What does it take to stay rooted on the Gulf Coast, even as the land and weather change around us? We meet individuals, from a poet to a minister to a computer programmer, each finding their own creative ways to adapt and fight for the future of their communities. From amphibious homes to inland retreats to processing our changing environment through poetry, we hear how people's ingenuity is helping chart a new path forward.
To hear more from Rachel Nederveld's oral history series, No Matter the Water, click here or find it wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode was hosted and produced by Carlyle Calhoun. Sea Change's theme music is by Jon Batiste, and our sound designer is Emily Jankowski. Carlyle Calhoun is the executive producer.
Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX. And to help others find our podcast, hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Sea Change is also supported by the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans. WWNO’s Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux Foundation, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
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TRANSCRIPT
RACHEL: All right. This is Rachel Nederveld. Lav and boom. For Sea Change,
CARLYLE: We are getting multiple mics going. Fancy, fancy.
RACHEL: I got two mics. The left one, I think the left is left channels, boom and right channel's, lav, I think.
CARLYLE: Rachel is a filmmaker and documentarian. She’d been living in LA for a while but moved back to her hometown of Lafayette Louisiana a few years ago.
RACHEL: I actually was working on a film that was about this elite athlete at the time when I moved back. Um, her name's Kit DesLauriers and she was the first woman to summit and then ski down the highest peak on every continent. And, uh, the film was about how she, after that, was kind of looking for what she was gonna do next and ended up in the arctic part of Alaska and found herself helping climate scientists with ground truthing their data because she had this crazy unique skillset of being able to be out in the wilderness and, uh, survive and, and a scent, the peaks there that other people couldn't do.
CARLYLE: so she was verifying the science in these very hard to access place. She helped measure how much glaciers had receded…alll kinds of stuff that helps us better understand climate change. Amazing story.
And it actually got Rachel thinking about citizen scientists, whether they think of themselves that way or not. People with unique skillsets who were not in Alaska but all around her.
RACHEL: And so, um, she ended up using this unique skill set of hers to help as a citizen scientist. And so kind of really got me thinking when I was here. How are all of the people here in South Louisiana, uh. How, how are people down here in South Louisiana using their own skillset in the same way of adapting and mitigating to our changing climate and and environment? how are people down here in South Louisiana using their own skillset in the same way of adapting and mitigating to our changing climate and environment?
CARLYLE: and so Rachel went out and discovered people who are finding ways to adapt to this very quickly changing place.
I’m Carlyle Calhoun and you’re listening to Sea Change. Coming up we meet a cross section of Louisianas from a poet to a minister to a computer programmer…each with their own story about how they are finding ways to adapt and to fight for the future of their communities.
MIDROLL
SUMMER: In Chauvin, there’s only one road in and the same road out. So we reference where we live as down the Bayou and up the bayou.
CARLYLE: That’s Summer Skarke. an elementary school principal and poet.
RACHEL: she talks a lot about kind of what's happening in Chauvin. She's really on the forefront of all of these different environmental, uh, um, changes that are kind of happening all at once.
CARLYLE: But you know, even though she's on the front lines of all of this, um, summer talks about how it's really just a difficult subject to, to discuss with people. And you talk to her about that.
RACHEL: How do you talk to students or kids about what's happening with the rising water and the erosion and the storms?
SUMMER: I feel that Chauvin people don't talk about it because it's a reality that you don't want, you live it, and so you don't wanna like, stay in it….(later tape) it's such a touchy subject and it's almost like something you don't wanna, how do you talk to someone about, that one day the place where you live might not exist, or it might be under water. It's a hard concept to imagine that the house that I live in may not be there one day 'cause it's just water. Even though I've seen things like that happen to some degree, I, I don't know that I even know how to touch that subject because I've seen that it could be a reality, you know? It's something I don't wanna talk about because it makes me mad.
RACHEL: Uh, summer's amazing. You know, it's really, it was really interesting to me talking to her about how her feelings are about this and, and just the fact that it's, um, it's so hard for people to understand what is coming, even if you know it. Like to actually be able to comprehend it in a more, in a more real way.
It's just such a big thing, you know? She says at one point, how do you, how do you understand that your home will one day be underwater? And she, and she did tell this, uh, interesting story too about this time.
She was at the symposium about wetlands and there was, um, she was there representing education with Louisiana in the bottom of the boot as she says. Uh, and you know that if you wanna play that story, I think that's another kind of amazing example of that.
