February 5, 2026 • 38 mins
The Cajun Navy was formed after Hurricane Katrina and really got its legs after the Louisiana flood of 2016. They save a lot of lives, but some fear the pitfalls of "vigilante heroism." Learn all about this group of do-gooders today.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we are saving the
day here on Stuff you should Know.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
That's right, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I guess I just said that we're secure to save
the day, and we are. We're going to talk about
the Cajun Navy in a second, but before we do,
we just got back from tour and you did something
that I didn't do and I want to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh yeah, weh. I got tabbed to perform in the
Hanging with Doctor z Show, which, if you don't know,
it is comedian Dana Gould has a professional Doctor zayas
a Planet of the Apes costume, nice and he just
does a straight up late night talk show as Doctor Zaias.
That's the only sort of wrinkle to it, and it's
(00:55):
it's a lot of fun. And I was on. It's
kind of a straight guy, you know, clearly wasn't the
improvising comedian, but I did an okay job. But Dave
Folly of the Kids in the Hall was there. Yeah,
and Janet Barney, the Great Andy Daily, and I just
got to tell you quickly about the night before in
the hotel. Yeah, I was hanging out in the lobby
(01:16):
with a friend of the show, Adam Pranica, and friend
of your life and our good friend and booking agent
Josh Lingren, having some drinks and all of a sudden, Cole,
co founder of Sketch Best, walks over with Dave Foley
and they all sit down and day Folly sits next
to me and we have like a thirty minute conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's so cool. And this is the night before, so
when you guys were on stage together, you were like
old pals.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was a familiarity built in. Dave Folly was the
nicest sky you could ever imagine. That's so great, he
asked him. He clearly had listened to stuff you should
know because he said something about is Josh here, so
he knows your name.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And we're sitting there having a conversation, and all of
a sudden, I look up and it's Scott Thompson and
Bruce McCullough and Kevin McDonald man, and they all see
Dave and come over, and this is the first time
they'd seen each other. I mean, I don't know how long,
but you know, they were doing a screening of brain
Candy the next night.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh cool.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And so they were all just seeing each other for
the first time that weekend, and they It warmed your
heart so much seeing how much these guys liked each
other and how they liked seeing each other.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, that makes me really happy to hear
that they're as great as they seem.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, it was incredible. They were just they were hugging
and laughing, and I'm looking across at lingern And and
Adam and We're both have looks on her faces like
what is happening right now? And Bruce McCullough had the
one of the funniest lines I've ever seen, you know,
how you just bag on friends as a as a rule.
They're all standing around and laughing and Bruce McCullough goes,
(02:52):
isn't it great that Mark isn't here?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Mark?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It was so funny, man, It was like the perfect
line at the perfect and they all busted out laughing
and I got to I got to kind of eavesdrop
on their stories. And then the next night Scott Thompson
telling stories. Today, Foley, I'm just like a fly on
the wall trying to be invisible, just trying to soak
in these stories about Lorne Michael's in the early days
and like trashing hotel rooms, and it was it was
(03:18):
just great.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's really cool man.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, that she could have been there. That was the
only thing missing was you.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I wish I could have too, And thank you for
saying that. That's nice. But thanks for telling me all
about it, and congrats on a great showing at the
What is it hanging with Doctor Z?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Hanging with Doctor Z? Dana's the best. He's so funny.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Is it anywhere? Like somebody can see it online?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I don't know if they. I don't think they shot
video for this. I'm curious, But go watch episodes of
Hanging with Doctor C. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay, cool, cool. Well, that was great. Thank you for
telling everybody about it. And I guess now, let's you
want to start the episode about the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, for sure. Not too long ago in an episode,
we had a listener mail that referenced the Cajun Navy.
It is not something that I had heard of, even
though it has been sort of all over the news.
But I don't watch news with my eyes and ears
I generally read stuff, and I guess it just had
never read anything about this, even though the Cajun Navy
(04:14):
seems like have done a lot of great things, but
there's also some criticism.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, it's a good example of how absolutely everything in
the United States can become politicized.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And it is like I get criticisms, I also get
the praise as well, Like at the end of the day,
these these dudes, as you'll see, are putting their lives
on the line to help other people.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
That's right. What we're talking about is a group of
men and women. Now there are many different groups, but
it's been dubbed the Cajun Navy, and it sprang from
Hurricane Katrina when they were like, hey, we need more help.
We need help beyond FEMA in this case, it's so devastating.
We know that you've got boats, you got airboats, and
(05:00):
you have the will people of Louisiana, and the call
went out and they people came to help and helped
a lot, and they were dubbed the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. So although the Cajun Navy is we'll see, like
as we understand it today, really kind of developed in
twenty sixteen. Basically all the origin stories, all competing origin stories,
traced through themselves back to Katrina. And that is a
good place to start because that is one of the
best examples of government failing it's people that has happened
(05:29):
in recent history. The Bush administration, FEMA, like they just
botched helping people, and so there was a really big
vacuum that other people who were just basically moved to
go help people who'd just been left behind, like, hey,
good luck on your roof, hopefully everything works out. People
(05:50):
got their own boats, they got their own trailers. They
drove to New Orleans and got as close as they could.
They put their boats in when they hit the water,
and they went and rescued those people themselves. No one
paid them, no one even really asked them to do this.
They just knew that people were in trouble, they knew
that they could help them. And so I think, as
Governor Kathleen Blanco later said, when she was kind of
(06:14):
talking about this retrospectively, she said, it was Louisiana people
helping Louisiana people.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, for sure, there were some asks and calls for help.
There was a Louisiana State center named Nick Gautro, and
he went on the TV in the radio during Katrina,
and he said, hey, if you've got a boat, we
need your help. There's a mall outside of New Orleans
and Lafayette about one hundred and fifty miles away, and
(06:41):
we could use some people. And he thought, maybe, you know,
twenty thirty people might show up. Close to four hundred
people show up, showed up, and they ended up forming
an eight mile convoy of trucks and boats. And in
the end, CBS News reports that they rescued ten thousand
people during Katrina alone.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, and this is where they were dubbed the Cajun
Navy later on. But like, this is just it's astounding,
Like from the outset, it was just just amazing, like
just the number of people who shut up, the number
of people they saved. And this is exactly the kind
of thing that people love to read about, hear about,
see about, because it's like, yes, people are still basically good.
(07:25):
And then on the other hand, we also as a
country in particular, love to start picking apart everybody, including
heroes who selfishly act.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That's right. The guy who would later become one of
the founders of the United Cajun Navy, and like we said,
there's a I think close to thirty or more people
are groups organizations who have dubbed themselves some version of
a Cajun Navy like this. Yeah, well we should point
out that only three of those are nonprofits.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah that's a big, big deal.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, it's a red flag in some cases. But this
guy's name was Todd Terrell, and he owned a seafood
business that was completely devastated during the first few days
of Katrina. So he lost everything, and after that he
didn't take his shrip net and go home. He said,
I'm going to help rescue people, and so he kind
of headed up a lot of this and ended up
(08:17):
one of the actual founders of the United Cajun Navy,
like I said.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, and the United Cajun Navy's one of the big ones,
maybe the biggest, definitely the most professionalized, and they are
a five OHO one C three nonprofit. But the Cajun
Navy moniker itself is shared by a number of different groups,
like you said, And there's something about these people in
(08:41):
particular that make them they have a very specific set
of skills. I guess you could say one a lot
of them are Cajun and grew up, spent their whole
lives and still spend a lot of their time out
on the bayou in boats that are designed to navigate
obstacles in very shallow water.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
That is to say, airboats, airboats, p rogues.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Okay, yeah, that's well those two. I think bass boats also,
they use a lot of bass boats. So not only
are their boats designed for this, they have a lot
of experience they getting around a dumpster, but say in
the form of like a cypress tree, and all of
the knees like, they know what they're doing. They're expert
boatmen and boat people. How about that? Yeah, and so
(09:32):
there's a there's a really like big incentive for these
to welcome these people because they know what they're doing.
