Left high and dry: The negative impacts of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) home elevation policies on coastal communities in lower Plaquemines Parish,Louisiana

Abstract

In recent years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sought to enforce home elevation policies more strictly across coastal Southeast Louisiana. These policies are meant to protect homes from flooding resulting from tropical storms. Such policies, however, are widely reviled by coastal community residents. This paper presents the results of ethnographic research conducted in Lower Plaquemines Parish investigating the reasons why coastal community residents hold such antipathy towards home elevation requirements. Above all, we find that there is enormous anxiety and deep resentment concerning the impacts of home elevation requirements. We show that such mandates are fundamentally at odds with vernacular architectural adaptations—especially the utilisation of trailers and other forms of modular housing—and they interfere with key features of residential mobility practices. Furthermore, many residents perceive FEMA home elevation policies as an element of a broader government conspiracy to depopulate the coast and drive out coastal community residents. We argue that the FEMA policies would be better informed and more effective based on a thorough ethnographic consideration of both the socioeconomic context of coastal communities and vernacular architectural strategies as they relate to issues of risk reduction and disaster recovery. Rather than forcing coastal communities into a one-size-fits-all risk reduction policy, we argue for a more flexible and locally informed approach building on existing cultural practices, social systems, and inherited knowledge.