CARLYLE: yeah let’s hear it.
SUMMER: and I was sitting with these engineers from Switzerland and all these places. And I remember them saying, you know, what are you gonna do when your school's not there anymore? Or your school's surrounded in water and like, are your kids gonna take a boat to get to school? And I remember them telling me all these things and I got mad and I was like, what are you talking about? Because in my head, as an adult, I could not wrap my mind around what they were telling me cause that was never going to happen. So why are we talking about things that's like ridiculous? That's how I felt.
RACHEL: Yeah, and you know, people at the symposium were talking about, you know, different places where you might have to put a school in a barge and maybe that that would be a viable solution down there for Chauvin and, you know, maybe 40, 50 years down the line. And that's, that's something that she could not imagine.
But then, you know, just five years later.
SUMMER: Ida hit, and took out every school in our community and I remember me crying. I cried in front of grown men 'cause I was mad that they were trying to tell me that there was a possibility that they wouldn't have education where I lived. And then it happened and I was like, whoa, they messed this up. They like, I couldn't have handled the truth if they'd have told me five years I'd have then really thought they were crazy, right?
CARLYLE: And I mean that to her point, it was just all the changes were happening so fast, you know, she thought it was gonna be decades away and all of a sudden, all the schools were destroyed.
ADD RACHEL: She couldn’t even conceive it would be decades…let alone, you know
CARLYLE: yeah. So what's happening in Chauvin now? Are there, are their schools still closed?
RACHEL: my understanding is there were four or five schools there. And, uh, only one has plans to be rebuilt. Um, and otherwise all of them are gonna end up being in other places. And it's interesting 'cause now Summer's a, a principal at a school in Montague, which is just kind of the, a town over, but it's still not Chauvin, you know?
CARLYLE: and part of what you talked to Summer about too is, is how she's helping her students think about the future because she knows, like, it was a hard thing for her to grasp the these changes and how quickly they're happening.
And she wants them to start thinking about you know, do they want to stay or do they want to go? And if they want to stay, you know are there different kinds of avenues they could be exploring..
SUMMER: There's jobs that are here that people could have that would make a difference here, and some of it was about coastal erosion or do biology work. It got them thinking in other directions besides just the typical things that, you know, being a trawler or being a oysterman, or being a doctor or a teacher, you know, just those jobs that everybody just kind of does. Whereas like, let's branch out and think about other things that actually could help to save the community you live in.
RACHEL: Yeah, Summer's a gym. I love her so much. taught English for a while and I love that she had her students kind of process a lot of what was happening through writing.
You know, with Katrina, she had people keep diaries and she, herself is a poet. And the title of this, the project came from a poem of hers, which I love. Um, and I could, I could share the, the quote with you if you want, but yeah,
CARLYLE: Yeah. Tell us the quote!
RACHEL: Yeah, she says the, the line of her poem is we have learned a lot from the redfish that can still hang on and adapt no matter what the water, it finds itself in salty or fresh. And there's so many different things I love about that because I think it's, it's talking about like the water, salty or fresh. It's kind of this change that we're going to and adapting. It's very literal where she is. 'cause the brackish water, it's changing as the sea level rises of what water it is. But then there's also just kind of this wide, um, you know, a very diverse, um, people down here who are handling this in different ways.
And it doesn't matter why you think these are happening, these issues are happening. It doesn't matter, um, what your perspective is, where you're coming from, where you live, no matter what. We're all kind of like this school of redfish and we're having to figure out, adapt together. And that's, and that's what we have to do. No matter what the water that we're in, we have to kind of come together and figure these things.
CARLYLE: and I feel like, you know, something else that your your series really gets to is, is adaptability and also resilience, so I wanted to ask you about Reverend Harris. Um, he is just a, a hilarious guy. And also, um, you know, he really, he thinks about resilience in this really holistic way.
RACHEL: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, um, you know, some of the things he does are really practical in terms of talking about go bags and, um, making sure that he knows who's in his community outside of his congregation, that's gonna need to be checked in on if a storm's coming, um, handing out pamphlets, having a tool library.
But then there is also that kind of, you know, I, I think resilience could be a dirty word down here, but it is that inner resilience, um, that he, that he talks a lot about and has kind of, you know, really beautiful things to say about.
CARLYLE: Yeah, let's listen to it.
