In the News
The links below represent many viewpoints, aggregated here for reference purposes only. The Louisiana Office of Community Development makes no claim as to the veracity or accuracy of any views contained herein.
If you are a member of the media, please contact Marvin McGraw and indicate your name, news outlet, contact information and deadline.
CONTACT
Marvin McGraw
marvin.mcgraw@la.gov
As This Town Slips into Sea, a $48 Million Rescue Runs into ObstaclesBy: Christopher Flavelle Source: Climate Changed Date: 07/03/2017 There was a fight coming and everyone knew it, so the reverend asked his guests to start with a prayer. "Dear Lord, here we gather to consider ways and means that we might be relocated," began Roch Naquin, who lives in Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana a town slipping into the sea and the site of a radical federal policy experiment. |
First US climate change refugees prepare to relocate in louisianaBy: Charis Chang Source: Herald Sun Date: 06/12/2017 Rising sea levels attributed to climate change is forcing a whole American town to relocate, and many others may soon have to follow. In January the US Government announced it would spend $63 million to help residents of Isle de Jean Charles in the southern state of Louisiana to move from their homes as coastal erosion threatens to sink the entire... |
An Island in Louisiana's Bayou is Vanishing; And its residents are fleeing to higher groundBy: Peter O'Dowd Source: Here & Now Date: 06/05/2017 Since the middle of the last century more than 90 percent of Isle de Jean Charleshas dissolved into the southern Louisiana bayou. The island, which is connected to the outside world by a road that's known to flood in perfect weather, is home to a tribe of Native americans who have fished and hunted there since the 1800s. |
Facing Climate Change on the Louisiana Bayous—in picturesBy: Amir Levy Source: The Guardian Date: 05/27/2017 Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana is home to a Native American community who fished, hunted, trapped and farmed the land. But since 1955, more than 90% of the island's original land mass has washed away, the loss caused by logging, oil exploration, hurricanes and ineffective flood control. |
A new home: Work continues in effort to relocate island residentsBy: Garrett Ohlmeyer Source: The Daily Comet Date: 04/08/2017 Rita Falgout grew up on Isle de Jean Charles, left and returned after 40 years. When she came back for good, she said, it looked totally different. "The island is not going to be here for much longer," she said in an interview there last week. "If I can move up, I'm going." |
when is it time to retreat from climate change?By: Michelle Nijhuis Source: The New Yorker Date: 03/27/2017 Isle de Jean Charles, a stitch of land on the tattered southern fringe of Louisiana, is thin and getting thinner. Battered by storms and sea-level rise, and deprived of revitilizing sediment from the Mississippi River, its surface area has shrunk by ninety-eight percent since 1955, and its remaining three hundred and twenty acres can flood in... |
America gets its first group of climate refugeesBy: Kai Ryssdal Source: Marketplace Date: 02/01/2017 America has its political refugees and its economic refugees. And now, for the first time, it has climate refugees. |
The people of Isle de Jean Charles aren't the country's first climate refugeesBy: Bob Marshall Source: The Lens Date: 12/06/2016 Isle de Jean Charles is endangered for the same reasons that much of coastal Louisiana has become part of the Gulf of Mexico: The land is sinking, river levees are preventing it from being replenished, oil and gas drilling accelerated erosion--and on top of that, seas are rising. |
Leaving ParadiseBy: Katy Reckdahl Source: The Weather Channel Date: 11/07/2016 Thanks to a federal grant that made them the nation’s first “climate refugees,” the people of Isle de Jean Charles will be given a chance to move to higher ground, away from the rising water that threatens their two-century-old Gulf Coast community. But residents say that they only feel at home when they are near water and family... |