported that eight people had been killed, but later revise that figureciting “intense fires” that “made the identification of the victims difficult.”

In 2017, Louisiana overhauled its criminal justice system with broad bipartisan support, all in an effort to lose the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the country. The sentences were reduced. The possibilities for early release were expanded. Alternatives to prison were introduced.

But seven years later, the state is sending a very different message: Those days are over.

Lawmakers, at the urging of a new Republican governor, rushed through a special session last month to roll back the 2017 changes. Bills were passed to lengthen sentences for some crimes, to strictly limit access to parole, to prosecute 17-year-olds charged with any crime as adults, and to allow execution methods beyond lethal injection. This latest change is intended to allow the state to reintroduce the death penalty after more than a decade.

“I have promised the people of this state that if elected governor, I would do everything in my power to improve the safety of our communities,” Gov. Jeff Landry said as he declared victory as the session ended closed last week. “I can proudly say that we have kept that promise.”

Mr Landry, who took office in January, and his supporters argue the new tough measures are needed to tackle violence and crime. that rose in parts of the state during the pandemic. But critics argue that the new laws are variations on flawed past policies and would have the same consequences: disproportionately punishing people of color, destroying hope and pathways to rehabilitation for prisoners, and imposing a staggering price on taxpayers.

“None of these bills will do anything to increase public safety or reduce crime in our communities,” said Sarah Omojola, executive director of Vera Louisiana, a nonprofit focused on reducing incarceration and preventing of violence. “All these bills do is expand incarceration at a very high cost to Louisianans.”

While Louisiana has been particularly aggressive, other states have also dialed back their efforts to experiment with new approaches to criminal justice. Oregon lawmakers, who had sought to decriminalize hard drugs, passed legislation last week to reimpose criminal penalties for possession of certain drugs after public drug use and overdose deaths increased.

In Louisiana, Mr. Landry, a former police officer and sheriff’s deputy who served two terms as attorney general, focused his campaign for governor on tackling crime.

He was responding to public safety concerns amid a surge in violent crimes and other crimes during the coronavirus pandemic, reflecting a national trend. The number of murders increased enormously in New Orleans, reaching levels not seen in decades and being the highest in the country in 2022. Carjackings were also widespread. The city’s police force was exhausted of officers and moral.

Crime rates have remained stable over the past year. In New Orleans, homicides fell by about 25 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year, surpassing the national decline.

Yet almost immediately after taking office, Mr. Landry called for a special session in February devoted to crime, arguing that more could be done. “We will defend and strengthen our law enforcement officers and provide real justice to victims of crimes that have been overlooked for far too long,” he said at the start of the session.

The Legislature, which has Republican majorities in both chambers, has quickly introduced a flood of bills.

The measures increase the penalty for carjackings to as much as five years in prison; impose harsher penalties for distributing or marketing fentanyl in child-resistant packaging; and allowing concealed carry of a handgun without a permit. “This is a testament to our commitment to the Second Amendment and the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families without unnecessary government intrusion,” Senator Blake Miguez, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.

The Legislature has also passed bills that would eliminate this the possibility of early release for most prisoners convicted of a crime after August 1 and would force prisoners to serve 85 percent of their sentences before they could be released for good behavior.

Lawmakers also approved the use of electrocution and nitrogen gas in executions, and shielding information about the companies that produce and supply the lethal injection drugs. The state has not carried out an execution in fourteen years, mainly because the difficulty of obtaining those medications.

Opponents say the policy will saddle the state with the astronomical costs of housing more prisoners for longer, while providing few benefits. “The ‘lock them up and throw away the key’ approach isn’t working,” said House Democratic Leader Matthew Willard. “These new laws do nothing to prevent crime before it happens.”

But elected officials who support the measures argue the laws will create a safer environment that will boost economic growth. “Crime certainly has a price,” said Laurie Schlegel, the Republican representative who sponsored the bills for tougher penalties for carjacking and fentanyl distribution.