TAPE: Rev Harris: Spiritually, it's very, very, very important so that you'll be able to mentally, psychologically deal with whatever outcome is.
You know what I'm talking about and I realize that 'cause uh, it can be depressing, it could be hard when you lose everything. But if you get distorted with it, you know, it's just, it's hard to recover psychologically and emotionally and stuff like that.
You know, we have to understand that there are things that hurt, but, uh. Don't let it be so devastating to you that it destroy you, because all of the material things you know, can be replaced if you see it as just everything's wiped out, that I have no hope, no way else to do it. It could be more devastating for you.
So come back to that same question. You know, okay, God, this is where it is. What would you have me do now. economically, I can't come back and build a house that I had, but can I come back and build a small house? Should I. Can I clear my lot off and put a trailer on it off? So I, I try to get us to understand that we've gotta be detached to some degree from that type of stuff.
If we going to, to do well when we experience it and, and realizing that we live in an area that it's primed for that to happen, it's even more critical.
CARLYLE: I think that's such a powerful point that he makes that we need to maintain some space from all the stuff we own, the physical stuff. And I mean, Reverend Harris also talks about, um, that that was really helpful for him when their church was damaged in a storm.
RACHEL: The roof was actually ripped off. And Laura, which was a huge storm down there, um, and you know, he, he kind of had that perspective. He said, you know, the physical church is damaged, but that's not the church. And so church can still happen. And I think that perspective of his really helps him deal with the loss and, and talk to his congregation and, and the people he ministers to about it too.
REV HARRIS: As I listened to people saying their church was damaged, I took a different twist. I said the church wasn't damaged, it was just the building. So the church kept meeting and we kept having church in the parking lot. It. It was awesome. You know, and you could just pull up and park in the parking lot and we had somebody out there kind of helping direct the cars, the sound people put together a sound system that we used outside and we just just go out there and people just pull up and park in their cars, and we’d just have a regular church service.
Rachel: it was like a drive in movie theater!
Rev Harris: except without speakers hanging off your cars.
CARLYLE: I mean, that is a hard thing to practice though, because it's easy to be attached to the places and things we love. And I mean, a lot of times it's not just losing the stuff, but we're losing a way of life. And you, you hear that in your conversation with Monique, Tell us a little bit about Monique who’s from St Bernard Parish.
MONIQUE: There was just this freedom to do what you want and to like be barefoot for weeks and not have to comb my hair. I miss that like, rhythm of life. It's, it was so like simple, uncomplicated, no TV really, you know, I. Turn the air conditioner on only on Sunday and only 'cause we were going to church, which was the reason why I had to comb my hair, which I hated. (cries)
I'm sorry, I'm, it's like, um, when Katrina washed in, it really, it just like flipped life upside down. I. And you know, my grandmother was able to go back to her land and some of the other elders were, but all the elders have passed at this point, pretty much. And I think that that like community and, you know, collective survival, the sharing of the labor and like the abundance, uh. It just doesn't exist anymore. In that way,
RACHEL: Yeah, that's, there's a lot to unpack in that one. It's, um, it's, I mean, I, I think she says so beautifully. So many, um, so many things that are challenges. Part of the challenges of what we're up against right now, you know. My interview with her was really about thinking about migrating communities and that communities are gonna have to shift. And it's something that Monique's really thinking about in an interesting way in terms of how do you keep home with you whenever you're doing that, and how do you, um, figure out how to be, uh, home and as long as you can, I think you can get something out of that.
CARLYLE: Right. And I mean, she's bought land, uh, as she describes it, north of I 10. Right. In order to, to kind of have a place to be safer,
RACHEL: Yeah. And you know, north of I 10 is this thing. I don't, I don't know if it's the same in across the state, but I know definitely in Lafayette, Kana area, like north of I 10, is where it's safe to buy and safe to be. And so it's kind of, you know, she laughs about that. But, um, but you know, she has a lot of her, um, her Homa relatives and Homa, meaning the indigenous tribe, not.
The place, um, who are affected by storms that are coming and, and they're kind of scattered in different areas along the coast, and then also her community and New Orleans that she's built over the years. And so she's thought a lot about when a storm's coming, where do you go? And, um, thinking, and she's, and she's created this place in Arville that is gonna be a sanctuary and really an amazing resource with solar panels.