The issue is, as we'll see again and again, they
are expert both people. They don't necessarily have search and
rescue training. And that's one of the probably the biggest,
most legitimate criticisms of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, for sure, even though I was born in Katrina,
believe he kind of hinted that twenty sixteen, during the
thousand Year Flood of Louisiana, when thirty one inches of
rain fell on Baton Rouge over the course of twenty
four hours.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Insane.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It was an incredible amount of rain, completely devastating. The
first you know, when Katrina happened, that was pre smartphone
twenty sixteen. That was the difference. Was all of a sudden,
you had fifty six of Louisiana sixty four parishes were
declared federal disaster areas, and you had a Cajun navy
(10:28):
at work with smartphones and social media that could triangulate
and who could posts like we need people here, we
need people there. It became much more organized, much more
cohesive in twenty sixteen thanks to you know, social media
and smartphones.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, and in particular an app called Zello.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
This sounds cool, I'm going to try this out with
a fanly we.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
You should go check out the website for the app,
like just there, you know, all the different bells and
whistles that has it is nuts. So basically, Zello turns
a cell phone into a walkie talkie. Even if you
barely have a signal, you can use it. Like with
a low enough signal that you couldn't make a call,
you can still use your phone as a Zelo walkie talkie.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
So cool.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It gets even better. It translates, you can speak and
it will translate into another language that you select. You
can coordinate with people who speak different languages. And all
of a sudden, now all of these people who only
had cell phones can now coordinate and organize and be
much more effective than just like say, two guys in
(11:32):
a boat and there's two other guys in a boat here.
Now they're saying, well, this is where people need the
most help. Let's send these guys out here because they're
closest to go get those people. Like there was a
completely different level of coordination and organization than in Katrina.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Does it translate the Cajun accent?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I'm not going to say it, but yes it does.
I will give you full reassurance.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You know who could help us with that as their
old buddy.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Doug, right, Doug Shashery. Yeah cheshree.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We've met him backstage are two New Orleans shows. What
a good guy.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
He treats us so well. He brought us budan m hm,
and we just went to town on those things. Yeah,
so good sausage balls, right, Yeah, that's what it is, right,
Freddie Gravy sausage balls. They're amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
It's so good. The Cajun Navy these days, though, is
a big deal. Like you said, like the three like
super legitimate. And I'm not saying that none others are
doing good work, but the three nonprofits are like big,
big time. They have multimillion dollar budgets. Now, they have
chapters all like even in Hawaii, they have them all
over the country, and they are funded by charitable donations.
(12:40):
They're staff by volunteers. And that seems like a good
time for a break, good intro, I agree. All right,
it's an early break, but we'll be right back. All right,
(13:17):
we're back, and we're gonna talk about the credo of
the Cajun Navy, because if they're known for one thing,
that is like don't wait around and just say people
just get things done. And their credo is it's unofficial,
but it seems pretty official is act first and deal
with the consequences later.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right, which, on one hand is like, yep, if you
are stuck on your roof, that is the kind of
person you want to come get you. You don't want
them to filling out forms to get permission to come
rescue you from your roof, right, that's right. On the
other hand, there's reasons for regulations safety for everybody there,
(13:55):
there's reasons for government in that sense. Right. This is
where this is where the kind of breakdown starts to occur.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, let's start with the good of acting first. You're
going to rescue a lot more people, a lot quicker.
You're going to get food and aid to people a
lot quicker. A very great example of this was Hurricane Harvey,
the Category four that dumped sixty inches of brain in
Texas over of course of four days. It was completely devastating,
apparently the wettest costly as hurricane in US history. And
(14:28):
because of what happened in twenty sixteen, I think they
felt like, hey, the call is coming now from Texas.
There was a call specifically in one case that was
a nursing home in Port Arthur that was underwater. Cajun
Navy volunteers rushed out there. They got there, they found,
you know, people not able to get out of their wheelchairs,
(14:49):
stuck up to their knees, and sewage water they hadn't
eaten since at least the day before. They were hydrated.
Many of them were confused and it kind of came
literally to blows when a Navy volunteer named Ben Husser
went to get these people out, and the director was like,
our corporate policy, sir says, it has to be a
(15:10):
national guard evacuating us.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Right, And so ben Husser said that he beat the
hell out of this guy. He drew has gone on
him at one point to basically say, you need to
get out of my way because we're evacuating these elderly patients.
So you're clearly neglecting. And they did. They ended up
they ended up evacuating this group of nursing home patients,
(15:32):
got them to I think a bowling alley or a
movie theater, both which were turned into basically emergency centers
for people shelters. And this was like, this story is
tailor made for social media, right.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
One of the reasons why it's taylor made for social
media is because it only presents one side, and it
presents like what seems like the morally correct approach to
this situation. Just like anything, there's another nothing is black
and white. And so this nursing home director, in one sense, yes,
he was following his corporate orders that he was not
(16:11):
supposed to let anybody else evacuate the patients, but he
was responsible for these patients. On top of that, there
are studies that show that evacuating elderly and medically frail
people can actually be deadlier than having them shelter in place.
That's even if you're evacuating them ahead of a storm.
(16:32):
This was in the middle of a storm that these
elderly and medically frail people were evacuated. And then thirdly,
these Keijun Navy guys showed up. They don't have like
id cards that say Cajun Navy signed by the Governor
of Louisiana. They're just some dudes that showed up, one
of which pulled a gun on the director of the
nursing home and said, we're getting these old people who
(16:53):
you're responsible for out of here. Get out of our way,
or we're going to beat you up and shoot you.
So like to this is the Cajun Navy is just
such a great flashpoint because it's so easy to almost
cartoonize what they're doing, for better or worse, and just
completely ignore the reality of the situation. And I think
(17:16):
in that sense it's just so worth talking about because
it's an exercise, and how how much emotion and just
dumbness we put into evaluating stuff, and how tribal that
stuff makes us, and that this is a great example
of saying, here's something people are doing, here's the problems
with it. Let's figure out how to work everything out
(17:37):
together so that they can still save lives without the
downsides that are clearly inherently posed in this.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
That's why this.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Cajun Navy story is so I find important.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, as far as kind of
seeing it both ways, that happened all the way up
to the top of the ladder. Donald Trump became very
sort of, I guess, briefly attached to John Bridges, a
founder of the Cajun Navy, specifically Cajun Navy twenty sixteen,
which is its own group, invited him to the State
(18:12):
of Union address in twenty eighteen, had them up there.
When the Houston Astros visited the White House after they
won the World Series, he called out the incredible Cajun Navy.
And then, you know, on the other hand, was quoted
as sort of saying like, hey, you know, stay in
your boats, like these guys are out here trying to
impress their wives and let the professionals do their work.
(18:34):
And I think that just kind of illustrates how each
side has a leg to stand on, you know, like, sure,
you want to rescue people, but as we'll see, you know,
the rules and regulations are there for a reason. But
sometimes it's just dumb red tape. It's like it's hard
to kind of come down for me on hard on
one side or the other, because on one hand, you
(18:56):
have a group that a lot of this comes from
sort of an anti government sentiment, if not anti government,
maybe be very distrustful of the response to natural disasters.
