In the News
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The news outlet 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
After 10 years, Isle de Jean Charles residents will soon have a new place to call homeSource: WWNO Date: 02/17/2022 The Isle de Jean resettlement program, a construction project spurred by extreme land loss that has been in the works for six years, is expected to finally wrap up this spring and move in its residents. |
Building stronger: Island resettlement's homes designed to help weather stormsSource: Houma Today Date: 07/30/2021 Residents relocating from an eroding island off Terrebonne Parish will move into homes built and designed to help weather hurricanes. |
Tribal leaders raise ‘serious concerns’ about plans to turn their shrinking Louisiana island home into a ‘sportsman’s paradise’Source: Nation of Change Date: 07/26/2021 After a long state and federal push to relocate the Indigenous people of Isle de Jean Charles from their threatened homeland, new recreational development around the island risks further colonial displacement. |
Our debt to places that are sinkingSource: The Boston Globe Date: 07/18/2021 US policy doesn’t properly recognize slow-moving disasters like climate change — while marginalized communities face the rising waters. |
To Flee, or to Stay Until the End and Be Swallowed by the SeaSource: Inside Climate News Date: 07/18/2021 On the Isle de Jean Charles in the bayous of Louisiana, the nation’s first federally funded climate migrants have a decision to make as their ancestral island disappears. |
Native American tribes express concern about development on Isle de Jean CharlesSource: Houma Today Date: 07/16/2021 Native American leaders are questioning why Terrebonne Parish officials are considering new sites for fishing camps on Isle de Jean Charles when residents are being encouraged to leave the island as it erodes into the Gulf of Mexico. |
The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe is losing homes to erosion on the Gulf CoastSource: Sun Herald Date: 07/12/2021 Chris Brunet points to the stumps of dead trees throughout his yard. “This whole place looked completely different when I was growing up,” he says. “There’s not much left now.” |
How ‘managed retreat’ can help communities facing sea-level riseSource: Cyprus Mail Date: 07/10/2021 In 2016, the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, a small strip of land off the coast of Louisiana, received a $48-million grant to relocate their entire community. Faced with sea-level rise and rapid erosion, many made the decision to seek higher ground, even though the process was a heart-wrenching one. |
Louisiana ‘climate refugees’ lose faith in relocation projectSource: The Washington Times Date: 07/08/2021 State's nearly $50 million plan has yet to relocate any Isle de Jean Charles residents |
What is Needed for Fair and Equitable Managed Retreat?Source: State of the Planet Date: 07/01/2021 The Inupiat of Alaska recently created an entirely new word, usteq, to describe a catastrophic combination of permafrost thaw, flooding, and erosion that can lead to total land collapse. |
As seas rise, coastal communities face hard choices over 'managed retreat'Source: The Business Times Date: 06/25/2021 Key decisions on whether to go, what to protect, access to affordable housing and community culture need to be decided, but few are ready to talk seriously about the threats |
New efforts to fight sea level rise as vanishing island serves as a cautionary taleSource: Fox11 News Date: 06/24/2021 All across the US, land is slowly disappearing due to rising sea levels caused by climate change. It’s an issue the Biden Administration is prioritizing, recently investing $1 billion to enhance efforts to protect vulnerable areas at risk of increased flooding. |
This Louisiana neighborhood is retreating in the face of climate changeSource: Grist Date: 06/03/2021 In early May, President Joe Biden stood in front of the 70-year old Calcasieu River Bridge in Lake Charles, Louisiana. With the aging bridge in the background, he spoke about the hurricanes that have battered the town over the last year, emphasizing the need for infrastructure to adapt to the increasing severity of storms influenced by climate... |
Indigenous tribe in Louisiana relocates as rising seas engulf their homesSource: Reuters Date: 04/28/2021 Rocks are pictured that have been added recently to the eroding Island Road, which is the only way onto Isle de Jean Charles. |
Welcome To 'The New Isle': Isle De Jean Charles Residents Get A First Look At Their New HomeSource: WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio Date: 04/26/2021 On a recent Wednesday, state employees with the Office of Community Development welcomed Louisianans as they pulled into what will soon be their new driveway. They handed out information folders and showed residents to the empty plots of land where their new homes will one day stand. |
Isle de Jean Charles residents view future homes for the first timeSource: Houma Today Date: 04/07/2021 Isle de Jean Charles residents got to see their future homes for the first time Wednesday. |
Fading Away: Louisiana's Battle Against Coastal ErosionSource: KATC3 Date: 11/23/2020 A lattice work of marsh and canals, the Louisiana coastline, is vanishing. A mixture of saltwater intrusion and sinking land has contributed to one of the fastest disappearing places on the planet, and an existential threat to the state itself. |
Preserving Our Place: Isle de Jean CharlesSource: NPQ Date: 10/19/2020 It’s a beautiful warm morning in south Louisiana, as I travel down to my home, Isle de Jean Charles—“The Island.” |
