'Lucky' Louisiana unprepared for Gustav

Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall just west of New Orleans on 1 September, had far less devastating effects than Hurricane Katrina three years earlier — on either the people or the land on which they live. But the third major hurricane to hit Louisiana's fragile wetlands in three years has made it clear that, although coastal recovery is high on the state's agenda, little has been done on the ground since 2005.

Just last month, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal announced that the state would chip in $300 million of its surplus funds for coastal restoration and flood protection. It is "the largest single commitment to coastal restoration ever made by any governor in Louisiana", says Chris Macaluso, a spokesman from the Governor's Office of Coastal Activities.

The funding swelled a pot of post-Katrina restoration money that had been secured, but mostly not spent, in time for Gustav. "Money started coming in, and what happened was another freakin' hurricane hit the coast," says Mark Kulp, a coastal geologist at the University of New Orleans in Louisiana. "Three years is not a lot of time to implement with all the bureaucracy."

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