But then when you see botched responses, you can see
where they're coming from.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah. I mean, as far as how these people's direct
experience with FEMA was in Katrina, I think George W.
Bush put it best when he said, fool me once, Sha,
shame on you fool me, you can't get fooled again.
And that's essentially what happened. FEMA fooled them once and
they have never forgotten it.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I thought that was Roger Daltrey.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
No, no, no, that was pretty folding.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Here's a quote from the vice president of United Cajun Navy,
another group, Brian Trasher said, Katrina is what ultimately showed
us in the world that really people, even in the
richest country in the world, people cannot rely on their
government to save them from the weather. If a flash
flood hit your house and all of a sudden you're
on a roof, you're not looking around for FEMA because
they're nowhere around. And a lot of the this goes
(20:00):
back to not just a distrust of the official systems,
but sort of the shame of a nation, a nation
like you got, the richest country in the world that's
not able to save their citizens from a flood, or
people that need to rely on the donations of their
friends and neighbors to get over cancer without bankrupt erupting them,
you know right.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, And that's definitely a supported insupportable viewpoint for sure.
How about this, We'll take a break and we'll come
back and we'll talk some more. How about the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So, Chuck, I think you mentioned that twenty sixteen was
a really pivotal time. Those floods in Baton Rouge. Yeah,
where a bunch of different groups that present themselves as
Cajun Navy groups formed and As some of these groups
really started to emerge, in particular Cajun Navy Relief and
(21:19):
United Cajun Navy, they started to organize. They started to
form five oh one c threes and accept donations and
show up more and more frequently at natural disasters. They
started to get more pushback. It went from just some
guys with boats to this is an actual organization showing
up right, and what they're you know, they're organizing, they're helping,
(21:41):
but they're still as far as we the people who
are professionals at this stuff are concerned, just some guys
with boats. And there was you know, I guess tension
that started to arise.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, for sure. Amanda Faulkner was a spokesperson for the
Coast Guard. I believe that said, you know, we have
plenty of boats. We don't need more boats. The Coastguard
has all the boats that we need. We know when
it's safe to get them out in the water. At
one point, do you become a liability? Is basically what
people started asking. Or when are you in the way,
(22:15):
when are you creating an unsafe situation? Or like you
said with the people in the retirement home, like maybe
you know if there were fifteen of them, maybe thirteen
of them. That was great to get them out of there,
but what if two of them had very adverse health
outcomes because of that rescue?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Right, And also you have not received medical training to
evacuate people. The National Guard who are supposed to evacuate
these people do get medical training. Like, there's just a
lot of arguments that you can make against it, and
some government agencies have started to make those arguments against it,
and you can say, well, yeah, these guys are upset
(22:51):
that their turf is being stepped on, and even worse,
they're being made to look ineffective, right and caring and
just basically concern with bureaucracy not saving people's lives, which
is what the Cajun Navy is all about.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Well, yeah, and especially if it's a situation where you're
rescuing people in Louisiana and a group of Cajuns on
an airboat show up, they may be just innately more
trusting of them than when the FEMA truck pulls up,
you know, yeah, for sure, like their locals. And you know,
conspiracy started springing up that like FEMA was actually I
(23:27):
think this was in Heleen, Yeah, and Helene in twenty
twenty four started in Florida, went up through the East
coast into the Appalachian Mountains, killed a lot of people,
two hundred and fifty people, and I think it was
the deadliest hurricane since Katrina. And this is when conspiracy
started to spring up in words getting around that FEMA
is using the governments using this as a chance to
(23:49):
seize your property so they can have and own your land.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Right And just like how in twenty sixteen, social media
helped a lot of the Cajun Navy organize and be
more effective. This is a great example of how social
media helped the whole system just break down all the
more completely. Because if you have people who actually believe
that these government agents who are now there, like I
saw a FEMA truck femas here, that they're actually going
(24:15):
to try to steal your land, maybe kill you, like
and you're already under the stress of your houses underwater
because of the natural disaster, that's going to create a
climate that you don't really need. That's not the Cajun
Navy's fault. You can't really lay that on them. The
point is that in that kind of climate, they become
(24:35):
all the more vital, But at the same time them
pointing out the failures of the government just by them
existing becomes all the more pronounced as well.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, and boy, I hope what doesn't happen is that
the Cajun Navy doesn't roll in here and disparage or
more organized governmental efforts at the same time.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, the ones that I saw, the ones that
like you could feel comfortable donating or good about donating to, don't. Okay, No,
that's actually a pretty good sign. I think if you
actually are looking at a Cajun Navy to donate to,
and they do that, then you should probably keep walking.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, and if you look at the you know, the
sort of more official, organized ones, they they do try
to work with FEMA. They're not combative. Sometimes they do
work around FEMA if they think that it is holding
up a legitimate rescue or aid coming to someone. But
Todd Terrell said, you know, we try to work with
the government as best we can, but the government can't
(25:36):
do what we do. FEMA's not designed to do what
the Cajun Navy does. And that's you know, that's a fact.
It's it's a quicker moving, quicker operating. You know, they
make the point that somebody with a laptop or a
or a satellite phone and the Cajun Navy can get
supplies there a lot quicker than going the official route.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know. Yeah, like you you could say, hey, we
have a whole bunch of bottled water we want you
to take with you when you take your boat to
go rescue people, and that aid that you sent to
those people in need could get them in a few
hours rather than having to go to a warehouse, be
put on a truck and then the truck has to
deliver supplies like it's it as agile as they say
(26:16):
in like the project management world. And that's a huge bonus,
I mean, in addition to the fact that these these
people are risking their lives to save other people for
no compensation whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, there's an article in GQ by Miriam Markowitz who
kind of affirmed what we were saying about. You know,
it just shows like people love to have faith in
like regular people, and they love the hero stories. But
points out I think the quote is for our efforts
to be effective, they need to be large scale. Systemic
(26:52):
heroism can't be the exception in a civilized society. And
it shouldn't be financed by micro donations through GoFundMe campaigns.
We pay taxes for firefighters and police because we can't
bank on the whims of our neighbors to save us.
And it's these institutions that have cracks that need to
be shored up along with some local volunteer efforts.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I think, you know, yeah, but those institutions that we
pay for through our taxes, like we're owed them to
be effective in response. Yeah, But at the same time,
when those things work correctly, that is something that can
give the entire nation a sense of pride, right, And
just the same way that stories about everyday people joining
the Cajun Navy saving other everyday people saving their lives. Literally,
(27:40):
they give you like a reaffirming faith in humanity. If
FEMA had showed up and saved everyone in Katrina, that
would have given everybody a reaffirmed faith in like the
collective good of say, like an organized government, right, right,
or maybe even like a sense of patriotism. That's not
what's been happening, right, So that's where the breakdown is.
(28:02):
I think that Markowitz is saying is that our government's failing,
and then the presence of the Cajun Navy is just
pointing this out even worse and then worse than that
if we come to rely on essentially crowdsourced or vigilante
forms of like supportive efforts, whether it be say a
(28:22):
fire department, you know that just basically is a bunch
of guys who who come out on Saturday nights, but
not on Tuesday night if your house is on fire,
to say, like the Cajun Navy, who may or may
not make it out to the natural disaster in your
neck of the woods, Like, you just can't. You can't
rely on people. They're not These people have jobs, they
(28:43):
have families, they have stuff they have to do. They're
not getting paid for this, so you inherently can't rely
on them. Even though they are reliable people, you can't
rely on them in every situation. That's why we have
these institutions. That's why these institutions have to be, like
you said, said, shored up and step up so that
we don't need the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, I mean. One of the criticisms or potential criticisms,
is that it might discourage evacuation if the storm is
impending and people knew from the news or social media
that like, hey man, you're on your roof, the Cajun
Navy will be there, toot sweet and get you out
of there with a bottle of water in their hand.
