Unsafe Harbor

Natural barriers that might have slowed Rita and Katrina were ruined long ago by human development along the fragile Gulf Coast. How Louisianans plan to protect themselves by protecting the environment first

By Nathan Thornburgh/Plaquemines Parish Monday, Oct. 03, 2005
    • KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN / AGENCE VU FOR TIME

    RAVAGED COAST: A seafood-delivery truck dangles in the ruins of Empire, La., near the mouth of the Mississippi River

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    Others propose a general withdrawal from the disappearing wetlands and refortification behind more easily defensible lines, like Israeli settlers withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. There are simply too many precarious outposts to build walls around them all, they say. Better to build one huge hurricane levee across southern Louisiana and leave those who choose to stay outside the floodgates to look after themselves.

    Far more common are the voices of the thousands who have lost everything but still talk about rebuilding on their same spot of soggy ground, the way New Yorkers talked about rebuilding the World Trade Center after 9/11. It's a question of resolve, says Plaquemines Parish sheriff Jiff Hingel, whose home lies torn and submerged somewhere in the waters of Buras. "If they start making people move from Plaquemines Parish," he says, "then before long they'll make people move from St. Bernard and eventually from New Orleans. Where would it stop? No, sir, we're not giving an inch."

    But for a parish that spends an estimated $3 million to $4 million a year on levee maintenance alone, it may be time to ask some difficult questions. Some suggest that the parish could tap into a FEMA grant program to buy out the most flood-prone properties on the condition that they never be developed again. Others say it is foolish to maintain a continuous 100-mile levee, that the parish should be converted into a string of islands of development with marshland between them. Ultimately, it may be up to individual landowners to decide if they want to roll the dice again and rebuild.

    But after the violence of this hurricane season, even Hingel acknowledges that some kind of conditions will have to be placed on those who would return to south Plaquemines Parish, where the devastation from Katrina was nearly total. "We can't just build higher levees next time," says Hingel. "We need to figure out how to get our marshes back." --With reporting by Cathy Booth Thomas/ Baton Rouge, Brian Bennett/Washington and Steve Barnes/Little Rock

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