Moving Out: Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

Background

Isle de Jean Charles is a small fishing community at the south end of Island Road in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. It feels like the end of the world. The town was the home of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians for almost 200 years. All the houses now are elevated on piles or stilts, and there is limited dry land. One low and vulnerable road, a spur off of Louisiana 665, leads to the town. 

Because Island Road is often flooded, sometimes for days, and safety services can not be guaranteed for the residents, the community needs to move. According to a January 2024 BBC article, "This Louisiana town moved to escape climate-linked disaster," the residents of Isle Jean Charles are in the process of relocating to The New Isle Community, much further inland and safe from flooding. Building a major levee system to protect the town from hurricane surge was too expensive, and relocation was the only alternative.

Sediments of the Mississippi Delta

The title of the BBC article is somewhat deceptive. Rising sea level is making the road to Isle de Jean Charles more vulnerable to storm surges and even normal high tides. And the rising sea exacerbates other issues throughout south Louisiana such as infrastructure, drainage, pollutants, and sea water incursion further into the swamps. But at least four other major factors account for land loss in southern Louisiana:

1. The sediment is sinking. All this marshy deltaic sediment came down the Mississippi River. As the immense sediment mass of the Mississippi Delta dewaters over centuries, it compresses. 

2. Oil and gas producers dredged channels through the marshes. These channels allowed seawater to enter the marshes and kill fresh-water marsh vegetation. Without the root structures and emergent plants, storms washed away the limited soil. And the lack of plants means minimal new sediment gets trapped.

3. The path of the Mississippi River has been channelized by levees for 200 years. During floods, sediment no longer spreads out over the adjacent delta. When the US Army Corps of Engineers dredges the navigation channel, they place some of this material onto the nearby marshes. Openings in the levees also allow flood water to spread. But these two placement and diversion mechanisms still do not replicate the pre-engineered river when it flowed unconstrained.

4. Less sediment is brought down to south Louisiana. Compared to the era before the late 1800s, levees line all of the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries. The era of mass tree deforestation is over. Farming practice considers erosion control much more than it did 100 years ago. Dams on the Missouri and Ohio River systems trap sediment in their ponds. The Corps of Engineers reduces bank sloughing and erosion with concrete mats. In effect, we are retaining sediment on the continent. 

This is a complicated topic. A vast technical literature examines sediment, hydrology, climatology, and geotechnical issues in Southern Louisiana.

A March 2019 article in The New Yorker, "Louisiana's Disappearing Coast," is a readable and detailed description of the factors that cause land loss. 

John McFee's seminal 1987 article in The New Yorker, "The Control of Nature, Atchafalaya," describes the heroic efforts to prevent the Mississippi River from changing its path to debouch into the Gulf of Mexico at the Atchafalaya delta, not the present delta.  

Isle de Jean Charles in 2019

Bayou or boat canal parallel to Island Road, Isle de Jean Charles, April 28, 2019

Pedestrian bridge over boat canal

My wife and I drove out to Isle de Jean Charles in spring of 2019. We were on a trip to explore the Acadian Parishes of Louisiana and revisit some towns that we had seen before, such as Dulac and Lafayette. We had read about Isle de Jean Charles and wanted to see the town. Driving on Island Road felt like we were on a boat crossing the marshes and lakes. In many stretches, the pavement was only a foot or less above the water.

We stopped at the marina. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the town gents were drinking beer and having a good old time out on the deck. They said they had seen the plans to move everyone to a new town and were somewhat skeptical. Some of the town residents already had homes further inland. They watched the tide predictions, and if high water or a tropical storm was predicted, they would head north to stay with relatives and wait for the weather to pass. The gents also wondered if the plan was to move the Chawtaws out and then the developers would build condominiums. 

Wood crossovers to provide access to Island Road

Boat canal almost filled with vegetation

Elevated Isle de Jean Charles house

This was a nice afternoon. The few people we met were friendly. But we were not in town long enough to get a sense of how many people lived there at that time. It felt quiet. If the BBC article is correct, Isle de Jean Charles may be much quieter soon. I am glad that my wife and I had the chance to visit when it was still possible.