A lot of people might like not follow evacuation orders
(29:27):
because they're relying on something that may happen, but it
may not. But you could also say the same for
the government institutions.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You know, yeah, apparently you really, as a government spokesperson
shouldn't say like it's going to be worse than this
last storm or it's as bad as say this last hurricane,
because people will be like, oh, I didn't evacuate, I
made it to fine, you know, so yeah, you can
definitely misstep. That's I think getting people to evacuate it's
got to be one of the harder things you could
possibly do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Oh yeah. Another criticism is that, you know, when you've
got people in there, all there's more people on the scene,
it could create confusion and maybe even hazardous situations, and
perhaps even a situation where you're needing to then rescue
people from the Cajun Navy who have run ashore or
whatever happened that was bad for their efforts.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, there's a rumor that's not true that some Cajun
Navy people showed up to help after her during even
Hurricane Michael and got stranded in a hotel and had
to be rescued, and they did have to write out
some of the storm in the hotel, but they didn't
need to be rescued, and they left from the hotel
to go help people. So it seems I couldn't find
(30:37):
any instance where somebody who was in the Cajun Navy
needed to be rescued themselves. And that seems like the
kind of thing that would have made news everywhere if
that had happened. So it seems to be like a
theoretical issue, right that hasn't happened, but could.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, but it's also like, hey, we rescued ten thousand
people in Katrina, but this group of six needed some
help themselves. It's sort of a flimsy argument, you know. Yeah,
it's not like every every part of the Cajun Navy
all of a sudden all needs rescue as well. You know,
like maybe that kind of thing could happen, but on
a pretty small scale.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Agreed. Another one is that it just straight up encourages
vigilanteism or vigilanism. Yeah, and you know, on the one hand,
if the government institutions were there, the Cajun Navy wouldn't
necessarily be there because they wouldn't be needed. So there's
you know, there's a place for this. But on the
(31:35):
other hand, even if it's morally correct in an instance,
you don't you do not want to encourage vigilanism in
any form whatsoever, because that is a major facet of
mob rule, and you don't want mob rule. So even
though this is this makes a lot of sense, you
can make a really good argument that if you look
far enough down the road, it's not because how long
(31:58):
would it be potentially and theoretically before say a Cajun
Navy guy takes it on himself to start looking for
looters and he starts patrolling things with looters and he
starts shooting at looters. Yeah, this is not this guy's
place to shoot at looters, and yet he's taking it
upon himself. Like, again, this hasn't happened. It's theoretical. But
the point of is that encouraging any form of vigilantism
(32:21):
can have these knock on effects. That says, well, if
you're willing to let people do this. This makes sense too,
so let's start doing this as well.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, I mean that's sort of I could see that
happening because we've seen it happen with the strapped neighborhood
watch situation. Sure, and it's not hard to draw a
line there, So yeah, I see where you're coming from.
My big thing is like to think about the legal liabilities.
I don't know how it works. When you're an official
nonprofit with multimillion dollar budgets, you're way more official. But
(32:53):
what if you're just one of these other sort of
startup Cajun navies and something happened where you cause the
loss of life or you cause something terrible to happen.
Like the liability, the legal liability, and the just the
sort of ethical and moral liabilities, they're pretty tremendous.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah. I think people who are like say working for
a state agency or a government agency or like the
National Guard, they are immunized from civil lawsuits for like
they if somebody gets injured while they're rescuing them, you
can't sue that person. That's not true for the Cajun Navy.
And that's actually one argument for solving a lot of
(33:34):
these problems is enticing them to kind of become more
part of the larger search and rescue community that responds
to natural disasters, to coordinate more with them. Still, yeah,
the occasion Navy, but come here and get training, Come
here and figure out how you can coordinate with us
for all of us to be the most effective, and
(33:55):
in return, will extend this legal immunity to you when
you're in these natural disaster areas.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah. But then the headline as government ruins Cajun Navy.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Right, I think that's why there's some resistance to it.
But the I believe both the Cajun Navy Relief and
the United Cajun Navy both require their members to undergo training. Yeah,
like official training, I believe, and they do, like you said,
tend to coordinate with responders more than just like go
(34:29):
out and say the hell with you, I'm going you know.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah, And I'm sure as they I mean, this was
not that long ago that all this started up. I'm
sure as it grows, if it's allowed to grow, it
will become more rigorous in the training. And you know,
because they're ought to do good they want to do
good things, and they want to solve problems on the ground,
so they're not like, yeah, we don't need no training,
you know, like, I'm sure, given time and you know,
(34:56):
the donation of funds coming in, they're trying to do
just that, I imagine.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Right. So there are again I think you said most
of them are for profit, there's some that are nonprofit.
And two rise to the topic again, United Cajun Navy
and Cajun Navy Relief. On Charity Navigator they have eighty
five and an eighty seven rating, respectively, which is pretty good.
Charity Navigator says, you can give You can donate to
(35:22):
this these groups with confidence, right that they're going to
use your money Wisely, I didn't see on Cajun Navy Relief,
but I'm guessing it's the same United Cajun Navy. They're officers.
The people who run the show get zero dollars compensation. Wow,
So you don't like there's there are groups of these
(35:44):
people who are genuinely dedicated to this, who are doing
it right, then there are others who are like getting
arrested for fraud. So do your homework before you make
a donation. But if you feel moved to donate, go donate.
But just do a little bit of research first. Don't
listen to somebody on the internet who says, you know,
(36:04):
stay away from this group because this group's better. Go
do your own research and charity Navigator is usually a
pretty good place to start. Yeah, totally, you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I got nothing else. This is a rare shortsh long
or exercise short.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Nice, We'll put Chuck. Yeah, since Chuck said what he
just said, I think it's time for listener ma'am.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, we're gonna for we go listener mail this week,
just because we wanted to get a quick moment. We
just got back from our first tour in a year
and a half, back out on the road doing shows
in Denver and Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California, and
just wanted to thank everybody at the Paramount Theater in Denver,
the Paramount in Seattle, and the Sydney Goldstein and SF
(36:48):
sketch Fest, who always does such a great job. I
feel like we don't often thank the people there that
put these shows on, and the crews were all great.
The people that came out to see us, thank you
so much. It's hard to part with the dollar these days,
I know, times are tight, so we really really really
means a lot that you would spend some of your
money to come out and hear us talk for a
(37:10):
couple of hours.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, and your time, and yeah, just leaving your house
as ordeal these days anyway. So yeah, we genuinely appreciate
everybody who came out and like that was really a
great way to get back on the road after eighteen months.
You know, it was a great welcome back, So thank
you guys.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
It's a lot of fun. The show is really fun
and great. And we say this also as a reminder
that we'll be doing shows in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, and Akron,
Ohio before hitting the road for Canada this summer, and
there's still plenty of great seats. And like I said,
it's a fun show. There's a lot of bad stuff
in the news going on, and it's nice to go
(37:48):
sit around for a couple of hours with a bunch
of curious, smart, compassionate people, which is the stuff you
should know, Army.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
That's right, well, put chuck, Yeah, if you want to
get tickets or whatever, I think we basically have like
a clearinghouse on stuffishould know dot com and you just
click on the on tour tab and it will take
you to Heaven Yay. If you want to get in
touch of this in the meantime, you can send us
an email. We always love it when you send us
an email. Send it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
(38:18):
dot com.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we are saving the
day here on Stuff you should Know.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
That's right, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I guess I just said that we're secure to save
the day, and we are. We're going to talk about
the Cajun Navy in a second, but before we do,
we just got back from tour and you did something
that I didn't do and I want to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Oh yeah, weh. I got tabbed to perform in the
Hanging with Doctor z Show, which, if you don't know,
it is comedian Dana Gould has a professional Doctor zayas
a Planet of the Apes costume, nice and he just
does a straight up late night talk show as Doctor Zaias.
