The Gulf of Mexico’s swelling waters were gradually consuming Isle de Jean Charles — the narrow strip of land in Terrebonne Parish that has been the homeland for the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians since the 1830s.
“This is where I was awakened to my Native American identity,” Brunet told Floodlight on a sticky late afternoon in August as he sat in his wheelchair, gazing upon the tattered remains of his family’s island home. “I would want to be here if I had any choice in the world.”
In 2016, Louisiana received $48.3 million in federal Community Development Block Grant money to relocate 37 residents or families of Isle de Jean Charles as climate-charged hurricanes and sea-level rise made the once thriving fishing community uninhabitable. The plan was the first relocation of an entire community that was fully funded by the federal government.
The island used to encompass more than 22,000 acres but has shrunk to about 320 acres due to erosion, land loss caused by severe storms, manmade canals and sea level rise spurred by climate change.
Isle de Jean Charles is a shell of a place once filled with life. The remaining strip is now dotted with the dilapidated homes of those who fled; a few properties are used as recreational camps by their owners.
Brunet said it’s hard to watch his beloved Louisiana coast wash away.
“I never expected that relocation was going to happen in my lifetime,” Brunet said. “Now that I see that it has happened, it’s not a celebration.”
This new chapter for former island residents is no fairy tale. They say their new homes are substandard, with rainwater seeping through doorways, malfunctioning appliances and flooded yards causing costly repairs — problems captured in Floodlight’s latest video.
“I just wish they would have given themselves a little bit more time to try to prevent so many of the issues that we had over here,” Brunet said. “Some things that immediately just broke down right away — whether it be electrical, whether it be plumbing, whether it be exterior, interior.”
And ironically, their new community — dubbed New Isle — could literally become an island surrounded by water if predictions of accelerating coastal land loss and inland flooding come to pass.
What was supposed to be a model for how the government could get people out of harm’s way along the country’s steadily eroding coastlines has instead become a cautionary tale for the estimated 2.5 million Americans who could be forced to relocate away from the coast over the next 25 years.
Louisiana is the state projected to have the most land impacted by coastal flooding caused by rising sea levels and severe storms in the United States. But leaders there have rejected a controversial nearly $3 billion plan — paid primarily by BP to compensate for a massive 2010 oil spill — designed to shore up the coastline.
And Louisiana has no further plans to help residents and businesses move away as rising water, hurricanes, storm surges and flooding eat away at the land underneath them.
In fact, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found the United States has no national strategy for relocating coastal communities from harm’s way — and “limited” funds to do so.
Some of that money is being targeted for elimination by the Trump administration seeking to defund the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which has provided $4.5 billion to mitigate harm from natural disasters and climate change. Trump has also cut about 10% of the Federal Emergency Management Agency staff, arguing states should be in charge of their own disaster relief.
In Alaska, more than 30 indigenous villages face imminent relocation due to flooding, land erosion, permafrost thaw or combinations of all the above because of climate change. But thus far, only one village, Newtok, has made successful strides in that direction — and even that took nearly two decades and about $60 million in federal funds.
Brunet and the other 37 residents living on the island packed up their lives to move to a new community in Gray, Louisiana, 9 miles north of Houma and 40 miles north of their old homes. They are now dealing with substandard housing, and they accuse state leaders of ignoring their input in a rushed attempt to build their new community.
“It made us angry,” said Chief Deme Naquin, the leader of Jean Charles Choctaw Nation. “We thought we were going to have a community and we were going to be able to own and run it as a tribe. Once that (money) was awarded, then we were pretty much pushed away.”
It was Naquin’s uncle who devised the original plan, seeing it as a way to reunite the tribe in a safer community after some had already fled the storm-ravaged island. But after the chief of another tribe, Citizens of the United Houma Nation, learned of the relocation funding, he lobbied for his members living on the island to be included.
The conflict led state officials to determine that any residents still living on Isle de Jean Charles or those whose homes had been disrupted by a 2012 hurricane would be eligible to relocate. That ended the original intent of the relocation and sparked a rift between the Choctaw Nation and the state.
Mathew Sanders was the point person for Louisiana’s Office of Community Development on the relocation. He said island residents had a “significant voice” in the process, but the state had to balance individuals’ goals with those of the tribal leaders.
“One of the things that we heard very early on in the project from the residents was that they didn’t really want either of the tribes to represent their interests,” Sanders said. “We wanted to do what the community was telling us they wanted to do. So, I would push back on the notion from either tribe saying they didn’t have a say.”
But looking back, he acknowledges that Louisiana officials — despite their experience with coastal planning and gauging flood risk — “were not prepared to really take on this type of effort.” In fact, no other state had ever attempted such a move, notes Sanders, who now works on disaster planning at the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.