The session’s assertive approach illustrated how eager Louisiana Republicans were to dismantle the legislative legacy of Gov. John Bel Edwards, the two-term Democrat who preceded Mr. Landry, and adopt policies that would have thwarted Mr. Edwards. .

“I’m not surprised that we’re seeing the results that we’re seeing,” said Edward E. Chervenak, director of the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center. “Republicans can easily topple Democrats in both houses, and they have a kindred spirit in the governor’s house.”

Before Mr. Landry took office, Mr. Edwards often stymied Republicans who otherwise controlled the state government. He issued 319 vetoes as governor, and only two were overturned by lawmakers.

Mr. Edwards, the last Democratic governor in the Deep South, has irritated many in his own party with his conservative positions on abortion and gun rights. Still, he scored some victories that were championed by progressives; the overhaul of the justice system – known as the Louisiana Justice Reinvestment Act – was one of them.

Many states made similar changes. There was broad agreement at the time that a less punitive approach to low-level offenders and tackling the causes of crime, such as drug addiction, could make the criminal justice system more effective and free up resources to be used to prosecute violent offenders.

In Louisiana – long considered the “the prison capital of the world” – the law felt like a monumental achievement.

“The political stars aligned in a way that we had never seen before in Louisiana and will never see again for a while,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana. “It looked like a solar eclipse.”

Supporters of the reinvestment law acknowledged that the changes would be vulnerable to attack, but they were startled by the speed with which lawmakers moved to overturn the law over the past month.

“I think what we didn’t expect is that these rollbacks would happen in such a coordinated and rapid manner,” Ms. Omojola said, “regardless of the facts and the data and the research that said they were a bad idea.”

But Mr. Landry had made it clear that his sights were set on a serious approach.

In a recent opinion essay published in Gannett’s Louisiana newspapersMr. Landry and one of the state’s Republican U.S. senators, John Kennedy, argued that the package of laws had fueled a rise in crime in 2017 and “prioritized the comfort of violent criminals over the safety of Louisiana families.”

“This special session,” they wrote, “was the first step in taking back our streets and empowering our citizens.”

Critics said they had no doubt the new legislation would have profound consequences, and would not address the deeper reasons behind crime; They believe this would make communities safer.

“It’s not about being ‘tough on crime,’” Ms. Omojola said. “It’s about taking safety seriously.”

Heavy rains over parts of Louisiana and Texas this week have caused significant flooding, meteorologists and officials said, and more rain is forecast to drench the region through the end of the week.

By Wednesday morning, Industry, Texas, a city west of Houston, and Fayetteville, between Austin and Houston, had each received more than 10 inches of rain. according to the National Weather Service.

Conditions were so bad Wednesday in San Jacinto County, north of Houston, that a local judge has issued a disaster declaration And officials announced a voluntary evacuation of Camilla Twin Harbor and Cedar Valley due to rising water from a nearby river.

Parts of Louisiana were also hit by heavy rain this week, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which each received more than two inches of rain on Wednesday.

Even heavier rain fell in other parts of Louisiana, including St. Tammany Parish, which saw between 6 and 8 inches of rain before 5 p.m. according to Fox8Live, a local television station. Flash flooding was also reported in other cities, including Garyville and Mandeville.

As residents across the region try to dry out, they will face more rain and possible flooding in the coming days.

As of Thursday morning, nearly 36 million people from southeastern Texas to southwestern North Carolina were under flood watch.

There was also a small risk of excessive rainfall from the central Gulf Coast through the southern Appalachians on Thursday. This was reported by the Weather Service's weather forecast center.

Rainfall totals for Thursday will be modest compared to previous days, forecasters said, with local amounts up to two inches. However, after much of the region received six inches or more over the past 36 hours, any additional rain could cause scattered instances of flash flooding.

In the southern Appalachians, rainfall could reach up to two inches on Thursday, but is unlikely to cause significant problems as the region has been relatively dry in recent days.