Danny Walker, President
Morganza Action Coalition
Phone: 985-868-2333
info@morganza.org
P.O. Box 2601
Houma, LA 70361
THE REGION: WHY NOW?
Ten thousand Terrebonne Parish homes and businesses were inundated by Hurricane Rita's nine-foot storm surge in September 2005 causing $75 million worth of damage, even though the storm made landfall 180 miles to the west.
(Photos below courtesy of The Courier, Houma, LA)
Every day that passes without hurricane protection puts this region, its resources and its residents at risk.
• For centuries, barrier islands and coastal marshes provided us with natural hurricane storm surge protection. Today, these natural defenses are gone as a result of subsidence, erosion and saltwater intrusion.
• Without a hurricane levee system, a future direct hit will likely annihilate the Terrebonne and Lafourche Parish region, potentially killing thousands of people, destroying homes and businesses, and crippling the oil and gas infrastructure here so severely that gas prices will skyrocket.
• Recognizing that hurricane protection is critical to survival, local residents approved a quarter-cent sales tax in 2002 to raise the local matching funds needed to construct and maintain Morganza. With $15 million collected to date, construction of the first levee sections have begun.
Federal authorization and funding are all that stands between our risk of future devastation and the security provided by a completed Morganza-to-the-Gulf Hurricane Protection System.