I took these photographs with a Hasselblad 501CM camera on Kodak Panatomic-X film using 50mm and 80mm Zeiss lenses. Some were tripod-mounted. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi film scanner. Panatomic-X is a mid-century wonder product for this type of subject matter. 

 

The Flood of 2019 (Part 1): Vicksburg, Mississippi

Introduction

The Mississippi River and Yazoo Backwater flood of 2019 will go down in the record books as one of the longest-lasting inundations in this part of the world. The Mississippi River rose above flood stage of 43 ft on the Vicksburg gauge in early January and stayed high June In the meantime, the central part of the state received record rainfall in January and February, filling creeks and streams in the Yazoo Backwater.

Plot of water level measured at the Vicksburg Gage, located near the Interstate 20 bridge. Major flood is defined as 50.0 ft on the gage. Plot from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Plot of Mississippi River stage over the first five months of 2019. Spike in mid-May is a bad data point.

Brief background

Let me digress with a short explanation of the hydrology of the region and why you see so much water. Levees (or dikes) line the Mississippi River all the way from central Missouri to the mouth of the river in the Gulf of Mexico, well south of New Orleans. The purpose of the levees is to prevent the river from flooding farmland and towns in the midwest during high river stages. The Yazoo River is a tributary of the Mississippi, meaning it flows into the larger river. The Yazoo drains west central Mississippi, much of it comprising the broad flat alluvial plain known as the Mississippi Delta (the same Delta famed for Blues music).

But during high water, several complicated issues arise:

• Problem no. 1: If the Mississippi River is in flood, the water will back up the Yazoo and inundate farmland and towns. Therefore, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) built levees along the Yazoo. The USACE installed flood control gates into the levee at a place called Steele Bayou, near the town of Redwood. The USACE closes the gates to prevent those flood waters from rolling over the farms of the southern Delta.
• Problem no. 2: If there has been heavy local rain in west central Mississippi, the streams and bayous of the Delta rise. But if the Mississippi is simultaneously in flood, the Steele Bayou gates are closed. Therefore, there is no place for the local runoff to drain out, and the water collects and rises behind (or north of) the gates. February to June of 2019 was one of these periods when both the Mississippi River was in flood and there had been torrential rain in the state of Mississippi – for weeks. There was no place for the water in the Yazoo Backwater to go, and the area experienced the longest-lasting inundation since the 1973 flood. 
• To add complexity to this problem: in 1941, Congress authorized the USACE to install pumps near Steele Bayou to pump Yazoo backwater water up and over the levee into the Yazoo River. However, the construction was not funded. These pumps would be some of the largest on earth and today would cost over $300 million. The EPA cancelled this project in 2008. Congress, farmers, and environmentalists have been fighting over the infamous pumps since the 1940s. You see where this is going….

I will divide this topic into three articles. This first will show photographs from Vicksburg and the area south of the Steele Bayou flood gate, meaning the area directly influenced by the water elevation on the Mississippi River. The next two articles will cover the terrain north of the Steele Bayou flood gate, the southern part of the Mississippi Delta (note, this is not the delta in the Gulf of Mexico - the terminology is confusing).

For some more information about how all this water reaches the Gulf of Mexico, see my 2011 article about the Old River Control.

Vicksburg scenes

Yazoo Canal from North Washington Street

These are the flooded woods next to the Yazoo Canal along North Washington Street. Unfortunately, many little forest animals like possums and raccoons come out of the woods and get hit by cars.

Big River Shipbuilders on Port Terminal Circle, Port of Vicksburg, March 21, 2019 (Fuji Acros film, Vito BL camera)

The shipbuilding and repair company needed to set up a floating walkway for their employees.

Ford Road, Vicksburg, March 8, 2019 (Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar CB lens)

The Ford subdivision, located just north of the Vicksburg Forest Products complex, floods almost every year recently. I asked an older gent why the houses were allowed to be built in this vulnerable area. He said in the past, other than during the historic 1973 flood, the land did not flood. If this is true, what had changed?

