Summary
A mostly freshwater wetland just 20 miles south of New Orleans, Barataria Preserve was left in disarray by Hurricane Ida in 2021, and it remained closed for repairs for years afterward. Five years later, the National Park Service has started a two-year rebuilding effort designed to strengthen boardwalks and other infrastructure against future flooding, according to reporting distributed by the Associated Press.
The damage from Ida included the preserve being submerged in saltwater after the storm made landfall in August 2021. The hurricane covered public areas with debris, damaged the roof of an administrative trailer, flooded the visitor center and a maintenance building, and shattered parts of boardwalk trails over the marsh, rendering them unusable. The Associated Press reporting said it was the worst storm damage the preserve had faced since Hurricane Rita in 2005.
Barataria Preserve, which carries postcard-like features typical of southeastern Louisiana such as Spanish moss and cypress roots rising from the soil, was also described as vulnerable in ways common to Gulf Coast marshes—especially to coastal erosion and extreme weather. After Ida, the preserve continued to be open to visitors until it closed at the start of 2026 for the long-needed repairs.
In the meantime, park guide Mary Maggiore led tours in a nearby area instead of the preserve. On a bright March day at Wetland Trace in Jean Lafitte, she explained that a levee there exists to protect nearby residents from extreme weather, including hurricanes and intense winds. “Back here we have the town of Lafitte, we have buildings, we have houses, we don’t want those things to flood,” she said, pointing to buildings behind a group as they stood on the levee.
Maggiore said the Hurricane Ida damage forced difficult decisions about whether to repair everything at once or scale the work back. “It was kind of sad for me to watch some things fall apart,” Maggiore said. “I was kind of like, what are they going to do about this? And now they’re finally doing it, but it was kind of either we repair everything at once, or we just don’t repair everything.”
The rebuild plan is being developed with a long-range view of sea-level rise, while still responding to the kinds of rapid, storm-driven impacts that can overwhelm coastal ecosystems. The Park Service is trying to boost resilience by using a 50-year projection on sea level rise and environmental factors including salinity and projected water depth, said Meredith Hardy, manager of interpretation and education for Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, which includes Barataria Preserve.
Hardy said the Park Service’s approach includes removing over two miles of old boardwalks based on flooding patterns and building new boardwalks out of composite materials designed to resist flooding. The new boardwalks would include safety railings and be 1.5 to 2 feet higher than they are now, Hardy said. Hardy also told Verite News that the boardwalk designs began in 2022 using disaster funds allocated by Congress, and that it took two more years for an environmental assessment to be conducted and signed, followed by public review before finalization.
Meselhe, a Tulane University professor who chairs the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering, said coastal wetland protection has often come too late. He pointed to a pattern in which governments wait for damage before funding repairs. “Most of the protection projects are unfortunately reactionary,” Meselhe said. “This is how our country here has been operating: they wait for something to happen, then they allocate recovery money or repair money.” He added that “You’re basically putting out fires rather than to actually improve the resilience of the system,” and that restoration projects can be “a little better” when they help slow deterioration rather than only address damage after major storms.
The broader risk is underscored by Louisiana’s ongoing loss of coastal wetlands to erosion and by how severely hurricanes can accelerate loss. The Associated Press reporting said Louisiana loses nearly 11 square miles of coastal wetlands each year to erosion, often described as the equivalent of one football field every 100 minutes on average. It also said that when Hurricane Ida hit, it destroyed more than 100 square miles of marshland—an amount the reporting estimated would take decades of typical erosion to match, even without additional major storms.
As a result, some scientists argue that even well-designed restoration may not be enough to fully prevent long-term decline. Meselhe said those efforts are best viewed as limiting damage rather than achieving full protection. “You are not gonna save the coast,” Meselhe said. “You are going to reduce the amount of loss.”
The complexity of that trade-off is visible in the status of larger coastal restoration plans, including the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project. The reporting said Gov. Jeff Landry canceled the project last year; the plan had a $3 billion price tag and aimed to use sediment diversions to connect the river to wetlands to rebuild and maintain 27 square miles of land over 50 years. Meselhe’s projections, as described in the reporting, indicate the Barataria area was slated to lose 90% of wetlands by 2100, and that the canceled project might have reduced that figure to 80%.
The question of what comes next for communities also figures into discussions among coastal scientists, particularly when erosion and sea-level rise threaten homes and cultural ties. Meselhe said it is “very delicate” to tell residents to relocate because of that vulnerability. “It’s very delicate to tell somebody you shouldn’t rebuild because you still are very vulnerable, you need to relocate,” he said. “It’s very delicate to say that to somebody who lived there, they have a cultural connection to that land.”
Dr. Kevin Xu, director of the Coastal Studies Institute at Louisiana State University, argued the relocation conversation is starting too late and said the government should subsidize retreat and help cover relocation costs. “I believe that it’s time to talk about retreat, and it’s time to talk about how the government would subsidize the local community and how they can even pay the relocation fee to the local community,” Xu said. Xu also suggested that increased inland infrastructure could allow fishermen to live inland while commuting to work near the coast, arguing that without such infrastructure fishermen would be unlikely to leave their homes.
Local residents described both the personal wait for repairs and the way major storms alter the ecosystem. Trenton Smith, who lives in nearby Harvey and has visited Barataria Preserve since they were a teenager, said they were grateful repairs are underway. “I’m really looking forward to the repairs they’re doing now,” Smith said, adding that repairs have moved slowly even since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. With the preserve closed for repairs, Smith said they have been looking for wildlife around the Bonnet Carré Spillway, describing how storms can cause migration among reptiles and affect the swamp’s fragile ecosystem.
With construction under way, Maggiore said she expects to return to leading tours on the new boardwalks when work finishes. She said she is especially excited about a new visitor center that would include a screened-in wall offering views of the forest and marshlands that scientists and planners are trying to protect. “It’s going to be beautiful,” Maggiore said, adding that “but we don’t really have a place to give a tour at the moment.”