And, um, also just a place that people can come and recharge their phones on their way to where they're going or if they need to crash their night when they are figuring out what's gonna happen because the storm's coming or you just need water or whatever it is, there's a place that you can go that you know you have a safe place to go to.
CARLYLEL Yeah. And, you know, listening to her story, I was just reflecting on the fact that, you know, the state of Louisiana has known for 20 years or so that migration is gonna be a necessary thing for a lot of people who live in South Louisiana. Um, but there's no funding for it, there's no infrastructure for it, there's no agency in charge of it.
Um, and that's true, you know, uh, you know, generally with our country at large too. And so, I mean, I just think about how it's, it's kind of put in, left in the hands of people like Monique to, to take this on and think, you know, she's thinking beyond herself too, making plans, not just like, where am I gonna be safe, but like, where can I provide a place for a larger community?
So, I mean, do you think about her as kind of a leader in this way?
RACHEL: Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, it's like you said, she is, she's. Not waiting for someone else to take it on, which I will say the indigenous communities down here, I feel like are the leaders in this space so much of just saying like, you guys aren't, there's, there's no help coming for us. We're figuring this out, and it's really, really inspiring.
MONIQUE: Post Katrina My family land in St. Bernard was under 11 feet of water when the surge came in, and I think that. I was just like, this is done. We're not gonna be able to be here. I really felt that way that there was something that died. I really was an advocate for like, okay, friends, let's all buy some land north of I I 10. Okay, family. Let's figure out a safe place for us all to go to. We gotta kind of like cut our losses, and the older I get, the more I recognize that we have a right to remain and reclaim. I need to have a foot in the sinking swamp over here. I don't wanna just go because this is home.
… And I think that my decision to invest in this small little 12 acre plot is maybe in the hopes that others will, will see that maybe we can retreat and return and maybe we can have relationships in other places. And have community that's north of I 10, and maybe some people will stay and maybe some people will always return home…but you know you can always go to Praires de Femmes.
RACHEL: I loved hearing her thought process and kind of how there's community that's helped her make these decisions. And, you know, one of the things I really love is part of her inspiration is, um, a member of the Homa community from years ago who she's never met. Um, but the story that, that this woman Rosalina, she went ahead and bought a bunch of land knowing that her people were gonna need a place to go. And so that's something that's always been in her mind.
And so I love that she's taking this experience of a community and this powerful woman of stories that she's. Been passed down to her and really putting that into effect and, and saying like, yes, I am. I'm gonna also make sure that my people have a place to go.
CARLYLE: yeah and then you met somebody who instead of relocating because of rising sea levels and land loss, um, has just figured out how to safely stay put. So, tell me about Buddy.
RACHEL: Yeah, buddy is, uh, I, I feel like he's like the uncle you wish he had. In a lot of ways. He's just so endearing and everyone loves him. but he is just a sweetheart. He's 80, he might be 81 now, I'm not sure. And he, uh, traveled the world. He got into computers early and traveled the world working on them, and then just got tired of all the traveling he did and moved back home to like South Central, I would call it Louisiana. And so, you know, he was living at home and he, a friend came up to him and was like, Hey, I have some debt I need to take care of. I have this trailer and this lease, um, you know, will you buy it and, and help me settle my debt? And so he did. And then, um, I feel like Buddy should take over what happened from there.
BUDDY: when I drove out here, I drove up on the levee and boom, there was nothing but water. I said, Lord, I called him and said, he said, oh, it's in the field.
Over there. The farmer pulled it out. I said, well, thanks for telling me.
RACHEL: so it was flooded the first time you came out?
BUDDY: oh yeah…yeah
RACHEL: so after a while, um, the trailer kind of couldn't take going over the levee back and forth when it flooded anymore, and it was time to build a new home.
So I think, um, you know, in south Louisiana and probably a lot of places that deal with water, when you drive around, you see a lot of houses that have been raised up on stilts, um, to help prevent flooding so that, you know, the water comes in and the house is raised higher. But for a buddy, he really didn't wanna do stilts. He, um, was born with a, a leg shorter than the other. And so he knew the stairs would be a problem. He didn't wanna do an elevator for various reasons. And so he had seen a camp in, um, the same area that had created what's really called an amphibious home, A house that floats.
And he decided to do the same, but with his home,
BUDDY: They think I'm nuts, I guess, you know, really. I mean, who would want to live in a floating house in the middle of the woods with. With alligators and snakes, you know, but it was only the practical solution for me. It seemed very logical what I did to me.
