They took out retirements, college funds and inheritances, too.

Katrina took out 3 billion board feet and Rita, 1.6 billion board feet, of Louisiana timber, dealing a financial blow not only to corporate landowners but hundreds of small, private tree farmers.

The Louisiana Forestry Association estimates the hurricanes knocked down about three times the state's annual harvest, but said the industry will be lucky to recoup a quarter of the trees uprooted, snapped and bent over by the storm.

"There's so much timber on the ground, we just can't salvage all of it," said Gaston Lanoux, a tree farmer and forester who has been busy helping fellow landowners in Tangipahoa, Washington, St. Helena and the Florida parishes deal with damaged tree stands.

Lanoux, who farms mostly old-growth timber, lost half of his trees on his land north of Hammond, an estimated $150,000.

"If I salvage $35,000 of it I'll be lucky," he said.

"And what I lost is chicken feed compared to some people," he said. "Some people in the Florida parishes have lost millions and millions."

Bill Jenkins, who owns 550 acres of tree farms in Washington Parish, said mills such as Georgia-Pacific and Weyerhauser have worked hard to get extra logging capacity, though that still won't be enough.

"It's just too overwhelming," he said. "It's just so tremendous that there's no way to get it all up ?before it rots."

Jenkins estimates the average tree farmer in the parishes affected by Katrina lost more than half the mature trees in their large timber tracts, "and those are the tracts where the money is."

Jenkins said timber broken off will probably only last until February or March, while those tipped over, exposing the rootball will last into the early summer.

The problem, according to the state's forestry association and several tree farmers interviewed, is a lack of logging capacity to get so many downed trees to the mill before they decompose and become worthless.

Dennis Aucoin of Clinton-based Slaughter Logging said crews have been working so much since the storms that he had to give them a break. He said that while he has gotten some new customers, he's been mostly sticking with the landowners with whom he already has relationships.

"There are so many people, you can't help them all," he said. "It's a hard thing to tell people, 'I can't help you.'

"The landowners have taken the worst lick by far, in my opinion," he said.

In recent decades, the timber industry has evolved to use fewer loggers and bigger equipment, leaving the work at many small tree farms with no one to do it.

Toss in high fuel costs, an acute labor shortage, a lack of places for workers to stay and a glut of timber depressing prices and the mess caused by the hurricanes is easy to comprehend.

Lanoux said many of the smaller crews that could normally work with the smaller landowners have gone to do work for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Jenkins said many are in the cities and suburbs taking downed trees off of houses.

"If a logger has an extra loader and a small skidder and a truck, they're making money getting trees off of houses," he said, adding he's heard of people asking as much as $2,700 to get two trees off a house.

"I've heard outlandish numbers," he said.

Hughes said he's gotten 15 or 20 offers to help rid his yard of downed trees, with estimates of up to $6,000.

The dry weather since the storms is both a help and a hindrance -- it allows logging crews to work uninterrupted but hastens the decomposition of the downed trees.

Lumber yards and mills have taken to spraying trees with water to keep them around longer, said Buck Vandersteen, executive director of the forestry association.

Tree farming is an exercise in patience. Farmers keep stands of various ages to stabilize their income, though it's not a livelihood that necessarily produces income every year.

Waking up and finding a hurricane has taken out thousands of trees that have been growing for more than two decades was not a welcome event, to say the least.

Vandersteen said the insurance policies that cover tree farms are often lacking because they only cover the investment a landowner has made, not the value of the farm.

Jenkins said insurance is generally cost-prohibitive, and he rarely meets any fellow tree farmers who have it.

Tree farmers are left to assess the damage and figure out what to do next.

Some stands are so destroyed that tree farmers are forced to clear-cut them, taking down trees well before they reach full value.

"There's just going to be a lot of waste," said Jeff Hughes Jr., who has 95 acres in Tangipahoa Parish and another 55 acres in Mississippi.

Jenkins said that younger trees that are bent over will eventually straighten up. Older "leaners" are a problem because they reduce the number of trees per acre to a point where it's not profitable to harvest them.

As for the logs that are being hauled out of Louisiana forests, several factors are hurting productivity and profit margins.

The fibers within a downed tree sometimes separate into layers, reducing the amount of that's usable for wood, Hughes said. It's often not until the mill puts a saw to it before a tree farmer finds out much of it is useless.

Another problem that has emerged from so many downed trees is blue stain fungus.

Blue stain fungus -- not a mold, as Vandersteen points out -- is harmless to trees and the people who use the wood. But it's hard on tree farmers bottom lines, since buyers avoid it because of its blue hue.

Vandersteen said he expects the price of lumber to stay low for a bit and then shoot up as the glut gives way to a shortage. He suggested people wait between 18 months and two years before cutting down and selling timber.

Hughes predicts the industry will recover in the long term, but will have to struggle over the next few years.

With the average age of a tree farmer at 60 years old, Vandersteen is concerned that many will decide to get out of the business.

"If I'm 55 years old, do I wait to plant after such a huge loss or do I want to put it to some other use," he said.

Lanoux said that with the value of raw land north of Lake Pontchartrain going up, many could decide to forego planting and sell their property for real estate.

Many, such as Jenkins and Hughes, are getting ready to turn their land over to their children.

For logger Aucoin, the situation has made Slaughter Logging's task more difficult and less efficient.

The process and machinery of logging has evolved to be done under normal circumstances. It is, after all, a harvest.

But the work of ridding tree stands consisting of a mix of upright, uprooted, snapped-off and bent-over trees is completely different making the process more dangerous.

"Everyone's out of position," Aucoin said. "And when do you get hurt? When you're doing something you don't do every day."

Add to that the fact that a bent tree could snap in any direction as soon as a saw is put to it, said Slaughter operator Todd Welborn.

Aucoin said he's heard of one death related to logging since the storm.

Working under these conditions slows things down considerably.

Aucoin said he would normally get between 20 and 25 truckloads to the mill a day, but now does about half that.