New Orleans Hit 'Point of No Return'; Locals Plan Escape
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- Tulane University's Torbjörn Törnqvist led a May study concluding New Orleans has crossed a 'point of no return' on climate, projecting the Louisiana coastline could move as much as 62 miles inland over the coming century.
- New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno dismissed the study as focused on 'generating publicity and clickbait headlines,' while Gordon Dove, head of Louisiana's coastal restoration agency, called it 'the most ridiculous study I have ever seen.'
- Governor Jeff Landry cancelled a $3bn project to revive the vanishing coastline using Mississippi River sediment — a move Törnqvist called a 'death penalty' for the city.
- A Community Voice, a non-profit with roughly 9,000 members, has traveled to Vicksburg and Natchez, Mississippi to scout properties and shelter sites for New Orleanians displaced by future storms.
- Musician and environmental planner Steve Picou moved 130 miles northwest to Opelousas after his home insurance rates jumped from $900 to about $9,000 over the past two decades.
- Cotality, a property intelligence firm, gave New Orleans the country's highest hazard risk score of 100 — about 25 points higher than Natchez or Vicksburg — citing its bowl shape below sea level.
- The federal government has spent $15bn on flood protections since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005, but Törnqvist says New Orleans will eventually be 'a fortress in the Gulf of Mexico.'
Why it matters: New Orleans sits at the sharp end of a US relocation crisis with no national playbook. Cotality's hazard score of 100 — 25 points above nearby Mississippi alternatives — quantifies the risk that's already pushing insurance rates from $900 to $9,000 yearly and emptying neighborhoods faster than the water rises.