That's the only sort of wrinkle to it, and it's
(00:55):
it's a lot of fun. And I was on. It's
kind of a straight guy, you know, clearly wasn't the
improvising comedian, but I did an okay job. But Dave
Folly of the Kids in the Hall was there. Yeah,
and Janet Barney, the Great Andy Daily, and I just
got to tell you quickly about the night before in
the hotel. Yeah, I was hanging out in the lobby
(01:16):
with a friend of the show, Adam Pranica, and friend
of your life and our good friend and booking agent
Josh Lingren, having some drinks and all of a sudden, Cole,
co founder of Sketch Best, walks over with Dave Foley
and they all sit down and day Folly sits next
to me and we have like a thirty minute conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's so cool. And this is the night before, so
when you guys were on stage together, you were like
old pals.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was a familiarity built in. Dave Folly was the
nicest sky you could ever imagine. That's so great, he
asked him. He clearly had listened to stuff you should
know because he said something about is Josh here, so
he knows your name.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And we're sitting there having a conversation, and all of
a sudden, I look up and it's Scott Thompson and
Bruce McCullough and Kevin McDonald man, and they all see
Dave and come over, and this is the first time
they'd seen each other. I mean, I don't know how long,
but you know, they were doing a screening of brain
Candy the next night.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh cool.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And so they were all just seeing each other for
the first time that weekend, and they It warmed your
heart so much seeing how much these guys liked each
other and how they liked seeing each other.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, that makes me really happy to hear
that they're as great as they seem.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, it was incredible. They were just they were hugging
and laughing, and I'm looking across at lingern And and
Adam and We're both have looks on her faces like
what is happening right now? And Bruce McCullough had the
one of the funniest lines I've ever seen, you know,
how you just bag on friends as a as a rule.
They're all standing around and laughing and Bruce McCullough goes,
(02:52):
isn't it great that Mark isn't here?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Mark?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It was so funny, man, It was like the perfect
line at the perfect and they all busted out laughing
and I got to I got to kind of eavesdrop
on their stories. And then the next night Scott Thompson
telling stories. Today, Foley, I'm just like a fly on
the wall trying to be invisible, just trying to soak
in these stories about Lorne Michael's in the early days
and like trashing hotel rooms, and it was it was
(03:18):
just great.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's really cool man.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, that she could have been there. That was the
only thing missing was you.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I wish I could have too, And thank you for
saying that. That's nice. But thanks for telling me all
about it, and congrats on a great showing at the
What is it hanging with Doctor Z?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Hanging with Doctor Z? Dana's the best. He's so funny.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Is it anywhere? Like somebody can see it online?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I don't know if they. I don't think they shot
video for this. I'm curious, But go watch episodes of
Hanging with Doctor C. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Okay, cool, cool. Well, that was great. Thank you for
telling everybody about it. And I guess now, let's you
want to start the episode about the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, for sure. Not too long ago in an episode,
we had a listener mail that referenced the Cajun Navy.
It is not something that I had heard of, even
though it has been sort of all over the news.
But I don't watch news with my eyes and ears
I generally read stuff, and I guess it just had
never read anything about this, even though the Cajun Navy
(04:14):
seems like have done a lot of great things, but
there's also some criticism.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, it's a good example of how absolutely everything in
the United States can become politicized.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And it is like I get criticisms, I also get
the praise as well, Like at the end of the day,
these these dudes, as you'll see, are putting their lives
on the line to help other people.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
That's right. What we're talking about is a group of
men and women. Now there are many different groups, but
it's been dubbed the Cajun Navy, and it sprang from
Hurricane Katrina when they were like, hey, we need more help.
We need help beyond FEMA in this case, it's so devastating.
We know that you've got boats, you got airboats, and
(05:00):
you have the will people of Louisiana, and the call
went out and they people came to help and helped
a lot, and they were dubbed the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. So although the Cajun Navy is we'll see, like
as we understand it today, really kind of developed in
twenty sixteen. Basically all the origin stories, all competing origin stories,
traced through themselves back to Katrina. And that is a
good place to start because that is one of the
best examples of government failing it's people that has happened
(05:29):
in recent history. The Bush administration, FEMA, like they just
botched helping people, and so there was a really big
vacuum that other people who were just basically moved to
go help people who'd just been left behind, like, hey,
good luck on your roof, hopefully everything works out. People
(05:50):
got their own boats, they got their own trailers. They
drove to New Orleans and got as close as they could.
They put their boats in when they hit the water,
and they went and rescued those people themselves. No one
paid them, no one even really asked them to do this.
They just knew that people were in trouble, they knew
that they could help them. And so I think, as
Governor Kathleen Blanco later said, when she was kind of
(06:14):
talking about this retrospectively, she said, it was Louisiana people
helping Louisiana people.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, for sure, there were some asks and calls for help.
There was a Louisiana State center named Nick Gautro, and
he went on the TV in the radio during Katrina,
and he said, hey, if you've got a boat, we
need your help. There's a mall outside of New Orleans
and Lafayette about one hundred and fifty miles away, and
(06:41):
we could use some people. And he thought, maybe, you know,
twenty thirty people might show up. Close to four hundred
people show up, showed up, and they ended up forming
an eight mile convoy of trucks and boats. And in
the end, CBS News reports that they rescued ten thousand
people during Katrina alone.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, and this is where they were dubbed the Cajun
Navy later on. But like, this is just it's astounding,
Like from the outset, it was just just amazing, like
just the number of people who shut up, the number
of people they saved. And this is exactly the kind
of thing that people love to read about, hear about,
see about, because it's like, yes, people are still basically good.
(07:25):
And then on the other hand, we also as a
country in particular, love to start picking apart everybody, including
heroes who selfishly act.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That's right. The guy who would later become one of
the founders of the United Cajun Navy, and like we said,
there's a I think close to thirty or more people
are groups organizations who have dubbed themselves some version of
a Cajun Navy like this. Yeah, well we should point
out that only three of those are nonprofits.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah that's a big, big deal.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, it's a red flag in some cases. But this
guy's name was Todd Terrell, and he owned a seafood
business that was completely devastated during the first few days
of Katrina. So he lost everything, and after that he
didn't take his shrip net and go home. He said,
I'm going to help rescue people, and so he kind
of headed up a lot of this and ended up
(08:17):
one of the actual founders of the United Cajun Navy,
like I said.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, and the United Cajun Navy's one of the big ones,
maybe the biggest, definitely the most professionalized, and they are
a five OHO one C three nonprofit. But the Cajun
Navy moniker itself is shared by a number of different groups,
like you said, And there's something about these people in
(08:41):
particular that make them they have a very specific set
of skills. I guess you could say one a lot
of them are Cajun and grew up, spent their whole
lives and still spend a lot of their time out
on the bayou in boats that are designed to navigate
obstacles in very shallow water.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
That is to say, airboats, airboats, p rogues.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Okay, yeah, that's well those two. I think bass boats also,
they use a lot of bass boats. So not only
are their boats designed for this, they have a lot
of experience they getting around a dumpster, but say in
the form of like a cypress tree, and all of
the knees like, they know what they're doing. They're expert
boatmen and boat people. How about that? Yeah, and so
(09:32):
there's a there's a really like big incentive for these
to welcome these people because they know what they're doing.