Marvin McGraw, spokesman for the state’s OCD, wouldn’t say whether the agency considers the relocation a success. He said in a prepared statement that honoring the wishes and needs of “Old Isle” residents was the highest priority but “stakeholder wishes did not always align with federal laws and regulations governing the use of funds.”
McGraw pointed out that the Isle de Jean Charles relocation project was designed to relocate the community, not just certain tribal members.
“While most residents are Native American, some identify with one tribe, others with multiple tribes, and some with no tribal affiliation,” he wrote. “Federal guidelines prohibit determining eligibility for housing in the new community based on tribal affiliation.”
Louisiana tops an analysis by the nonprofit Climate Central when it comes to the amount of land projected to experience severe coastal flooding — approximately 9,200 square miles — over the next 25 years.
Those projections, released in April, were based on the assumption that the United States will honor its greenhouse gas emission goals. That means the outcome could be worse given the Trump administration’s systematic kneecapping of the climate-focused initiatives of the previous administration.
Louisiana’s coast contains 40% of the nation’s wetlands, which serve as an important protective barrier from severe storms.
For the past 20 years, Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) has led the state’s efforts to address its shrinking coastline through a master plan the agency updates every six years. That plan is essentially an unfunded wishlist of projects and science-backed initiatives designed to reduce rapid coastal land loss.
But in July, the agency cancelled the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project, the nearly $3 billion centerpiece of the effort. Officials said the controversial project had become too costly and was stalled by permitting issues and ongoing litigation. The project also faced criticism from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who said it would negatively impact the coastline instead of helping it.
The project broke ground in 2023. It was designed to reintroduce freshwater and sediment from the Mississippi River into the basin, rebuilding up to 30,000 acres of coastal wetlands over 50 years. It was funded by the $8 billion-plus settlement Louisiana got from oil giant BP following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Advocates with Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of national and local conservation groups, said the state was “throwing away more than $618 million” that had already been spent on the project.
Gordon “Gordy” Dove, chair of the CPRA, said the state will honor its “commitment to coastal restoration” by investing in a less costly and smaller sediment diversion project in the same area.
But Emily Guidry Schatzel, spokeswoman for Restore the Mississippi River Delta and the National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf Restoration Program, called that project “outdated.” She noted the CPRA had discarded it from earlier master plans because it “failed to meet science-backed benchmarks” and couldn’t “deliver the scale or speed of land-building required to keep up with the coast’s rapid collapse.”
CPRA acknowledges the need for flood mitigation to protect businesses and people living along the coast, suggesting an organized retreat from the shoreline would be needed. But the agency said any such actions should be left to “community members and their local elected officials.”
The original plan for the New Isle settlement included more than 100 homes, walking trails, a community center, commercial and retail development and other amenities.
“We knew the money that was awarded wasn’t going to be enough,” Naquin said about the relocation project. “But we had opportunities for more funding.”
According to the OCD, the homes in New Isle would be energy efficient, able to withstand 150-mile-per-hour winds, have insulation in the walls, ceiling and under floors; certified energy-efficient appliances and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Brunet grew up loving the marsh, the sound of boats slicing through swamp waters, the quiet stillness and wildlife encounters that came with living along the coast. He knew living in the suburbs would bring unforeseen challenges.
One thing he didn’t anticipate was their new homes breaking down.
Brunet’s neighbor, Kristi Naquin, said the handles on her front door leak from rainwater. During strong downpours and hurricanes, they put down towels to keep the water out. The shower also leaks onto the floor, she said. And the dishwasher and air conditioner have malfunctioned.
And Naquin said it feels like the house is leaning and there’s no insulation. She and her husband, Simon, Chief Deme Naquin’s brother, have had to pay for repairs.
“I’m honestly pissed,” Naquin said. “We should not have this many complaints. We should not have this many problems. It should have been (built) better than what it was.”
She added: “To come to a house that is falling apart, and we got no help, no help at all. They just washed their hands of us.”
Sanders had already left his position with the Louisiana development agency by the time construction began. But he said there was a sense of urgency to get New Isle developed because the state had a deadline of 2021 to use the federal money or risk losing it.
“You know, that’s a very short timeline to build out a 500-acre development,” he said, noting the COVID-19 pandemic slowed construction. “I mean, that’s almost impossible.”
In response to the complaints about the quality of the homes in New Isle, McGraw said all items that were under warranty were handled timely by the building contractors. After the warranty period on items had expired, he said, “responsibility for repairs shifted to the residents.”
University of New Orleans urban planning Professor Marla Nelson and Traci Birch, director of the Coastal Ecosystem Design Studio at Louisiana State University, recently wrote about the pitfalls of relocation initiatives in that state. The best approach, they say, is to deeply involve the people who need to move away from the coast.
