Map of Forked Island LouisianaPhotographs of Pecan Island Louisiana
Hurricane Impacts Along the Gulf Coast
Pine Island and other towns along the central Louisiana Gulf coast have been hit hard by major hurricanes over the decades, including Hurricane Audrey in 1957 and Hurricane Rita in 2005. Both storm names have been retired by the National Hurricane Center as it does for catastropic storms. Hurricane Audrey The deadliest natural disaster in the history of Southwest Louisiana struck the coast during the early morning hours of June 27, 1957. An early season hurricane named Audrey roared ashore into Southwest Louisiana and Southeastern Texas. It was the only storm to reach Hurricane Category 4 status in June. The eye of Audrey made landfall south of Sabine Lake, traversed the lake and then passed over Bridge City, Texas. Audrey spread a massive storm surge across most of Cameron parish, and across the southern halves of Vermilion, Iberia, and St. Mary parishes, causing total devastation in property and many lives lost. Damage in Louisiana was catastrophic; 60-80% of the homes and businesses from Cameron to Grand Chenier were either destroyed or severely damaged. Hurricane Audrey ranks as the 7th deadliest hurricane to strike the United States in modern times, with at least 500 deaths. The exact number will never be known, as many perished in the storm surge in Cameron and Vermilion parishes, and many missing persons were never found. Hurricane Rita
Hurricane Rita was the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita caused $12 billion in damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 2005.
Rita made landfall on September 23 between Sabine Pass, Texas, and Johnsons Bayou, Louisiana, as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale with 120 mph winds. The storm then pushed through parts of southeast Texas. However, the Louisiana coast bore the brunt of the destruction from the always stronger northeast quadrant of the hurricane. The storm surge caused extensive damage along the Louisiana and extreme southeastern Texas coasts and destroyed some coastal communities. Several parishes were hard hit, but Cameron Parish was hit the hardest with the towns of Creole, Cameron, Grand Chenier, Johnson's Bayou, and Holly Beach (see photo above right) being totally demolished. The Plight of Coastal Erosion Along the Louisiana Coast
In the past century Louisiana has lost more than one million acres from its coastal zone because of human and natural factors that have changed the fragile ecosystem. Louisiana supports over 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in the lower 48 states, but has suffered over 90 percent of the coastal wetland loss in the nation. From places like Cameron and Holly Beach to Pecan Island, to Grand Isle to the east, decades of hurricanes, land subsidence and man's development have taken a toll on the Louisiana coastline. The two hurricanes discussed above, Audrey and Rita, were just two of the massive storms that have pounded the region's fragile ecosystem. Current Louisiana coastal wetland loss equals 15 square miles/year. This loss rate equals 14,000 football fields annually or one football field every 38 seconds. Between 1932 and 2000, an estimated 1.2 million acres (1,875 square miles) of coastal wetlands were lost. An estimated 448,000 additional acres (700 square miles) are projected to be lost through 2050. The State of Louisiana, local parish bodies, and the Federal government through such agencies as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Corp of Engineers, have embarked on a series of short-term and long-term projects to control, and reverse, the coastal erosion along the Gulf of Mexico. Projects such as those near Pecan Island utilize terraces in open water to encourage the regeneration of marsh land.
Links of Interest about Louisiana
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