Timbalier Island after storms Lilli and Isidore (above) and today, restored to its former self (below).
Our Sheltering Sands: Project restores first line of defense in hurricane
06:11 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Mike Hoss / WWL-TV News Anchor
It is a tiny island in Terrebonne Parish, but if a hurricane were bearing down on Louisiana, Timbalier Island would be among the first to greet it.
Timbalier Island after storms Lilli and Isidore (above) and today, restored to its former self (below).
It was close to disappearing, but now, thanks to some innovative ideas, it is back and ready for duty.
Only a few miles long, Timbalier is hardly an impressive looking strip of land. But, it couldn't be more significant. In the event of an approaching hurricane, a well-developed barrier island would deflect a storm’s wave energy, possibly saving lives and property.
To appreciate what it looks like today, you have to see what it looked like after Tropical Storms Isidore and Lili sliced it into pieces in 2002.
Then, the island’s lone fishing camp sat on pilings - ten feet above - and surrounded by water.
But now that camp sits on three million cubic yards of new sand, with the generator shack, that had the Gulf knocking on its door, now has 400 feet of new beach as a buffer.
“It’s just amazing,” marveled Patricia Taylor of the EPA. “It’s great for the citizens of Louisiana, great for the EPA. It’s the first line of defense against storms and it’s remarkable what’s been done."
The island is continuing to undergo a massive restoration.
Miles of storm fences now trap migrating sand to create dunes, giving the island critical height.
And vegetation, that’s planted now, will someday become a living fence, trapping even more sand and building up Timbalier to withstand a category 3 hurricane.
Federal officials call Timbalier the new "poster child" for coastal restoration.
To begin with, the sand was dredged and pumped in from the Gulf three miles away; bringing much needed new sand into a sediment-starved system. Before the project, the sand would have likely come from areas surrounding the island.
“Some people feel like when you take it from the back bay, which we've done on other barrier island projects, you are robbing from Peter to pay Paul,” said Chris Williams of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. “These islands, as they migrate, are going to end up migrating into the hole that we dug and dredged to rebuild the island.
In addition to the sand, eight different kinds of plants are being put in place to help hold the sand.
Besides the diversity of the plants that are being put in, and the quality of the sand that’s been pumped in from the Gulf, there's another unique aspect to this project, it came in under budget - $3.5 million under budget.
"We had an excellent contractor,” said Taylor. “The material performed better than expected. I think with a little bit of luck and God’s help we did it."
Without the restoration project, biologists said Timbalier Island would have disappeared in just 45 years.
Now bigger and stronger, it stands ready to slow down the deadly affects of a hurricane.
