Community Partnerships

A Grand Tale: LSU scientists work to save the 300-year-old community of Grand Bayou from a natural disaster

For three centuries, generations of crabbers, shrimpers, and fishermen have called the Plaquemines Parish community of Grand Bayou home. In that time, the rural community has survived the Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and natural disasters. Yet it remains. Today, the tiny hamlet in the southeast corner of the state is home to 25 families.

But what the wars, the Depression, and time itself could not do, the next great flood or hurricane could. Grand Bayou today resides not on acres of marshland, but on a razor's edge.

In 2002, Hurricanes Isidore and Lili flooded most of the homes in the community with as much as three feet of water. On July 1, 2003, Tropical Storm Bill brought more flooding, its winds keeping the water in homes for at least 24 hours. Thirty-five minutes was all it took for the storm to flood every home.

Six months later, some Grand Bayou residents were still without homes. But in this close-knit community, those without homes were taken in by other residents.

Scientists from LSU, the University of New Orleans, Texas Woman's University, Mississippi State, Jacksonville State, and Washburn University are working to find ways to protect Grand Bayou from threats of flooding, hurricanes, and coastal erosion. The latter presents a threat of a different kind in that it is literally sinking the community. The community church, for example, was once raised high enough so that children could play underneath it. It now sits flat on the ground.

"In my December 2003 visit to Grand Bayou, I showed the people [there] several maps that I had prepared showing an aerial photograph of the area," said John Pine, professor and researcher in the LSU Department of Environmental Studies and Director of the LSU Disaster Science Management program. "They were alarmed and stressed that the current status of the wetlands was much worse than what was reflected in my March 1998 photo images."

Residents of Grand Bayou say they can see the land disappearing over time — chunks of their community gone by sunset. Maps and global positioning systems less than one year old are quickly becoming irrelevant as land that once appeared on them no longer exists. And the erosion isn't just affecting the living. Cemeteries scattered across the marshland continue to slowly disappear as if built on quicksand.

Then there are the wetlands, which act as a break against the high winds and storm surges that come from the Gulf of Mexico. Erosion continues to wipe them out, making the Grand Bayou community and others like it sitting ducks for the next big storm surge.

"They fully understood the implications of the loss of the wetlands and stressed that flooding from tropical storms and hurricanes was much worse than in any time in the past," Pine said. "Without the wetlands, they acknowledged that they would be increasingly vulnerable to Gulf of Mexico storms."

Changing course

There are several projects that people in Grand Bayou would like to see come to fruition:

They would like to have septic systems installed. Only 12 years ago did the community receive running water and three years later, telephone service.
They would also like to see unused canals blocked off and the environment around them cleaned up, as there is no access to garbage and sanitation services.
Plans are also being considered for economic stimulators such as a bait shop, a restaurant, and an Eco-Information Center that could be used by universities as well as various citizens' groups, schools, and educational institutions to further understanding of the ecological issues facing that area.

But to do all of this, they're going to need some help.

"We're going there to collect information and help them understand the nature of the hazards they potentially face," said John Pine. "It's the combining of the social sciences with the hard sciences."

The team of researchers will show residents the impact of storms and hurricanes on Grand Bayou using 3-D imagery. Marc Levitan, director of the LSU Hurricane Center, and Hassan Mashriqui, a research associate at the center, will work with the team to clarify the wind and water hazards facing the community.

They will then examine ways to protect the houses through constructive methods, such as fortifying and elevating the actual houses.

But aside from these concrete things, researchers will examine the community as a whole. How it reacts in the face of such great risks offers important insight for the team.

"Because Grand Bayou is concentrated in a close-knit and encapsulated area, it offers the potential to observe individual, household, familial, organizational, and community processes related to risk communication and reduction ... in an area of extreme coastal vulnerability," Pine said.

"In the end, the Grand Bayou families will make choices that will no doubt determine their way of life in the bayou. We are committed to assisting them in sustaining their community."

A Brief Background on the Bayou

Grand Bayou is, quite simply, an anomaly. Some people don't even believe it exists upon learning about it for the first time.

It's an isolated community in Plaquemines Parish, located along the banks of the Grand Bayou. If one were to travel there, he or she would take Highway 23 to a small road paved with oyster shells, follow that for nearly a mile and then continue by boat a short distance to the community, where they would find a number of homes and shrimp boats, but no streets.

You read correctly. There are no streets, no automobiles, no traffic in Grand Bayou.

In fact, a trip to school means waiting outside for the "school boat" — a bright yellow boat provided by a member of the community — to pick up the children and take them to the shell road to catch the actual school bus.

Five generations of families call Grand Bayou home at the moment. Its oldest resident is 88 years old, and its youngest, three. With Atakapa Indian and French as their origins, the people of Grand Bayou speak two languages — Creole French and English.

In Grand Bayou, there exists such a tightly knit community that neighbors spend evenings actually talking on their porches. One of the things residents wish they had in Grand Bayou is a walkway, making evening constitutionals easier.

The area produces one-fourth of all the crabs in Louisiana some months and supplies 30 percent of America's annual seafood harvest, measured in weight. But earning a living off of the land is becoming increasingly difficult. Many residents are turning to nearby chemical plants for income.

Residents describe their community as one of "deep faith," where the people are called to stay where they are and do what is necessary to stay faithful to that call.

"Residents are determined to sustain their community. Where any one part suffers, everything else is impaired," Pine said. "They are very proud of their way of life, their independence, and the heritage that the bayou helps sustain. They are determined to remain and overcome the hazards that are impacting their community."

There is a fierce loyalty in the people of Grand Bayou — to the land and each other. It's a world unto itself. For the people there, it's a world worth fighting for.

Contact Josh Duplechain | LSU University Relations
Highlights Team
Summer 2004