The US is a latecomer to offshore wind development, but President Biden has set big goals for expanding it. The Gulf of Mexico has good conditions and a large offshore energy industry.
Harvesting on a Louisiana sugar plantation, 1875.
Alfred R. Waud/Library of Congress
Sugar has deep links with slavery in the US, but Black workers weren’t the only ones affected. In post-Civil War Louisiana, Chinese workers also toiled cutting and processing cane.
The enslaved people who produced sugar before the Civil War did dangerous and grueling work.
The Print Collector/Getty Images
Before the Civil War, US activists sought to combat slavery through sugar boycotts. Instead, consumption grew.
“My family has lost everything. We all live in this area, and now it’s all gone,” said Fusto Maldonado, whose home in Barataria, Louisiana, flooded during Hurricane Ida.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
As the state copes with hurricanes and climate disasters, it is figuring out how to manage the slow-motion loss of its coastal land. But its plans could endanger the cultures that define the region.
Outages left downtown New Orleans in the dark after Hurricane Ida made landfall on Aug. 29, 2021.
Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Hurricane Ida left the entire city of New Orleans in the dark and renewed discussion of burying power lines. But there’s no way to completely protect the grid, above ground or below.
Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina.
(Hilary Scheinuk/AP Pool)
Sixteen years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the Category 4 storm Hurricane Ida reached Louisiana. Planning for future hurricanes must include the need to build resiliency to climate change.
Hurricane Ida’s winds tore off roofs, including in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
New Orleans has about a 40% chance of getting hit by a tropical storm in any given year. Here’s how heat, winds and the shape of the seafloor raise the hurricane damage risk.
US deputy marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges outside William Frantz Public School in New Orleans in 1960.
AP Photo
A reenactment of the largest slave rebellion in US history involves a plot twist. A scholar who studies race, history and memory says the new ending can spark new beginnings.
New York’s offer of incentives to Amazon to open a headquarters in the state faced significant opposition.
AP Photo/Karen Matthews
Climate change is raising global sea levels. Now research shows that ‘hot spots’ where seas rise another 4 to 5 inches in five years can occur along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, further magnifying floods.
The former KKK grand wizard from Louisiana is hopeful Trump supporters will turn out for his bid for U.S. Senate. Political scientists who have studied his career consider his chances.
An airboat driver rescues residents in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, where the ‘Cajun Navy’ of volunteers aided relief efforts.
Jonathan Bachman/Reuters
Improvised rescues, such as boat owners saving people in flooded Louisiana, have become an integral part of federal and state disaster response efforts.
An abandoned street in the Lower Ninth Ward in August 2006. .
REUTERS/Lee Celano
Ten years after Katrina, recovery in New Orleans is mixed – divided in familiar patterns between white and black, rich and poor. The same groups that suffered the brunt of the storm still struggle.