Young Alley, Vicksburg (80mm Planar lens)

Vicksburg Southern Railroad (VSOR) tracks extending north to International Paper mill north of Redwood (250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

The cottages off Young Alley appeared to be dry this year. Further north, the Vicksburg Southern Railroad tracks serve as a levee, keeping the water partly away from North Washington Street.

Raised mobile home off Falk Steel Road, photograph taken from VSOR tracks, March 8, 2019 (50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

The raised mobile home os on its own berm, therefore being safe from flooding. I saw a fellow leave the house and walk through the water using a garbage sack as a form of waders.

Kings Crossing Road west of N. Washington Street, March 15, 2019 (80mm Planar lens)

Kings Crossing Road leads west to some fields and woods. Many years ago, a fellow had a number of railroad postal cars parked in a field, but an old gent in a pickup truck said the rail cars were dragged away for scrap. The gent in the truck said the aluminum boat was his and he used it to get to his house.

Farm road off N. Washington Street, March 14, 2019 (250mm Sonnar lens)

In the photograph above, the flooded fields are beyond the railroad embankment and tracks.

The color photographs are from expired Kodak Ektar 25 film, exposed with a tripod-mounted Hasselblad 501CM camera with 50mm, 80mm, and 250mm Zeiss lenses. The colors are not quite right, but by using the gray dropper tool, the SilverFast scanner software recovered most colors.

High- and low-water records

From weather.gov:

Flood Categories (in feet)

Major Flood Stage:	50
Moderate Flood Stage:	46
Flood Stage:	43
Action Stage:	35

Historic Crests
(1) 57.10 ft on 05/19/2011
(2) 56.20 ft on 05/04/1927
(3) 53.20 ft on 02/21/1937
(4) 52.80 ft on 06/06/1929
(5) 52.50 ft on 04/28/1922
(6) 51.60 ft on 05/13/1973
(7) 51.50 ft on 02/15/1916
(8) 51.00 ft on 04/20/2008
(9) 50.23 ft on 01/15/2016
(10) 50.20 ft on 04/16/1897

Show More Historic Crests

(P): Preliminary values subject to further review.

Recent Crests
(1) 49.90 ft on 03/16/2018
(2) 48.50 ft on 05/25/2017
(3) 36.44 ft on 05/22/2016
(4) 43.32 ft on 03/18/2016
(5) 50.23 ft on 01/15/2016
(6) 37.32 ft on 12/14/2015
(7) 45.96 ft on 07/26/2015
(8) 37.84 ft on 06/08/2015
(9) 42.98 ft on 04/01/2015
(10) 38.40 ft on 04/20/2014

Show More Recent Crests

Low Water Records
(1) -7.00 ft on 02/03/1940
(2) -6.80 ft on 11/01/1939
(3) -5.80 ft on 01/06/1964

From the Archives: Tourist Pics of Vicksburg, Mississippi 1985-1992

While looking through a box of old negatives, I saw a film from my 1985 job-hunting trip. At the time, I lived in Houston, Texas - absolutely flat and topographically boring. But Vicksburg was an interesting place, with its history and its setting on the bluffs above the river. Not knowing if I would move here, I took snapshots around town. This will be a quick tour of some of the places a new resident might see. 

Driving from the east, many visitors first see the Big Muddy from the Mississippi Visitor Center. The scene is timeless - these photographs could be 1985 or 2019. I had driven here from the west and had therefore crossed on the I-20 bridge from Louisiana. In the late-1980s, the old bridge was still open to car traffic.

Walking on the Old Mississippi River Bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

By 1990, as I recall, the old bridge had been closed to traffic, but pedestrians could walk on it. This is a negative from a Kodak Stretch, which was a single-use (i.e., disposable) camera which purported to be a panorama format. That was deceptive: it had a 2-element, 25mm f/12 lens lens that projected onto a narrow strip of the 35mm frame, about 13×36 mm. However, I am surprised how well the Kodak Gold 200 film did with this crude lens. The APS film system also tried this fraud: the so-called panorama was just a thin strip in the middle of the frame. The entire frame was exposed but the processing lab automatically printed the thin strip.