Louisiana’s population is already moving to escape climate catastropheSource: Quartz Date: 09/01/2020 In the 19th and early 20th centuries, St. Tammany parish was a rural, sparsely populated corner of southeastern Louisiana best known for sawmills and a smattering of fancy resorts. |
U.S. Flood Strategy Shifts to ‘Unavoidable’ Relocation of Entire NeighborhoodsSource: The New York Times Date: 08/26/2020 This week’s one-two punch of Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Marco may be extraordinary, but the storms are just two of nine to strike Texas and Louisiana since 2017 alone, helping to drive a major federal change in how the nation handles floods. |
How lessons from Isle de Jean Charles could guide federal climate migration planningSource: nola.com Date: 08/16/2020 The relocation of Isle de Jean Charles’ residents from their disappearing island could help the federal government develop a model for moving more people away from rising seas, stronger storms and other effects of climate change, according to an auditor's report to Congress. |
State Accepting Resettlement Applications from Former Residents of Isle De Jean CharlesDate: 06/22/2020 1/27/2021 Update: The call for applications described in this press release is for former island residents who moved off of the island prior to Hurricane Isaac. These former residents may be eligible for participation in the program’s Option B. The deadline for current and post-Isaac residents to apply for Options A and D passed on... |
Lowland Kids | Climate Change Threatens Two Teenagers' Family HomeSource: YouTube Date: 05/08/2020 As climate change erases the Louisiana coast, the last two teenagers on Isle de Jean Charles fight to stay on an island that's been their family home for generations. |
As Gulf swallows island, displaced tribe fears futureSource: houmatoday.com Date: 03/02/2020 The state is three years into an ambitious $48 million plan to move Isle de Jean Charles residents to higher ground. Here is a look at the tiny community’s the past, present and potential future. |
Stay or Go? Some island residents struggle to decideSource: houmatoday.com Date: 03/02/2020 The new Isle de Jean Charles will be no isle at all. Instead, it’s a 550-acre sugar-cane field an hour’s drive north of the coast in Schriever. |
As Gulf swallows Louisiana island, displaced tribe fears the futureSource: The Daily Advertiser Date: 02/27/2020 It’s all but assumed this island will one day disappear beneath the waves. |
Why is Isle de Jean Charles disappearing? A timeline of land lossSource: USA Today Date: 02/27/2020 A 14-year-old Jean Charles Naquin and his family arrive in New Orleans aboard the Le Saint-Remi, the fourth of seven ships that, in 1785, carried French immigrants to Louisiana. Most were Acadians previously exiled from Canada who failed to build a life in France. |
The Last Teenagers on Isle de Jean Charles, An Island Climate Change Is Washing AwaySource: Teen Vogue Date: 02/12/2020 Juliette Brunet and her family live on an island that is shrinking as Louisiana’s sea levels rise. |
Deadline set for residents of vanishing Isle de Jean Charles to apply for relocationSource: nola.com Date: 01/17/2020 Residents of a sinking Louisiana island have until the end of the month to apply for a new home under a first-of-its-kind federal program to help people retreat from the effects of climate change. |
Louisiana tribes file complaint with United Nations over U.S. inaction on climate changeSource: nola.com Date: 01/16/2020 Four coastal Louisiana tribes that claim the U.S. government has violated their human rights by failing to take action on climate change submitted a formal complaint Wednesday to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. |
Application Deadline Set for Island Residents Eligible for Homes in Isle de Jean Charles ResettlementDate: 01/14/2020 The Louisiana Office of Community Development has set Jan. 31 as the application deadline for residents of Isle de Jean Charles eligible for either a new home in The New Isle community or an existing home in Louisiana. The Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement is part of a federally funded, first-of-its kind effort to move a community of island... |
Climate Exodus: Movement of the PeopleSource: JDSUPRA Date: 11/13/2019 In 1955, the island community of Isle de Jean Charles, some 80 miles south of New Orleans, covered 22,000 acres. |
22 Minutes In The Life Of Louisiana's Climate RefugeesSource: HUFFPOST Date: 11/05/2019 In "Lowland Kids," two teenagers grapple with leaving an island that's sinking before their very eyes. |
The People of the Isle de Jean Charles Are Louisiana’s First Climate Refugees—but They Won’t Be the LastSource: NRDC Date: 09/23/2019 Whether and how to uproot communities are difficult and painful questions, and we need to get better at answering them. |
Native Americans may lose their homes to rising waters on Louisiana islandSource: CBS News Date: 08/21/2019 Tropical Storm Chantal, churning in the north Atlantic, is no threat to land at the moment. But it's expected to be an above-average hurricane season, which is bad news for Native Americans on a small island off the Louisiana coast. |
Tribal chief on Isle de Jean Charles says it's time to leaveSource: nola.com Date: 06/25/2019 Just a week after Hurricane Gustav destroyed Isle de Jean Charles in Terrebone Parish, residents Virgil Dardar, left, and Chris Brunet, back center, stand outside their raised home with Albert Naquin, who is the Chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians on the island. |