We’re Simply Now Figuring Out the Toll of Hurricane Laura

Hurricane Laura hit southwest Louisiana final week because the strongest hurricane to have an effect on the state since 1856, with winds as much as 150 miles per hour. A complete of 70 individuals have been killed by the storm in the USA and the Caribbean, and an related chemical hearth at a chlorine plant in Lake Charles’s industrial area added much more pressure to native communities. Widespread energy outages, downed timber, and an absence of secure consuming water for a lot of households implies that restoration will proceed slowly over the approaching month. Greater than 11,000 persons are evacuated to main cities like New Orleans, the place Hurricane Katrina devastated communities 15 years in the past.

The storm made landfall in coastal Cameron Parish, the place Audubon Louisiana protects beach-nesting birds like Least Terns and Wilson’s Plovers. Many areas stay impassible and disconnected from the surface world. There, whole cars and home equipment lie stranded within the marshes the place wind and waves dropped them, buildings are decreased to rubble, mobile phone towers are down, and any tree nonetheless left standing is stripped of its leaves. Simply to the north, in Calcasieu Parish, the cities of Lake Charles and Sulphur have been additionally devastated by the hurricane.

Audubon’s employees in Louisiana are secure, and our hearts are with the individuals of southwest Louisiana, together with a lot of our companions, volunteers, and supporters who could not have properties, colleges, church buildings, or companies to return to. To expertise loss like this throughout a world pandemic provides an additional layer of grief and complexity to the restoration course of.

How Hurricane Laura Affected Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary

In close by Vermilion Parish, Audubon Louisiana employees assessed our oldest and largest hen sanctuary, the 26,000-acre Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary for storm injury. Since 1924, this distant dwelling laboratory of coastal restoration has protected greater than 200 species of birds, however now’s fighting many years of rising sea ranges. Located on the very fringe of Louisiana’s coast, the sanctuary is no stranger to storm surge, and employees there have created a sequence of elevated earthen terraces that defend the adjoining wetlands from the worst results of storms and supply nesting habitat for birds. Rainey gives alternatives to review real-time impacts and develop methods for local weather change and sea degree rise adaptation.

The photographs beneath reveal important impacts to the sanctuary, which is simply accessible by boat. Though the sanctuary supervisor’s home remains to be standing, a slick layer of chocolate-brown mud coats the ground and the steps to the entrance door have been ripped from the muse. In every single place, useless marsh grass particles outlines how excessive the storm surge got here up on the property—an estimated 7 to eight ft. Audubon employees are nonetheless assessing how the storm affected birds and the coastal restoration tasks on the sanctuary property.

Specialists say that hotter ocean temperatures brought on by local weather change present gas for hurricanes like Laura to quickly intensify earlier than making landfall. Local weather change threatens each birds and other people on our coasts, and Audubon is working to make sure that we not solely make our coasts extra resilient to the consequences of local weather change, however that we additionally cut back carbon emissions to cease local weather change in its tracks. Louisiana is main the nation on this effort, with a $50 billion Coastal Grasp Plan to enhance coastal resilience and reverse the intense land loss brought about partly by levees on the Mississippi River and the oil exploration canals slicing by way of the state’s marshes. Louisiana’s governor additionally introduced final month the institution of a Chief Resilience Officer and a local weather activity drive, together with targets to cut back the state’s carbon emissions.

What Can We Do Proper Now?

Hurricane restoration seems to be very completely different this yr attributable to COVID-19. Social distancing necessities imply that evacuees are sheltered in particular person resort rooms, creating a further problem for them to connect with the state and federal providers they should obtain donations, apply for monetary help, and entry medical care.

Native group Think about Water Works has arrange a Mutual Assist Response Community and Hurricane Laura Aid Fund to straight tackle the wants of particular person evacuees and be certain that hurricane restoration is simply and equitable. They’re dedicated to distributing these funds straight and transparently and prioritizing the funding, management, and security of Black, Indigenous, and other people of shade who’re most impacted by Hurricane Laura. Donate to the Hurricane Laura Aid Fund right here.

Audubon will present extra updates concerning the affect of the storm on birds and hen habitat, together with restoration tasks within the area, as we collect this info over the approaching weeks and months.