Mississippi River north of the old bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

Mississippi River Bridges, Vicksburg, Fuji GW690II camera

The view from the overlook north of the Visitor Center is different now because the Ameristar Casino is in the foreground at the river's edge.

Mississippi River, Kodak VPS film, Rollei 35S camera, 40mm Sonnar lens

This is the bend in the Mississippi where the Yazoo Canal comes in from the north.

June 1991 view of former Vicksburg Hospital, Fujichrome 50, 4×5" Tachihara camera, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens

View north from Vicksburg Hospital, Ektar 25 film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm lens

In the 1980s, the old Vicksburg hospital was a concrete shell, standing where the police department is now located in a modern building. The view north to the City Hall and Post Office was rather boring. The architectural abomination on the right is now BancorpSouth Bank, but I am not sure what it was called in the 1980s.

Continuing north, this is a view of Clay Street at the intersection with Monroe. The Aeolian Apartments in the upper center were still rented as apartments in 1992.

This is Walnut Street looking north. I am not sure which of these houses are still extant.

Washington Street view south, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Grove Street from Washington Street, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Velchoff's Corner Restaurant & Miller's Still Lounge formerly occupied the building at the corner of Washington and Grove Streets (Summerlin and Summerlin 1995). I only ate there once and cannot remember when it closed. Look up Grove Street and you can see a car repair shop on the left. That building is gone, and again, I do not recall when it was demolished. The lot on the left was once occupied by the Masonic Temple, which was torn down in the mid- or late-1970s.

In front of the 61 Coffeehouse, view north, December 2018, Ilford Delta 100 film, Voigtlander Vito BL camera

61 Coffeeshop, 35 mm f/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, Pentax Spotmatic camera

Today, the corner building houses Attic Gallery and the 61 Coffeehouse. Daniel Boone runs 61 and provides the best coffee in town (except at my house....). And he employs charming coffee ladies. Look north along Washington Street and you see a building in the distance. Decades ago, this was a club and various other businesses.

Washington Street, Kodachrome 25 slide, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 150mm f/4 Super-Takumar lens

No. 913 Washington Street was once an automobile showroom. The second building, possibly a 7-Up bottling plant at one time, was unceremoniously demolished by City of Vicksburg in 2007.

Washington Street, Fujichrome 50 film, 4×5" B&J camera, 20" lens (presently the site of the M/V Mississippi on land)

The 1985 photographs are from Kodak VPS color negative film using a Rollei 35S camera. Its 40mm f/2.8 Sonnar lens was top quality for such a compact camera.

References

Summerlin, C. and Summerlin, V., 1995.  Traveling the Trace: A Complete Tour Guide to the Historic Natchez Trace from Nashville to Natchez. Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tennessee.

UPDATE 2021. Here is a photograph on the Mississippi River Bridge during the 2021 Bricks & Spokes bike ride. This is one of the few times that the bridge is open to the public. It is fun to bike over the river.

Wandering around Eagle Lake, Mississippi

Background

Eagle Lake is an oxbow lake northwest of Vicksburg. A short geology explanation: When a river flows through a wide alluvial valley (a geologic depression filled with riverine-deposited sediment), the river usually meanders, meaning it develops into tightly curved S-shaped channels. Often the channel almost curves back on itself. Over time, some of the curves are breached and the river rushes through the new opening to flow through the lower part of the S. The former bend of the river is abandoned, forming an oxbow lake. Eagle Lake, Lake Chicot, and Lake Washington are examples of oxbow lakes. These lakes become valuable habitat for fish and numerous bird species. Gradually (over hundreds of years) the lakes fill with organic debris and silt. The Mississippi valley between Cape Girardeau and the delta in the Gulf of Mexico shows evidence of hundreds of changes in these meanders as well as buried former channels throughout the alluvial valley (Fisk, 1944).

