Community-Centered Resilience: Lessons from Louisiana

This briefing transcript details the 'LA Safe' (Louisiana's Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments) initiative, a community-centered resilience effort designed to address land loss and sea-level rise in coastal Louisiana. The program emphasizes the integration of high-quality state data with grassroots leadership to develop long-term land-use and development strategies, moving beyond immediate disaster response toward proactive adaptation.

• The LA Safe initiative was funded by the National Disaster Resilience Competition, receiving a $92.6 million award, which included $40 million specifically for the resilience policy framework and $48.3 million for the resettlement of the Ile de Jean Charles community in Terrebonne Parish.
• Louisiana faces a critical land loss condition where relative sea level rise is exacerbated by sinking land, leading to a 'skeletal condition' of the state's coastline. Projections indicate that even with the state's Coastal Master Plan, land loss will continue over the next 50 years, increasing surge flood risk for coastal communities.
• The LA Safe planning process focused on a six-parish area that previously represented 8.5% of all historic National Flood Insurance Program payouts (prior to 2017). The process involved 71 public outreach events and over 2,800 individual participants to develop a 'crowd-sourced land-use plan'.
• To ensure community-led decision-making, the Foundation for Louisiana implemented the 'Lead the Coast' program, a leadership development course covering climate basics, government roles, and advocacy. Graduates of this program were paid stipends of $15 per hour to serve as facilitators for LA Safe public meetings, ensuring that difficult conversations about community viability were led by trusted local voices rather than outside bureaucrats.
• The LA Safe effort resulted in the investment of $40 million into 10 specific projects selected by the public through a voting process. These projects span multiple sectors, including a business incubator, expansion of mental health care, green infrastructure, a safe harbor for fishing boats, and resilient affordable housing prototypes.
• Adaptation planning in Louisiana is categorized into three levels of emergency: the 'real emergency' (highly visible immediate disaster aftermath), the 'conceptual emergency' (managing interconnected systems as benchmarks like sea level change), and the 'existential emergency' (shifting worldviews and questioning the survival of childhood homes and cultural identities).
• A significant barrier to long-term resilience is the disconnect between immediate hazard mitigation funding (tied to singular events) and the slow-moving drivers of risk like sea-level rise. Additionally, state and federal agencies often operate in rigid 'lanes' that are not conducive to the flexible, multi-dimensional coordination required for adaptation.
• The cost of the community outreach and planning for LA Safe was approximately $1 million per parish. The Foundation for Louisiana spent about $1 million to $1.5 million, while the state invested $4 million.

APA

Environmental and Energy Study Institute (2019). Community-Centered Resilience: Lessons from Louisiana. https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_110619.pdf

Chicago

Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Community-Centered Resilience: Lessons from Louisiana. 2019. https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_110619.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Environmental and Energy Study Institute |title=Community-Centered Resilience: Lessons from Louisiana |date=November 2019 |url=https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_110619.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{environmentalandenergystudyinstitute2019communitycentered, author = {{Environmental and Energy Study Institute}}, title = {{Community-Centered Resilience: Lessons from Louisiana}}, institution = {Environmental and Energy Study Institute}, year = {2019}, month = nov, url = {https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_110619.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }