High Water Routs Inland Towns in Sign of Climate Change to Come

In Louisiana’s blueprint for managing the impacts of climate change, the cities of New Roads and Gonzales would seem well placed as refuges for coastal residents projected to lose their homes to rising sea levels.

New Roads is roughly 80 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Gonzales sits about 60 miles from the coast. Both cities have little risk of storm surge when hurricanes threaten, and their elevation or levees would seem to protect residents from inundation.

Yet rising waters have become so routine and damaging in parts of those cities that the ...