Eagle Lake, Mississippi. Map from ESRI ArcGIS online based on US Geological Survey topographic maps.

The town of Eagle Lake lies along the eastern shore and consists of mostly vacation and retirement homes, although some residents commute daily to Vicksburg for their jobs. I have not photographed in the town itself, but MS 465 has some interesting sights. (Warning, "pretty" pictures below.)

Some Sights near Town

Mt. Zion Church, near Laney Camp Road, Mississippi. Hasselblad, 50mm Distagon lens.

Lightning-struck tree at Mt. Zion Church, near Laney Camp Road, Mississippi.

North of Eagle Lake, MS 465 runs along the top of the levee. This is an unusual opportunity to drive along the levee top on a public road and watch wildlife in the ponds and hardwood bottomlands below. In many areas, levees are not open to the general public (they are restricted to hunters with permits, employees of levee boards, or the US Army Corps of Engineers). The Mount Zion Church is on a dirt road south of the levee, adjacent to where the Laney Camp Road joins 465.

This little church is east of 465 south of where the highway joins the levee. I do not know the name, but the modest little church had been deteriorating for at least 4 or 5 years. A few graves are located on the grounds south of the building.

In late December of 2017, I helped with the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The early morning light was misty and soft, perfect for tree pictures. These are on Kodak Panatomic-X film from a Hasselblad 501CM camera (tripod-mounted).

This is a store I photographed in 1997. It faced 465 but I cannot recall the exact location. This was a frame from Agfa Scala 200 black and white positive film (meaning black and white slides), taken with a Leica M3. The Scala scans really well. Of course, now I wish I had used more of it in the past.

Beaches and forest

Beach near Tara Wildlife Center with non-native rock in the foreground.

This is an example of a beach near Eagle Lake with access via a dirt path only during low water. The sand is carried naturally down the river from the central North American continent, but the rocks in the foreground were artificially placed. No rock of this size is carried by the Mississippi’s flow in this region.

Access like this to the river is relatively rare. Many visitors to the region are surprised that normally they can only see the river from high towns, like Vicksburg or Natchez, or from an occasional commercial loading facility. The reason is the placement of the flood-control levees. The main stem levees of the Mississippi River extend from Cape Girardeau in Missouri to the mouth of the river at the Gulf of Mexico. The levees are usually built some distance from the low water river channel, sometimes as much as one or two miles away (see Figure 1). The low terrain between the main channel and the levees is usually forested and subject to inundation whenever there is a high water event. The purpose of the forest is to provide friction to reduce the velocity of the water during high water. In effect, the forest helps protect the levees by preventing high currents from washing directly against the flanks of the earthen structures.

Example of pond and vegetation found in hardwood bottomland.

This is a pond in the hardwood bottomland that naturally forms on the river side of the levees. Note that up through the 1800s, much of the delta was hardwood bottomland, but the land was laboriously cleared and drained in the late 1800s and early 1900s to form the farmland that we see now. These bottomlands are characterized by being periodically inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater during the growing season. Common tree species in the area are adapted to survive, reach maturity, and reproduce in an environment where the soils within the root zone may be saturated or anaerobic (lacking oxygen) during part of the growing season (Clark and Benforado, 1980).

References

Clark, J.R., and Benforado, J. (Eds.), 1980. Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests: Proceedings of a Workshop on Bottomland Hardwood Forest Wetlands of the Southeastern United States. Developments in Agricultural and Managed-Forest Ecology, 11, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 401p.

Fisk, H.N., 1944. Geological investigation of the alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River. U.S. Department of the Army, Mississippi River Commission, 78p. Online:  http://lmvmapping.erdc.usace.army.mil/index.htm  Accessed Sep. 13, 2018.

Camera notes

The square photographs were taken with a Hasselblad 501CM camera on Kodak Panatomic-X film. I used Zeiss 80mm CB and 50mm Distagon lenses. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film in Xtol. The two rectangle frames are from a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera.

