OLD RIVER LANDING

This fishing community sits on an offshoot of the Mississippi River in Louisiana. It is an idyllic spot for summertime fishing, but this community sits outside Louisiana’s levee system, leaving it exposed to severe flooding. The area floods at least once almost every year, requiring residents to find new solutions to protect their homes, businesses, and fishing camps.

The conventional solution in this area is to raise homes on stilts, but this increases their vulnerability to hurricane winds and dramatically changes the character of the neighborhood. Instead, some residents have opted to take an amphibious approach, retrofitting their homes with styrofoam floatation elements and steel guidance posts. This saves the owners the time, money, and disruption of flood damage, allowing them to return to their homes as soon as the water recedes. The retrofits were conceptualized and constructed by the residents themselves, with one man in the community saying the calculations were “not complicated”. Homeowners figured out the weight of their home and belongings, determined how much styrofoam would be required to provide adequate buoyancy, and modified their structures to be able to float with conventionally available construction materials. 

Most of the residents live here seasonally, and so do not stay when the floods come. However, some use boats to access their houses even during the floods. Utilities and pipes are hooked up with detachable connections, so they can be disconnected before a flood. This process to disconnect the houses and prepare them to float can be done in under a half hour.