New Orleans residents on warning to abandon sinking city: ‘Nobody wants to leave home’

Jeff Williams, regional director of Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority; Debra Campbell, a lifelong New Orleans resident and chair of A Community Voice; and Arthur Johnson, the chief executive of Lower Nine Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. View image in fullscreen Jeff Williams, regional director of Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority; Debra Campbell, a lifelong New Orleans resident and chair of A Community Voice; and Arthur Johnson, the chief executive of Lower Nine Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. New Orleans residents on warning to abandon sinking city: ‘Nobody wants to leave home’ After a recent study found New Orleans is at a ‘point of no return’ amid the climate crisis, some locals say they will ‘only leave if forced to’. But what would it take to stay? W hen a study in May concluded that New Orleans has hit a “point of no return” due to the climate crisis that will require people to eventually retreat from their storied yet ultimately doomed city, the local reaction was swift and fiery. The onward march of rising seas around a sinking city was unsettling, but the study is “more focused on generating publicity and clickbait headlines” than coming up with solutions, said Helena Moreno, New Orleans’ mayor. There is flooding in Miami, and wildfires and earthquakes near San Fransisco, Moreno pointed out, “yet no serious movement exists to declare those cities lost causes”. Others were less diplomatic. “It’s really the most ridiculous study I have ever seen,” said Gordon Dove, the head of Louisiana’s coastal restoration agency, who took aim at Torbjörn Törnqvist, the lead researcher. “I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about,” Dove fumed. ‘Point of no return’: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds Read more Some locals took to posting defiant video clips of themselves near New Orleans’ levees (including ones carrying captions such as “STOP TELLING US TO MOVE”), or lamented a “modern day redlining of an entire city” and asked what will happen “when investors, insurers and young families read this” and act accordingly. Others decried the climate denial by state and federal governments that has led to such a situation. But of the torrent of New Orleanians who got in touch with Törnqvist about the study, typically after reading about it in the Guardian , most have grasped the precarity of the city’s future, according to the Tulane University academic, who is a leading expert on the fraying marshlands of the Mississippi Delta. “I’ve found it encouraging – we’ve had more constructive reactions than negative ones,” Törnqvist said. “Of course it’s upsetting to hear this, but cities like New Orleans have an expiration date. We’ve already crossed a tipping point of survivability for our coastal wetlands, the rate of sea level rise is way too high. “We will be surrounded by open water and New Orleans will be like a fortress in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be like V