Cajun Navy

The Cajun Navy are informal ad-hoc volunteer groups comprising private boat owners who assist in search and rescue efforts in Louisiana and adjacent areas. These groups were formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and reactivated in the aftermaths of the 2016 Louisiana floods and Hurricane Harvey. They are credited with rescuing thousands of citizens during those disasters.

These groups draw their name from the region's Cajun people, a significant number of whom are private boat owners and skilled boat pilots. Their boats consist of a number of types, but are typically small vessels such as bass boats, jonboats, air boats, and other small, shallow-draft craft easily transported to flooded areas.

History

The term Cajun Navy had earlier, unrelated origins before it evolved into its current usage. The earliest documented use of the term occurred in 1964 when outgoing governor Jimmie Davis received "a commission as a commodore in the Cajun Navy plus a four-star pirogue for his personal use" as a going-away gift by the Greater Lafourche Port Commission. It was also used in 1995 by a sub-krewe of the Krewe of Denham Springs as part of the krewe's Mardi Gras parade theme of "And Away We Go." Contemporary usage appears to have been coined in 2005 to describe private boaters who served as volunteer rescuers in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; it was apparently used as such by then-Tulane University history professor Douglas Brinkley in a speech, as cited in the Baton Rouge Advocate:

Among the unsung heroes, Brinkley said, are those anonymous boat operators—dubbed the Cajun navy—who navigated their private fishing boats and other vessels through flooded New Orleans to lend a hand after the hurricane hit. The sight of it all made him rethink his view of some laborers. 'I saw guys chain-smoking cigarettes...with tattoos out there saving dozens of lives,' he said in a recent address to the annual meeting of the Council for a Better Louisiana. Brinkley said official rescuers stood to the side, in some cases unable to navigate the streets-turned-waterways that demanded the navigational savvy of natives to the area.

— Douglas Brinkley, Tulane University

The term received more currency in 2015, the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, when commemorative articles in the media referred to the loose organization of south Louisiana boaters. CBS News, for example, reported that year, "Hurricane Katrina killed an estimated 1,800 people, but it could have been far worse if not for what became known as 'The Cajun Navy.' Hundreds of people in hundreds of boats gathered in Lafayette, Louisiana, to rescue thousands trapped by floodwaters..."

Hurricane Katrina

Former Louisiana state senator Nick Gautreaux put out a plea across local TV and radio for "Anybody [who] wants to go help the people of New Orleans please come to the Acadiana Mall." Between 350 and 400 boats and people showed up. This makeshift flotilla that became known as the Cajun Navy is credited with rescuing more than 10,000 people from flooded homes and rooftops.

2016 Louisiana floods

Then in the 2016 Louisiana floods major flooding struck south-central Louisiana, resulting in even more attention for the informal rescue organization. "[M]akeshift flotillas popped up across the region over the weekend," observed USA Today during the disaster. "Many are operating under a name familiar in Louisiana: the Cajun Navy." Fortune magazine noted, "In the midst of one of the most severe (yet least-reported) natural disasters in recent history, a homegrown volunteer rescue squad known as the Cajun Navy is providing badly needed relief in flood-ravaged Louisiana." The Baton Rouge Advocate summed up the feelings of many when it wrote: "The heroes hailed from the Cajun Navy, the nickname for an impromptu flotilla of volunteers who had no admiral, no uniforms, no military medals awaiting them for acts of valor. It was conscience, not a commanding officer, that summoned them into treacherous currents to carry endangered citizens to higher ground."

Technology was first introduced by one of the boaters in 2016 and played a critical role during the Cajun Navy rescues. At first, people would show up and put their boats in the water without any direction. There wasn't a lot of organization present and no way to define which areas had been rescued and which were still in need. One volunteer realized that a couple of mobile phone applications that he used for a game, Zello and Glympse, would be helpful in organizing the rescue attempts. He organized his teammates in the game to come teach boaters and other volunteers how to use the apps for the needed rescues. Eventually, the boaters would be directed by a core group of volunteers who would take requests to be rescued from the Cajun Navy Facebook group page[1]. One volunteer started to gather requests into a Google spreadsheet which was accessible to other volunteers. They vetted the requests by calling phone numbers provided in the posts to the Facebook group page or using Facebook Messenger, then the volunteers used the Zello application to dispatch a nearby boater. Technology was essential to the success of the Cajun Navy. The number of individuals working behind the scenes is impossible to tally as many of the volunteers were helping out for as much as they could, even if only for an hour or so. And by doing this, volunteers were manning Facebook, Zello and Glympse 24 hours a day during the flooding.

Hurricane Harvey

In August 2017, the Cajun Navy deployed to effect rescues in the major flooding of southeast Texas by Hurricane Harvey. "'Cajun Navy' Races from Louisiana to Texas," ran a headline in the Chicago Tribune, which referred to the "Cajun Navy" as "a volunteer online grassroots effort that...roared into Pasadena, Texas, on Sunday. They came in high-clearance pickup trucks with bass boats and pirogues like the Cajun Cavalry, ready to help search and rescue efforts alongside first responders who were inundated with thousands of calls across the region."

The Cajun Navy group to help citizens just a year earlier, during the Louisiana flooding, performed over 5000 documented rescues in South East Texas. His organizing efforts with the Cajun Navy resulted in rescues throughout Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Vidor, Orange and many others. Rob's team acted behind the scenes using social media to organize hundreds of citizens. The volunteers acted as citizen dispatchers during the flooding directing the boaters efforts. The importance of the adhoc dispatchers cannot be underestimated. Just as fire and police need a direct address for taking action, the citizen boaters also needed to know exactly where to go. The dispatchers, working from their kitchen tables and coffee shops around the country, would intake requests from the Cajun Navy Facebook page and relay the messages to those boaters who could perform the rescue via their walkie talkie mobile application, Zello.

State of the Union 2018 and World Championship

In January 2018, Cajun Navy 2016 Founder and CEO, Jon Bridgers received a personal invitation from President Trump to attend the 2018 State of the Union Address. During the State of the Union Address, President Trump publicly thanked the Cajun Navy organization for their heroic rescue efforts during Hurricane Harvey.

Cajun Navy 2016 was invited back to the White House by President Trump, in March 2018, to help the Houston Astros celebrate their World Championship. The men that attended this event were all volunteers that contributed their time and personal resources during the Hurricane Harvey floods.