Louisiana Loses Its Boot (Interesting Pictures)

Matter ^ | 9-8-2014 | Brett Anderson

[blam]

The boot-shaped state isn’t shaped like a boot anymore. That’s why we revised its iconic outline to reflect the truth about a sinking, disappearing place.

By Brett Anderson
September 8, 2014
Photographs by William Widmer
Illustrations by Matthew Woodson

Early this year, I drove from Arnaudville, Louisiana, to Morgan City, hoping to walk where I’d heard there was land.

Arnaudville is in Cajun country, in the southern part of the state. Morgan City is roughly halfway between Lafayette and New Orleans, if you take the Highway 90 route. Directionally speaking, that’s all I knew.

I was aware Arnaudville is just outside Lafayette, but I couldn’t have told you in what direction, even though I’d been there several times before. Compulsive use of my smart phone’s map apps has eroded whatever navigational confidence — and, by extension, awareness — I ever possessed of areas outside New Orleans, where I’ve lived for over a dozen years. And this part of Cajun country can be disorienting. Boats traverse rice fields flooded in winter for crawfish production, and the slow-running bayous look innocuous until you get trapped on the wrong side of one. In Arnaudville, I met a tourist from Arkansas who, upon entering the tasting room at Bayou Teche Brewing, announced, “We tried to Google this place and ended up in a muddy swamp by the levee over there.”

I was gearing up to feel a variation on that pain myself as I made my way from Arnaudville to Morgan City. It was the first in a planned season of road trips during which I’d compare the facts on the ground in coastal Louisiana with the facts as presented by the official state maps produced by government agencies. Paper maps.

(snip)

[Gene Eric]

And never reported by the corrupt Katrina Media.

[ViLaLuz]

Because of coastal erosion, there is actually land that depreciates in Louisiana.

[LonePalm]

If the Old River Control station fails you'll have to scrape Morgan City off the northwest corner of Cuba.

The Mississippi River will go down the Atchafalaya and neither blood nor treasure will send it back to New Orleans in our lifetimes.

"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Mad Dawgg]

"Blame the levees."

Actually MRGO is the real problem. Years ago the Government cut a straight path through the Cypress swamps for ships to run a straighter course into the River and it allowed Salt Water to backflow deeper than ever before and it slowly eat away the wetlands that surrounded it.

For more info watch the Doc: "The Big Uneasy"

[Mad Dawgg]

The Big Uneasy "MRGO"

[Daffynition]

*snorkel* *chortle*

[frithguild]

Louisiana is the river delta of the Mississippi River. It was never “solid land”. River deltas have always shifted and moved and gone under water or emerged. Half of Louisiana is just not really there.

Truer words have never been said.