The issue is, as we'll see again and again, they
are expert both people. They don't necessarily have search and
rescue training. And that's one of the probably the biggest,
most legitimate criticisms of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, for sure, even though I was born in Katrina,
believe he kind of hinted that twenty sixteen, during the
thousand Year Flood of Louisiana, when thirty one inches of
rain fell on Baton Rouge over the course of twenty
four hours.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Insane.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It was an incredible amount of rain, completely devastating. The
first you know, when Katrina happened, that was pre smartphone
twenty sixteen. That was the difference. Was all of a sudden,
you had fifty six of Louisiana sixty four parishes were
declared federal disaster areas, and you had a Cajun navy
(10:28):
at work with smartphones and social media that could triangulate
and who could posts like we need people here, we
need people there. It became much more organized, much more
cohesive in twenty sixteen thanks to you know, social media
and smartphones.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, and in particular an app called Zello.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
This sounds cool, I'm going to try this out with
a fanly we.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
You should go check out the website for the app,
like just there, you know, all the different bells and
whistles that has it is nuts. So basically, Zello turns
a cell phone into a walkie talkie. Even if you
barely have a signal, you can use it. Like with
a low enough signal that you couldn't make a call,
you can still use your phone as a Zelo walkie talkie.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
So cool.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It gets even better. It translates, you can speak and
it will translate into another language that you select. You
can coordinate with people who speak different languages. And all
of a sudden, now all of these people who only
had cell phones can now coordinate and organize and be
much more effective than just like say, two guys in
(11:32):
a boat and there's two other guys in a boat here.
Now they're saying, well, this is where people need the
most help. Let's send these guys out here because they're
closest to go get those people. Like there was a
completely different level of coordination and organization than in Katrina.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Does it translate the Cajun accent?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I'm not going to say it, but yes it does.
I will give you full reassurance.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You know who could help us with that as their
old buddy.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Doug, right, Doug Shashery. Yeah cheshree.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We've met him backstage are two New Orleans shows. What
a good guy.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
He treats us so well. He brought us budan m hm,
and we just went to town on those things. Yeah,
so good sausage balls, right, Yeah, that's what it is, right,
Freddie Gravy sausage balls. They're amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
It's so good. The Cajun Navy these days, though, is
a big deal. Like you said, like the three like
super legitimate. And I'm not saying that none others are
doing good work, but the three nonprofits are like big,
big time. They have multimillion dollar budgets. Now, they have
chapters all like even in Hawaii, they have them all
over the country, and they are funded by charitable donations.
(12:40):
They're staff by volunteers. And that seems like a good
time for a break, good intro, I agree. All right,
it's an early break, but we'll be right back. All right,
(13:17):
we're back, and we're gonna talk about the credo of
the Cajun Navy, because if they're known for one thing,
that is like don't wait around and just say people
just get things done. And their credo is it's unofficial,
but it seems pretty official is act first and deal
with the consequences later.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right, which, on one hand is like, yep, if you
are stuck on your roof, that is the kind of
person you want to come get you. You don't want
them to filling out forms to get permission to come
rescue you from your roof, right, that's right. On the
other hand, there's reasons for regulations safety for everybody there,
(13:55):
there's reasons for government in that sense. Right. This is
where this is where the kind of breakdown starts to occur.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, let's start with the good of acting first. You're
going to rescue a lot more people, a lot quicker.
You're going to get food and aid to people a
lot quicker. A very great example of this was Hurricane Harvey,
the Category four that dumped sixty inches of brain in
Texas over of course of four days. It was completely devastating,
apparently the wettest costly as hurricane in US history. And
(14:28):
because of what happened in twenty sixteen, I think they
felt like, hey, the call is coming now from Texas.
There was a call specifically in one case that was
a nursing home in Port Arthur that was underwater. Cajun
Navy volunteers rushed out there. They got there, they found,
you know, people not able to get out of their wheelchairs,
(14:49):
stuck up to their knees, and sewage water they hadn't
eaten since at least the day before. They were hydrated.
Many of them were confused and it kind of came
literally to blows when a Navy volunteer named Ben Husser
went to get these people out, and the director was like,
our corporate policy, sir says, it has to be a
(15:10):
national guard evacuating us.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Right, And so ben Husser said that he beat the
hell out of this guy. He drew has gone on
him at one point to basically say, you need to
get out of my way because we're evacuating these elderly patients.
So you're clearly neglecting. And they did. They ended up
they ended up evacuating this group of nursing home patients,
(15:32):
got them to I think a bowling alley or a
movie theater, both which were turned into basically emergency centers
for people shelters. And this was like, this story is
tailor made for social media, right.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
One of the reasons why it's taylor made for social
media is because it only presents one side, and it
presents like what seems like the morally correct approach to
this situation. Just like anything, there's another nothing is black
and white. And so this nursing home director, in one sense, yes,
he was following his corporate orders that he was not
(16:11):
supposed to let anybody else evacuate the patients, but he
was responsible for these patients. On top of that, there
are studies that show that evacuating elderly and medically frail
people can actually be deadlier than having them shelter in place.
That's even if you're evacuating them ahead of a storm.
(16:32):
This was in the middle of a storm that these
elderly and medically frail people were evacuated. And then thirdly,
these Keijun Navy guys showed up. They don't have like
id cards that say Cajun Navy signed by the Governor
of Louisiana. They're just some dudes that showed up, one
of which pulled a gun on the director of the
nursing home and said, we're getting these old people who
(16:53):
you're responsible for out of here. Get out of our way,
or we're going to beat you up and shoot you.
So like to this is the Cajun Navy is just
such a great flashpoint because it's so easy to almost
cartoonize what they're doing, for better or worse, and just
completely ignore the reality of the situation. And I think
(17:16):
in that sense it's just so worth talking about because
it's an exercise, and how how much emotion and just
dumbness we put into evaluating stuff, and how tribal that
stuff makes us, and that this is a great example
of saying, here's something people are doing, here's the problems
with it. Let's figure out how to work everything out
(17:37):
together so that they can still save lives without the
downsides that are clearly inherently posed in this.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
That's why this.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Cajun Navy story is so I find important.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, as far as kind of
seeing it both ways, that happened all the way up
to the top of the ladder. Donald Trump became very
sort of, I guess, briefly attached to John Bridges, a
founder of the Cajun Navy, specifically Cajun Navy twenty sixteen,
which is its own group, invited him to the State
(18:12):
of Union address in twenty eighteen, had them up there.
When the Houston Astros visited the White House after they
won the World Series, he called out the incredible Cajun Navy.
And then, you know, on the other hand, was quoted
as sort of saying like, hey, you know, stay in
your boats, like these guys are out here trying to
impress their wives and let the professionals do their work.
(18:34):
And I think that just kind of illustrates how each
side has a leg to stand on, you know, like, sure,
you want to rescue people, but as we'll see, you know,
the rules and regulations are there for a reason. But
sometimes it's just dumb red tape. It's like it's hard
to kind of come down for me on hard on
one side or the other, because on one hand, you
(18:56):
have a group that a lot of this comes from
sort of an anti government sentiment, if not anti government,
maybe be very distrustful of the response to natural disasters.
But then when you see botched responses, you can see
where they're coming from.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah. I mean, as far as how these people's direct
experience with FEMA was in Katrina, I think George W.