End-of-year salutation

Dear Readers, this is the last article of 2018. Thank you for reading and occasionally commenting. If you have ideas on places to photograph or comments of any type, please feel free to forward them to kodachromeguy - at - gmail - dot - com. A prosperous 2019 to you all. Stay well and explore your world.

High Water: Vicksburg's March 2018 Crest

Just before the crest, March 12, 2018, Ford Road, Vicksburg, Mississippi

The high water of 2018 in Vicksburg was on March 16 at a level of 49.9 ft on the Vicksburg gauge (which is located at the old Mississippi River bridge, the one that carries US 80). What does 49.9 ft mean? As a comparison, the table below from the National Weather Service lists other high water crests:

Historic Crests
(1) 57.10 ft on 05/19/2011
(2) 56.20 ft on 05/04/1927
(3) 53.20 ft on 02/21/1937
(4) 52.80 ft on 06/06/1929
(5) 52.50 ft on 04/28/1922
(6) 51.60 ft on 05/13/1973
(7) 51.50 ft on 02/15/1916
(8) 51.00 ft on 04/20/2008
(9) 50.23 ft on 01/15/2016
(10) 50.20 ft on 04/16/1897

Low Water Records
(1) -7.00 ft on 02/03/1940
(2) -6.80 ft on 11/01/1939
(3) -5.80 ft on 01/06/1964

As you can see, the water level of the Mississippi River as well as the Yazoo Canal and Port of Vicksburg can range about 50 ft or 15 m in many years. This poses a challenge to construction of docks and loading facilities. At Vicksburg, the definition of "flood" is when the water reaches 43.0 ft on the gauge. 

Flood Categories (in feet)

Major Flood Stage:	50
Moderate Flood Stage:	46
Flood Stage:	43
Action Stage:	35

The low-lying land north of the Anderson-Tully Worldwide on North Washington Street has always been vulnerable to flooding. The wood facility has its own protective levee, but the Ford and Kings Subdivisions just to the north begin to flood at about 44 ft.  

Ford Road, Vicksburg, March 12, 2018

Ford Road, Vicksburg, March 12, 2018

I do not know the history of these neighborhoods. They are clearly vulnerable at high water. Why were houses ever built here? Over the past decade or more, many houses have been purchased and torn down via a FEMA-funded program for vulnerable properties. I wrote about Marys Alley in 2010 and 2016 (click the links to see pictures of the lost cottages). Those houses looked to be 1920s or 1930s vintage, suggesting the area was developed a century ago, probably at a time when there were no flood zone restrictions.

View north from Haining Road, Vicksburg

During high water, it is fun to bike along Haining Road because the flooded fields and woods to the north host water birds and snakes.

Young Alley, March 16, 2018.

Young Alley is just off  Ford Road, literally behind the wood plant. The cottages are high enough to clear of the flood water at 49 ft elevation. You can see water in the driveway.

Railroad Alley, Vicksburg, March 12, 2018.

Railroad Alley, March 16, 2018.

Railroad Alley parallels the railroad tracks, just a short distance north of Ford Road. Parts of it flood at 49 ft. I have photographed the property with the horses before, at a time when the poor animals had less dry land within their yard. I recall asking a fellow about snakes, and he said horses were the best snake-squashers around.

The railroad tracks, which run north to the International Paper mill in Redwood, are on a raised embankment. The embankment serves as a levee. To the west of the tracks (left in the photograph), the the land floods. East of the tracks, or right, the houses are mostly safe. I am not sure if culverts and stream crossings are plugged before a high water event.

The tracks are operated by WATCO, a short-line operator. From their web page: "The Vicksburg Southern Railroad (VSOR) began operations January 8, 2006. Watco Companies acquired the railroad from the Kansas City Southern in November through a lease agreement and was formerly known as the Redwood Branch. The VSOR consists of 24 miles of track and interchanges with the KCS at Vicksburg, Mississippi."

All photographs are from Kodak Panatomic-X film, taken with a Hasselblad 501CM camera with 50mm, 80mm, and 250mm lenses, all tripod-mounted. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format scanner controlled by Silverfast Ai software.