Magazine

Photojournalist Andy Levin began documenting Louisiana’s sinking island,Isle de Jean Charles, on a clear day in 2008. A year and a half later, the scenes he photographed on the ever-diminishing sliver of marsh land about 80 miles southwest of New Orleans would be impossible to re-create. With Louisiana’s wetlands eroding at the ravenous rate of one acre per half-hour, Isle de Jean Charles creeps closer to the Gulf of Mexico every year. Last summer, the gradual movement sped up with Hurricanes Gustav and Ike sent 9-foot surges over the tiny strip of land and the small, sun-bleached-houses that line its one narrow paved road. Decrepit even before the storms’ winds hit, a large number of the 60 homes that were there before the storms have not been rebuilt. Their inhabitants, many of whom say they are descendants of the Native American and Cajun fisherman who settled the land in the 19th century, have not returned.
—Ariella Cohen