‘Ida is not the end’: Indigenous residents face the future on Louisiana’s coast

Out on the frontiers of the Louisiana coastline, amid winding bayous, battered island roads and sinking land, a swath of fresh devastation for this region’s overlooked Indigenous tribal communities.

Amid the rapid depletion of their land, rising sea levels and coastal erosion, Hurricane Ida pummeled the small communities of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles, home to a number of south-east Louisiana’s coastal tribal groups.

The area endured some of the hurricane’s worst destruction, with many who returned to inspect the damage describing the category 4 storm as the worst they had ever endured during lifetimes punctuated by extreme weather.