CARLYLE: that's so cool. And he's inspired other people to build similar houses, right?
RACHEL: Yeah, now there's about 40 structures. There's the, the landing there, um, where it's a restaurant and boat landing that is floating. Um, and it's just, it's really amazing.
CARLYLE: Has there been like a big flood that's tested all of these floating structures? Yeah.
RACHEL: yeah, actually in 2011, there was a big flood there. Um, and a lot of the stilted homes actually ended up flooding because they weren't built high enough for that particular flood. Whereas amphibious homes, they're not built to a certain level per se. They just go up and go down. And so, um, as long as your poles are high enough, you can go high enough.
CARLYLE: Let’s hear Buddy talking bout that flood.
RACHEL: Yeah. How did the floating houses fare during that, that flood?
BUDDY: I don't think any of them flooded. None of 'em did.
I'm not going to flood when it floods. I'm here just to make sure everything goes right. I mean, there's a mental benefit. For me, it would be a crisis probably for anybody, a lot of other people, but they don't go with the flow. You know the old saying, go with the flow. Well, that's pretty much what you gotta do on the river.
I mean, you're not gonna stop the river. This is a way to live with the threat of water.
CARLYLE: Oh, he's great. And I love this question you ask buddy.
RACHEL: Why do you think you're the person who was like, I'm just gonna live here full time and I'm gonna make my house float.
[00:15:19] Buddy: I don't know. You know, I have no idea. My friend Tommy, we were just talking about what we did, how our lives had played out.
He's 80 as well as I am, and, uh, he, he is said, well, you took the road less traveled. I, I said, yeah, but it just happened to me. I'm normal. I, I don't consider myself a wild man that lives on the river. I don't consider myself different from other people, but it just happened and I'm glad it did happen. It, it was a good way to live my life.
It was peaceful after traveling the world, working in Manila and Caracas and these big cities, it's just, it brings me back to my childhood. I was raised on a dairy farm. Outside of Bunky where nature was just nature. I mean, it was just part of us. And I get that same feeling here that I'm, I'm just part of nature out here.
It's, it's a nice feeling.
CARLYLE: I just think that's something that everybody you talk to really, you know, in a beautiful way discusses is that deep connection to place.
RACHEL: Yeah for sure. The environment and the nature here is just so beautiful and so special. Um, and it's not. It's not just that, it's also the people.
And so I think that's kind of the sentiment with, you know, across the board, the five different people I speak with, because that's why, that's why we're finding solutions to stay here.
That's why we don't wanna leave. And I think that's the thing a lot of people not from here don't understand is, you know, there's always the question of why don't you just leave? Why don't you just move? And I think more people are understanding it more as disasters are happening elsewhere. But it's because this is your home and you sh. It's not, it's not something that can be replicated anywhere else, and it's really special and, um, you can't, you can't really move a culture somewhere else. That's part of the receiving migrating community thing is figuring out how do we make room for cultures and, and make it feel more like a home as a receiving community.
But, um, you know, it's something that I think a lot of these people speak really eloquently about, probably more than I am right now, about why, why it's worth staying, why it's worth figuring out how to adapt, why it's worth figuring out how to mitigate the solutions. Um. Prolong our ability to stay where we wanna be for as long as we can.
We know that at some point we're not gonna be able to in a lot of places, in a lot of situations. Um, and so coming to terms with that, but also saying, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna fight to be here as long as I can because it's worth it. And I think that's an important message for everyone. And I think it's also important to just say that as the people living here and acknowledge that that is what you're doing, that this is important.
It's who you are. It's part of who you are, it's part of your history.
CARLYLE: Yeah. And I just, I loved meeting these five people and I loved hearing their stories and I found them all really hopeful and inspirational.
RACHEL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CARLYLE: Well, thank you so much, Rachel.
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Carlyle. It's been really great to visit the stories with you.
OUTRO
Thanks for listening to Sea Change. This episode was hosted and produced by me Carlyle Calhoun. Check out Rachel Nederveld’s entire series No Matter the Water wherever you get your podcasts. Our theme music is by Jon Batiste, our sound designer is Emily Jankowski, and I’m the executive producer.
Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX. And to help others find our podcast, hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.(OR: And to help others find our podcast, please share this episode with a friend!)
Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Sea Change is also supported by the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans. WWNO’s Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux (Meer - O) Foundation, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
We’ll be back in two weeks.
