Last Island, Louisiana: A Climate Change Casualty

Last Island, also known as Isle Dernière, was a barrier island in far southern Louisiana.

The island was home to a resort, hotel, casino, and about 100 summer homes, all of whom enjoyed the white sandy beaches and continuous breeze, making the island much cooler than mainland Louisiana.

Map of Last Island as it appeared in 1853.

In 1856, a major hurricane, known as the Last Island Hurricane, swept through the island, with a 13 foot storm surge (the elevation of the island was only 5 feet). Over 200 people were killed, and every structure on the island was destroyed. Last Days of Last Island delves further into the hurricane and its effect on the island.

The Hurricane’s storm surge and subsequent erosion caused the island to split into two. Further storms, erosion, and climate change have contributed further to the former island’s demise, which is today five uninhabitable islands; East, Trinity, Whisky, Raccoon, and Wine Islands, each of which has disappeared and reappeared in recent years due to fluctuations in tides. You can spot the islands here on Google Maps. 

Much more land was visible on the 1956 USGS Topo Map.

Today, what is left of the islands are a home for tropical birds. However, the story of Last Island is an important lesson that low-lying communities have had to grasp with, especially in the last decade, as the Mississippi River Delta is one of the fastest-disappearing places on the planet, largely as a result of anthropogenic climate change, which takes on many forms, both in increasing greenhouse emissions, and environmental factors such as upstream dams, the BP oil disaster, shipping practices and oil and gas infrastructure, to name a few.

A football field worth of land is lost in the Delta every 100 minutes, and islands and low-lying areas are at risk all across the world. This is not a political take, and the politicization of science is a terrible thing for society as a whole. I hope we are able to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change by 2030 or sooner. 

Thanks as always for reading!

Location: Isles Dernieres, Parish Governing Authority District 9, LA 70344, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Underwater Water Slide: Fly Over at Durinrell TikiBad

Image
Have you ever wished to experience being transferred from one pool of liquid to another via a pipe? Had you visited the Dutch water park known as Durinrell , also known as Tikibad before 2010, you would have had the chance. Half water slide, half war crime, this was a unique water slide that was filled to the brim with water, leaving riders completely submerged throughout the journey. Image:  XtremeRidesNL Known as the Fly Over was an underwater water slide, which is exactly how it sounds, and transported riders from one pool to another using the water as propulsion. Built in 1994, riders dove underwater to access the slide, using gravity to transport them upwards via the Communicating Vessels Principle . Riders would be completely underwater for about 15-20 seconds. This is how I imagine those 15-20 seconds felt like while riding the slide. The slide was built to drain water in five seconds or less in case a rider got stuck in the slide or had a medical emergency, but the threat tha
Read more

Railroad Vocabulary: A List of Words and Phrases Used in the Industry - Updated February 2024

Image
As somebody who enjoyed watching trains, but was not an employee of the railroad industry ( at least growing up ), when I would interact with railfans and historians, there was often a lot of technical jargon that applied only to the railroad industry thrown back and forth that made it difficult for a newcomer to understand what they were talking about. For example, what is a dinky? It's actually a passenger train. This non-inclusive language seems to keep the loop closed to members of the community, and to uncouple (no pun intended) that technical jargon and help make it easier for people to communicate with people in the industry, I am creating a list of railroad vocabulary that I'm hoping will make the industry more transparent.  BNSF 2361 . Image: Matt Flores While I ultimately believe that such technical jargon has no place outside of perhaps technical communications between employees, I know quite well that I alone am not going to stop people from communicating in a non-i
Read more

Choum Tunnel: The Monument to European Stupidity in Africa

Image
Scars of European colonization are located all across Africa, although some are more obscure and strange than others. With that in mind we come to the Choum Tunnel , built in Mauritania when it was controlled by the French. At first glance, it seems like an ordinary railway tunnel, however, one look at the local geography and you'll find yourself asking what its builders were possibly thinking with creating the project. Choum Tunnel in Mauritania. Unknown photographer. The Mauritania Railway was being built in the early 1960s, and was planned to connect Nouadhibou to Zouérat to exploit the iron ore reserves at Zouérat. That route still exists today in largely its original state, with the exception of the tunnel. Image: Ammar Hassan via Atlas Obscura The easiest route required running a short section of track through the then-Spanish controlled Western Sahara , but rather than pay Spain for the land and other concessions, the French engineers instead chose to tunnel under a hill sp
Read more