Bush put it best when he said, fool me once, Sha,
shame on you fool me, you can't get fooled again.
And that's essentially what happened. FEMA fooled them once and
they have never forgotten it.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I thought that was Roger Daltrey.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
No, no, no, that was pretty folding.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Here's a quote from the vice president of United Cajun Navy,
another group, Brian Trasher said, Katrina is what ultimately showed
us in the world that really people, even in the
richest country in the world, people cannot rely on their
government to save them from the weather. If a flash
flood hit your house and all of a sudden you're
on a roof, you're not looking around for FEMA because
they're nowhere around. And a lot of the this goes
(20:00):
back to not just a distrust of the official systems,
but sort of the shame of a nation, a nation
like you got, the richest country in the world that's
not able to save their citizens from a flood, or
people that need to rely on the donations of their
friends and neighbors to get over cancer without bankrupt erupting them,
you know right.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, And that's definitely a supported insupportable viewpoint for sure.
How about this, We'll take a break and we'll come
back and we'll talk some more. How about the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So, Chuck, I think you mentioned that twenty sixteen was
a really pivotal time. Those floods in Baton Rouge. Yeah,
where a bunch of different groups that present themselves as
Cajun Navy groups formed and As some of these groups
really started to emerge, in particular Cajun Navy Relief and
(21:19):
United Cajun Navy, they started to organize. They started to
form five oh one c threes and accept donations and
show up more and more frequently at natural disasters. They
started to get more pushback. It went from just some
guys with boats to this is an actual organization showing
up right, and what they're you know, they're organizing, they're helping,
(21:41):
but they're still as far as we the people who
are professionals at this stuff are concerned, just some guys
with boats. And there was you know, I guess tension
that started to arise.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, for sure. Amanda Faulkner was a spokesperson for the
Coast Guard. I believe that said, you know, we have
plenty of boats. We don't need more boats. The Coastguard
has all the boats that we need. We know when
it's safe to get them out in the water. At
one point, do you become a liability? Is basically what
people started asking. Or when are you in the way,
(22:15):
when are you creating an unsafe situation? Or like you
said with the people in the retirement home, like maybe
you know if there were fifteen of them, maybe thirteen
of them. That was great to get them out of there,
but what if two of them had very adverse health
outcomes because of that rescue?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Right, And also you have not received medical training to
evacuate people. The National Guard who are supposed to evacuate
these people do get medical training. Like, there's just a
lot of arguments that you can make against it, and
some government agencies have started to make those arguments against it,
and you can say, well, yeah, these guys are upset
(22:51):
that their turf is being stepped on, and even worse,
they're being made to look ineffective, right and caring and
just basically concern with bureaucracy not saving people's lives, which
is what the Cajun Navy is all about.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Well, yeah, and especially if it's a situation where you're
rescuing people in Louisiana and a group of Cajuns on
an airboat show up, they may be just innately more
trusting of them than when the FEMA truck pulls up,
you know, yeah, for sure, like their locals. And you know,
conspiracy started springing up that like FEMA was actually I
(23:27):
think this was in Heleen, Yeah, and Helene in twenty
twenty four started in Florida, went up through the East
coast into the Appalachian Mountains, killed a lot of people,
two hundred and fifty people, and I think it was
the deadliest hurricane since Katrina. And this is when conspiracy
started to spring up in words getting around that FEMA
is using the governments using this as a chance to
(23:49):
seize your property so they can have and own your land.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Right And just like how in twenty sixteen, social media
helped a lot of the Cajun Navy organize and be
more effective. This is a great example of how social
media helped the whole system just break down all the
more completely. Because if you have people who actually believe
that these government agents who are now there, like I
saw a FEMA truck femas here, that they're actually going
(24:15):
to try to steal your land, maybe kill you, like
and you're already under the stress of your houses underwater
because of the natural disaster, that's going to create a
climate that you don't really need. That's not the Cajun
Navy's fault. You can't really lay that on them. The
point is that in that kind of climate, they become
(24:35):
all the more vital, But at the same time them
pointing out the failures of the government just by them
existing becomes all the more pronounced as well.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, and boy, I hope what doesn't happen is that
the Cajun Navy doesn't roll in here and disparage or
more organized governmental efforts at the same time.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, the ones that I saw, the ones that
like you could feel comfortable donating or good about donating to, don't. Okay, No,
that's actually a pretty good sign. I think if you
actually are looking at a Cajun Navy to donate to,
and they do that, then you should probably keep walking.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, and if you look at the you know, the
sort of more official, organized ones, they they do try
to work with FEMA. They're not combative. Sometimes they do
work around FEMA if they think that it is holding
up a legitimate rescue or aid coming to someone. But
Todd Terrell said, you know, we try to work with
the government as best we can, but the government can't
(25:36):
do what we do. FEMA's not designed to do what
the Cajun Navy does. And that's you know, that's a fact.
It's it's a quicker moving, quicker operating. You know, they
make the point that somebody with a laptop or a
or a satellite phone and the Cajun Navy can get
supplies there a lot quicker than going the official route.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know. Yeah, like you you could say, hey, we
have a whole bunch of bottled water we want you
to take with you when you take your boat to
go rescue people, and that aid that you sent to
those people in need could get them in a few
hours rather than having to go to a warehouse, be
put on a truck and then the truck has to
deliver supplies like it's it as agile as they say
(26:16):
in like the project management world. And that's a huge bonus,
I mean, in addition to the fact that these these
people are risking their lives to save other people for
no compensation whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, there's an article in GQ by Miriam Markowitz who
kind of affirmed what we were saying about. You know,
it just shows like people love to have faith in
like regular people, and they love the hero stories. But
points out I think the quote is for our efforts
to be effective, they need to be large scale. Systemic
(26:52):
heroism can't be the exception in a civilized society. And
it shouldn't be financed by micro donations through GoFundMe campaigns.
We pay taxes for firefighters and police because we can't
bank on the whims of our neighbors to save us.
And it's these institutions that have cracks that need to
be shored up along with some local volunteer efforts.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I think, you know, yeah, but those institutions that we
pay for through our taxes, like we're owed them to
be effective in response. Yeah, But at the same time,
when those things work correctly, that is something that can
give the entire nation a sense of pride, right, And
just the same way that stories about everyday people joining
the Cajun Navy saving other everyday people saving their lives. Literally,
(27:40):
they give you like a reaffirming faith in humanity. If
FEMA had showed up and saved everyone in Katrina, that
would have given everybody a reaffirmed faith in like the
collective good of say, like an organized government, right, right,
or maybe even like a sense of patriotism. That's not
what's been happening, right, So that's where the breakdown is.
(28:02):
I think that Markowitz is saying is that our government's failing,
and then the presence of the Cajun Navy is just
pointing this out even worse and then worse than that
if we come to rely on essentially crowdsourced or vigilante
forms of like supportive efforts, whether it be say a
(28:22):
fire department, you know that just basically is a bunch
of guys who who come out on Saturday nights, but
not on Tuesday night if your house is on fire,
to say, like the Cajun Navy, who may or may
not make it out to the natural disaster in your
neck of the woods, Like, you just can't. You can't
rely on people. They're not These people have jobs, they
(28:43):
have families, they have stuff they have to do. They're
not getting paid for this, so you inherently can't rely
on them. Even though they are reliable people, you can't
rely on them in every situation. That's why we have
these institutions. That's why these institutions have to be, like
you said, said, shored up and step up so that
we don't need the Cajun Navy.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, I mean. One of the criticisms or potential criticisms,
is that it might discourage evacuation if the storm is
impending and people knew from the news or social media
that like, hey man, you're on your roof, the Cajun
Navy will be there, toot sweet and get you out
of there with a bottle of water in their hand.
