If one man personifies the frustration caused by Hurricane Rita's impact on the town of Delcambre after it struck and flooded the town Sept. 24, 2005, it could well be Preston Dore.

When the storm came ashore, Dore remained at his Seafood Express, once a popular waterfront restaurant, lounge and seafood market. As the floodwaters rose, eventually reaching four feet, he moved to his shrimp boat. Following the storm's passing and the receding floodwaters, his business began the road to recovery.

"We basically had people working in here day and night for three weeks and were almost ready," Dore said. "Then we had an electrical fire. After that I threw in the towel and gave up."

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Dore sued his insurance provider, Lloyd's of London, and recovered about half of what he lost. He has worked on crew boats since and has no plans to try to reopen the market.

"The experience put me in a depression state to where I lost interest," Dore said. "It took me 13 years to build the place. It was my life, and to see it gone in a couple of hours was hard."

Eddie LeBlanc is the owner and operator of LeBlanc Oil Co. in Delcambre. Shortly before Rita made landfall, he evacuated with his family to Gloster, Miss. Upon returning, his home and business were flooded and utilities were out.

"We had nothing for quite a while," LeBlanc said. "We cleaned up the mud and the trash and tried to get our lives back to the way they were. I hope we don't get another storm."

Tom Hymel is marine advisory agent and environmental specialist with LSU AgCenter/Sea Grant and is a consultant for Delcambre's Waterfront Development Project, a collaborative effort between town officials, local businesses and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's School of Architecture and Design's Community Design Workshop. The three-phase project, budgeted at approximately $5 million, hopes to develop 14 acres on the southern end of the Delcambre Canal.

"Delcambre was left without a pharmacy, a grocery store and other businesses which make it easy to live there," Hymel said in a presentation at a Kiwanis Meeting Thursday regarding Rita's impact. "We started with nothing and now we'll have a new marina in Delcambre."

According to it's brochure, the DWDP is divided into three stages or proposals:

- Purchasing available properties, either damaged, abandoned or Federal Emergency Management Agency buyouts and develop them using surgical design decisions.

- Adapt and reuse existing commercial facilities and strategically placing commercial development to bring back economic and residential development and a new gateway to mark the entrance of town.

- And to introduce a new "safe harbor" marina to encourage growth.

Delcambre Alderman Scott Saunier, who also spoke at the Kiwanis event, serves on the steering committee for the DWDP. He emphasizes the best approach to Delcambre's recovery is to focus on private development.

"We lost our entire tax base in one day," Saunier said. "We're hoping we can revitalize the area - not just the town but the region."

Saunier said the town received some public assistance, namely $615,000 from Iberia Parish as well as $2.2 million from the Louisiana Recovery Authority in the conjunction with DWDP, as well as FEMA funding and some from other sources.

Steering Committee Member and Delcambre resident Jim Wiggins views the DWDP as a long-term recovery effort.

"I would like to bring increased tourism to the town,"Wiggins said.

Dore believes additional government assistance, at both the federal and local levels, is warranted.

"The town itself really doesn't show an interest in helping businesses get back on their feet," Dore said.

Beyond economic recovery efforts, LeBlanc would like to see additional hurricane protective measures implemented.

"Some sort of hurricane protection gates as well as some kind of surge protection system, like Lafourche and Terrebone parishes have, would be a good idea," he said.

Hymel believes that, despite it's setback at the hands of Rita, Delcambre is on its way to recovery.

"My assessment of the Delcambre recovery is that the community still has a long way to go but they have a vision and a plan to get there," Hymel said. "They have great community leadership and the momentum now to move to the next level. They indeed on their way."