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Science Quickly

Their Lives Have Been Upended by Hurricane Ida

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2021

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Theresa and Donald Dardar lived their whole lives in coastal Louisiana. They knew the “big one” might come someday. It did, and now everything is uncertain.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm Doolin II and this is Scientific American's 60-Second Science.

0:11.6

Hurricane I just slammed into the Louisiana coast on Sunday.

0:14.9

By landfall, it was a Category 4 storm.

0:17.6

150-mile-an-hour winds brought down trees, power lines, even whole buildings.

0:23.1

Over a million people have lost power in the state, and at least one person has died.

0:27.2

I'm a documentary filmmaker, and just two weeks ago, I was in the same place where

0:31.1

Ida came ashore.

0:32.1

I was working on another film for Scientific American.

0:34.9

This one about Louisiana's attempts to save its coastline after decades of erosion.

0:39.7

Ida is just another massive blow to a state that still loses a football field of coastline

0:44.1

every hour.

0:45.7

During my reporting, I had met Theresa and Donald Dardar, a couple in their 60s from the

0:49.5

Punishan's Native American tribe.

0:52.1

Their community lives right along the Gulf Coast, and has seen over 90% of their land lost

0:56.4

to erosion over the past several decades.

0:59.3

But unlike many in the area, the couple never moved.

1:02.0

Sure, we could build a house, buy a house somewhere else, but it would never be the same.

1:11.8

This is the roots, just like a plant, you de-root a plant, and you leave it in the sun, it's

1:18.4

gonna die.

1:19.8

That was Theresa speaking to me in my first film about coastal erosion in Louisiana.

1:23.7

At the time, she and her husband, Donald, had no plans to leave their home, no matter

1:27.2

how threatening the waters or winds got.

...

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