“It’s about the individuals and communities coming to the decision that, ‘Hey, you know, this isn’t viable to live here anymore,’ and what can be done to help expand people’s options,” Nelson said. “How do we empower individuals and communities who want to move, or need to move, to move?”
Renia Ehrenfeucht, professor of community and regional planning at the University of New Mexico, was a co-author on the piece. In 2018 and 2019, the three interviewed nearly 60 former residents who lived on the Louisiana coast and more than two dozen coastal planning professionals to understand the factors contributing to household decisions about relocating or adapting to sea level rise.
They concluded that even though residents living along the Gulf Coast recognized the need to relocate, the loss of historical ties, family bonds and cultural connections made them hesitant to leave. Local elected officials perceived the loss of tax revenue from property buyouts as “politically unacceptable.” And without funding or policies to relocate entire communities, many people decided to “focus on today’s problems” instead of the “problems of the future.”
Although Louisiana officials have no specific relocation plans for coastal residents, they have developed strategies, dubbed Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE), for moving away from the shifting shoreline:
While that state has acknowledged the need for relocation since 2005, the researchers wrote that no agency in Louisiana has developed the funding or infrastructure to do so.
“True management would mean we’re thinking through the process from beginning to end,” Birch said. “There’s kind of ‘Do nothing.’ And then on the other end of the spectrum is, ‘We’re going to move everybody all at once.’ But the reality is, most of life happens somewhere in the middle.”
Cultural anthropologist Maida Owens, along with Shana Walton, coordinator of the Bayou Culture Collaborative, have spent the past few years leading workshops discussing environmental adaptation, climate migration and relocation planning.
When asked if cities are ready for the shifts in population that climate-driven relocation will cause, Owens replied, “The simple answer is ‘no.’”
“It’s hard to get people to prepare for storms and hurricanes. It’s even harder for them to think about all this,” Owens said. “It’s hard because our brain is ‘Get fed today.’ I need food for today, and I’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. And that’s just as true for government officials.”
Owens, a Baton Rouge native, grew up enduring major hurricanes. But it was rain and floods in 2016 and 2017 that sent Owens and Walton into the climate preparation business. Owens said it was the flooding in 2016 that swamped most of the Baton Rouge metro area and damaged or destroyed over 100,000 homes.
For Walton, “What really tipped my boat was a heavy precipitation event in 2017 where I watched my car float away down the street in New Orleans … and this is just rain!”
Now they run relocation workshops aimed at the public and state and local officials.
There are many challenges government leaders need to consider: Is their infrastructure sufficient to withstand climate impacts? Is there housing for relocatees? Are there jobs for the people once they arrive?
“It just gets immensely complicated, really quickly,” Owens said. “Within (Louisiana) state government, this conversation is hardly happening.”
At the federal level, then-President Joe Biden’s administration tried to start the conversation about a national relocation effort. It published two reports identifying next steps federal agencies could take toward community-driven relocation and existing federal resources to get started.
But all traces of those reports were scrubbed shortly after Trump took office.
Floodlight made multiple inquiries to the federal Office of Community Development about those reports and the question of coastal relocation but never received a response.
“I think states and local governments need to lean in on the idea that they’re going to have to be engaged in relocation activities before they think they need to,” said Sanders, formerly of the Louisiana Office of Community Development. “They need to really take this seriously before it becomes a dire sort of emergent situation like it was in Isle de Jean Charles.”
And even if the water is not wiping out homeowners — yet — the cost of insurance might be.
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, said sharply rising property insurance premiums caused by climate-fueled disasters are already prompting people to move away from the coasts. And the cost of insuring homes there is convincing the companies themselves to pull out.
“(Insurance companies) are a pretty good witness of what’s coming at us and they’re saying, ‘Hey, coastal areas, wildfire adjacent areas, we’re outta here,’” Whitehouse told reporters in July during an interview hosted by Covering Climate Now.
Whitehouse, one of the loudest voices on Capitol Hill when it comes to climate change-related issues, said historically when coastal areas were hit by hurricanes and floods, the federal government would swoop in to help people rebuild. But that doesn’t mean they can — or should — stay.
“The fact that it’s going to continue to happen and continue to get worse and worse and worse, this isn’t like a one off thing where you come in and rebuild the house and everything’s back to normal,” Whitehouse said. “This is a continually degrading situation.”
Scientist Joshua Elliott argues the federal government must step in to subsidize insurance programs tied to flooding if they want coastal areas to remain habitable.
“At what point does the cost of inaction then become so great that it overcomes the political will for inaction?” said Elliott, chief scientist for Renaissance Philanthropy, a nonprofit that works on climate mitigation, including “advanced research for climate emergencies.”
“There are things that can be done,” Elliott said. “And there are things that are being done. Although, we need to do a whole lot more if we actually want to get ahead of this problem and not end up instead in the position of having to play catch up when it’s too late.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
This story was produced by Floodlight and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.