Hurricane Katrina taught us that coastal restoration is not just an environmental issue but a matter of public safety, equity, and resilience. The storm revealed how decades of wetland loss, oil and gas canal dredging, and weakened levee systems left communitie — especially poor and Black neighborhoods — dangerously exposed. Since then, restoration efforts in Louisiana have emphasized rebuilding wetlands and barrier islands as natural buffers, integrating them with stronger levees and surge barriers in a “multiple lines of defense” approach. Katrina also taught us that community engagement is critical: restoration cannot succeed if it displaces residents or ignores local knowledge. The disaster ultimately pushed coastal restoration from a long-term ecological goal into an urgent priority for protecting both people and economies in a rapidly changing climate. In this episode, we speak with Rollin Black who works doing coastal habitat restoration in the Lower 9th Ward or New Orleans for the Lower Ninth Ward Center for Center for Engagement and Development.  Learn more about his work here https://sustainthenine.org/

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