A lot of people might like not follow evacuation orders
(29:27):
because they're relying on something that may happen, but it
may not. But you could also say the same for
the government institutions.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You know, yeah, apparently you really, as a government spokesperson
shouldn't say like it's going to be worse than this
last storm or it's as bad as say this last hurricane,
because people will be like, oh, I didn't evacuate, I
made it to fine, you know, so yeah, you can
definitely misstep. That's I think getting people to evacuate it's
got to be one of the harder things you could
possibly do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Oh yeah. Another criticism is that, you know, when you've
got people in there, all there's more people on the scene,
it could create confusion and maybe even hazardous situations, and
perhaps even a situation where you're needing to then rescue
people from the Cajun Navy who have run ashore or
whatever happened that was bad for their efforts.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, there's a rumor that's not true that some Cajun
Navy people showed up to help after her during even
Hurricane Michael and got stranded in a hotel and had
to be rescued, and they did have to write out
some of the storm in the hotel, but they didn't
need to be rescued, and they left from the hotel
to go help people. So it seems I couldn't find
(30:37):
any instance where somebody who was in the Cajun Navy
needed to be rescued themselves. And that seems like the
kind of thing that would have made news everywhere if
that had happened. So it seems to be like a
theoretical issue, right that hasn't happened, but could.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, but it's also like, hey, we rescued ten thousand
people in Katrina, but this group of six needed some
help themselves. It's sort of a flimsy argument, you know. Yeah,
it's not like every every part of the Cajun Navy
all of a sudden all needs rescue as well. You know,
like maybe that kind of thing could happen, but on
a pretty small scale.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Agreed. Another one is that it just straight up encourages
vigilanteism or vigilanism. Yeah, and you know, on the one hand,
if the government institutions were there, the Cajun Navy wouldn't
necessarily be there because they wouldn't be needed. So there's
you know, there's a place for this. But on the
(31:35):
other hand, even if it's morally correct in an instance,
you don't you do not want to encourage vigilanism in
any form whatsoever, because that is a major facet of
mob rule, and you don't want mob rule. So even
though this is this makes a lot of sense, you
can make a really good argument that if you look
far enough down the road, it's not because how long
(31:58):
would it be potentially and theoretically before say a Cajun
Navy guy takes it on himself to start looking for
looters and he starts patrolling things with looters and he
starts shooting at looters. Yeah, this is not this guy's
place to shoot at looters, and yet he's taking it
upon himself. Like, again, this hasn't happened. It's theoretical. But
the point of is that encouraging any form of vigilantism
(32:21):
can have these knock on effects. That says, well, if
you're willing to let people do this. This makes sense too,
so let's start doing this as well.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, I mean that's sort of I could see that
happening because we've seen it happen with the strapped neighborhood
watch situation. Sure, and it's not hard to draw a
line there, So yeah, I see where you're coming from.
My big thing is like to think about the legal liabilities.
I don't know how it works. When you're an official
nonprofit with multimillion dollar budgets, you're way more official. But
(32:53):
what if you're just one of these other sort of
startup Cajun navies and something happened where you cause the
loss of life or you cause something terrible to happen.
Like the liability, the legal liability, and the just the
sort of ethical and moral liabilities, they're pretty tremendous.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah. I think people who are like say working for
a state agency or a government agency or like the
National Guard, they are immunized from civil lawsuits for like
they if somebody gets injured while they're rescuing them, you
can't sue that person. That's not true for the Cajun Navy.
And that's actually one argument for solving a lot of
(33:34):
these problems is enticing them to kind of become more
part of the larger search and rescue community that responds
to natural disasters, to coordinate more with them. Still, yeah,
the occasion Navy, but come here and get training, Come
here and figure out how you can coordinate with us
for all of us to be the most effective, and
(33:55):
in return, will extend this legal immunity to you when
you're in these natural disaster areas.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah. But then the headline as government ruins Cajun Navy.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Right, I think that's why there's some resistance to it.
But the I believe both the Cajun Navy Relief and
the United Cajun Navy both require their members to undergo training. Yeah,
like official training, I believe, and they do, like you said,
tend to coordinate with responders more than just like go
(34:29):
out and say the hell with you, I'm going you know.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah, And I'm sure as they I mean, this was
not that long ago that all this started up. I'm
sure as it grows, if it's allowed to grow, it
will become more rigorous in the training. And you know,
because they're ought to do good they want to do
good things, and they want to solve problems on the ground,
so they're not like, yeah, we don't need no training,
you know, like, I'm sure, given time and you know,
(34:56):
the donation of funds coming in, they're trying to do
just that, I imagine.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Right. So there are again I think you said most
of them are for profit, there's some that are nonprofit.
And two rise to the topic again, United Cajun Navy
and Cajun Navy Relief. On Charity Navigator they have eighty
five and an eighty seven rating, respectively, which is pretty good.
Charity Navigator says, you can give You can donate to
(35:22):
this these groups with confidence, right that they're going to
use your money Wisely, I didn't see on Cajun Navy Relief,
but I'm guessing it's the same United Cajun Navy. They're officers.
The people who run the show get zero dollars compensation. Wow,
So you don't like there's there are groups of these
(35:44):
people who are genuinely dedicated to this, who are doing
it right, then there are others who are like getting
arrested for fraud. So do your homework before you make
a donation. But if you feel moved to donate, go donate.
But just do a little bit of research first. Don't
listen to somebody on the internet who says, you know,
(36:04):
stay away from this group because this group's better. Go
do your own research and charity Navigator is usually a
pretty good place to start. Yeah, totally, you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I got nothing else. This is a rare shortsh long
or exercise short.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Nice, We'll put Chuck. Yeah, since Chuck said what he
just said, I think it's time for listener ma'am.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, we're gonna for we go listener mail this week,
just because we wanted to get a quick moment. We
just got back from our first tour in a year
and a half, back out on the road doing shows
in Denver and Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California, and
just wanted to thank everybody at the Paramount Theater in Denver,
the Paramount in Seattle, and the Sydney Goldstein and SF
(36:48):
sketch Fest, who always does such a great job. I
feel like we don't often thank the people there that
put these shows on, and the crews were all great.
The people that came out to see us, thank you
so much. It's hard to part with the dollar these days,
I know, times are tight, so we really really really
means a lot that you would spend some of your
money to come out and hear us talk for a
(37:10):
couple of hours.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, and your time, and yeah, just leaving your house
as ordeal these days anyway. So yeah, we genuinely appreciate
everybody who came out and like that was really a
great way to get back on the road after eighteen months.
You know, it was a great welcome back, So thank
you guys.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
It's a lot of fun. The show is really fun
and great. And we say this also as a reminder
that we'll be doing shows in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, and Akron,
Ohio before hitting the road for Canada this summer, and
there's still plenty of great seats. And like I said,
it's a fun show. There's a lot of bad stuff
in the news going on, and it's nice to go
(37:48):
sit around for a couple of hours with a bunch
of curious, smart, compassionate people, which is the stuff you
should know, Army.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
That's right, well, put chuck, Yeah, if you want to
get tickets or whatever, I think we basically have like
a clearinghouse on stuffishould know dot com and you just
click on the on tour tab and it will take
you to Heaven Yay. If you want to get in
touch of this in the meantime, you can send us
an email. We always love it when you send us
an email. Send it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
(38:18):
dot com.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.