2024-04-17 05:14:44
In 1955, Isle de Jean Charles, located off the coast of Louisiana, was still seventeen kilometers long and eight kilometers wide. Today, due to rising ocean levels and damage caused by hurricanes, it is three kilometers long and 400 meters wide. Photographer Sandra Mehlová, awarded with an honorable mention at the World Press Photo competition, tells the story of the island and its inhabitants who lost their homes with her pictures.
For hundreds of years, the island was inhabited mainly by people of Indian origin. However, the land where they once hunted, grazed animals and farmed is now under water. About 500 people used to live on the island and there used to be a school and a church there. However, the island’s problems are not unique. An area equivalent to a football field is lost every hour in the coastal areas of the Mississippi Delta, and it is part of the world experiencing some of the fastest land loss.
The images of Sandra Mehlová that we present are a sample from a larger collection that received one of six honorable mentions from the jury of the World Press Photo competition. The judges awarded this award to one photographer from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and Central America, South America and Southeast Asia and Oceania. Mehlová is honored for her pictures in the North American and Central American region. You can see the winners in the mentioned areas in the article: We know the European winner of World Press Photo. He captured the victims of the earthquake in Turkey.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
Sandra Mehl’s file says that since 1995, Isle de Jaean Charles in northeastern Louisiana has lost 98 percent of its land. All that remained of it was a narrow strip of land surrounded by water. This aerial photo of the island, which the photographer included in her long-term project, was created in 2017.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
In the end, Louisiana had to convince the island’s inhabitants to voluntarily move to a safer place. A new town was created for them. “A few kilometers from him, nine members of Charles’s family live in a caravan. The caravans were provided by the local authorities to them and other people who lost their homes after Hurricane Ida,” says the photographer. But the emergency housing program known as Ida Shelter Park was only scheduled to operate until June 2023, and Charles’ family knew he would have to leave.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
The image depicts an oak forest in southern Louisiana. “There used to be a similar one on Jean Charles Island before the land was lost under the sea,” says the photographer.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
Simon and Kristy are among the residents of Jean Charles Island who were forced to move inland due to the rising sea level and destruction caused by the hurricane. The US allocated tens of millions of dollars for the resettlement of thirty households from the island and moved them to the territory of the former plantation in the village of Gray. They were given new homes free of charge. They thus officially became the first climate refugees from some territories in the USA. “Six months later, Simon and Kristy got married in their new home surrounded by friends and family. They are fans of pop culture, which is why they chose Star Wars as their wedding theme,” says photographer Sandra Mehlová.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
The children of the Falgout family play in their father’s trailer full of hay. Their house was severely damaged by Hurricane Ida, but they received only a small grant from the state to repair it, and it is still being repaired. Because they live in Pointe-aux-Chênes (about 20 kilometers to Jean Charles Island), the resettlement project does not apply to them.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
Nya Dardar (pictured above) plays with a chicken. She, along with her mother and two sisters, lost their home due to Hurricane Ida and had to move in with her grandmother Patty in Pointe-aux-Chênes.
Goodbye, Isle de Jean Charles. Photographer Sandy Mehl’s series awarded at World Press Photo 2024. | Photo: Sandra Mehl, World Press Photo 2024
Roger Naquin habitually spends some afternoons at Uncle Freddy’s house, which is completely infested with mold since Hurricane Ida. Roger and Freddy now live in Pointe-aux-Chênes on the mainland, living in caravans.
The World Press Photo 2024 competition will announce the world winners on April 18, and a day later a major exhibition of the award-winning photos will begin in Amsterdam’s De Nieuwe Kerk, which doubles as a museum and gallery. A quarter of a million tourists visit its exhibition spaces annually.