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Past SPE Annual Conferences

Daniel Kariko

SPE Member since 2015
Member Chapter: Southeast

Storm Season

Louisiana is experiencing the highest rate of coastal erosion in America, losing about one hundred yards of land every thirty minutes. That is a size of a football field every half-hour.
The barrier islands of Southeast Louisiana are some of the youngest and most unstable landforms on earth. They average 5000 years in age, and are rapidly changing shape and disappearing due to the man-altered flow of the Mississippi delta. Timbalier Island, for example, averaged 20m/year towards Northwest, during the last century (U.S. geological survey). During the early 1800's most of the barrier islands served as the summer resorts to Louisiana's upper crust. In 1856 a devastating hurricane hit Isle Dernieres causing great loss of life and property, nearly splitting the island in half. Since then more than a dozen major storms, including Katrina, changed the geography of the coast. Today, all except Grand Isle are sand bars with a little more than skeletal remnants of industry.
These Islands represent the "First Line of Defense" against such hurricanes. Our, often adversarial relationship with the world outside ultimately reveals our inability to adapt to the natural process. We stop the flooding of rivers by building levees, yet that destroys the wetlands that protect us from storm surges. These photographs set out to illustrate the results of such failed relations.

Iteration, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Trinity Camps, Isle Dernieres, Louisiana

Littoral Drift, Raccoon Point, Louisiana

First Oil on the Beach

Malaclemys Terrapin, Raccoon Point, Louisiana

2

Canal, Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

Dulac Water Tower, Louisiana

Dry Dock, HWY 56, Louisiana

Gatortours, HWY 90, Louisiana

Oyster Boats, Bayou Petit Caillou, Louisiana

Abandoned Camps, Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

Oyster Shell Backyard, Bayou Sale, Louisiana

Highway One Overpass, Leeville, Louisiana

Oil on the Rocks, Timbalier Island, Louisiana

Windward Side, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Disappearing Island, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Washed Out Dock, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

What is Revelaled, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Lesser Turn, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Leeward Side, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Largest Pool of Oil, Timbalier Island, Louisiana

Storm Debris, Grand Terre Island, Louisiana

Still, Grand Island Marina, Louisiana

Wet Lab and Dock, Lyle S. St. Amant LWF Lab, Grand Terre, Louisiana

Bulkhead, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Sunrise on Bayou Sale, Louisiana

Fluid Erosion, Isle Dernieres, Louisiana

Horizon, Sulfur Mine Island, Louisiana

Remnants of Old Camp, Isle Dernieres, Louisiana

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