June 5, 2024 — On a humid April afternoon, Christine Gala picked her way through the wreckage of what used to be Trico Shrimping Company, before Hurricane Ian had its way with it.
She made her way to the western edge of the building, toward the water, wending her way around detritus left behind by the storm. Expensive shrimp processing equipment, jagged sheets of plywood and drywall, putrid stone crab, a commercial freezer door Ian sucked right off its hinges and threw on the other side of the room.
Looking through a gaping hole in the wall where a garage door once hung, Gala pursed her lips at what used to be the largest commercial dock so close to the prodigious Gulf shrimp fishing grounds off Key West. It was 400 feet long, and up to 30 boats of the “pink gold” fleet tied up there.
“We had just replaced this dock,” she said. “Cost us $300,000.