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Nungesser: Climate change is making hurricanes worse; Louisiana needs a 5-year plan

“We don’t need a 50-year plan,” he said. “We need a five-year plan to save our coast," he said on the Eyewitness Morning News.

Louisiana Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser says coastal areas of the state need a solution to quickly rebuild after major hurricanes, and it needs one sooner rather than later.

Nungesser said Friday on the Eyewitness Morning News that climate change was bringing stronger storms and that a multi-faceted approach that includes hardening the power grid and building berms to protect the coast need to be moved on quickly.

“We don’t need a 50-year plan,” he said. “We need a five-year plan to save our coast… We’re not lucky enough to have another 10 years without a major storm because of this climate change and the storms are getting a lot worse.”

Nungesser said Hurricanes Laura, Zeta and Ida have much of the state’s coastline in a rebuilding phase. He said that worse yet, the slow-moving and powerful Ida cut a wide swath of destruction that affected so many parishes that people with unlivable homes have had to be moved a long way from their property, making it harder to get back and do work.

“There’s so many places that need help and there’s only so many people to do that,” he said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Nungesser pointed to the slow recovery in and around Lake Charles, where Hurricane Laura came ashore last year.

He said one of the things that needs to be done quickly is getting fishermen back into the water to make a living. He said that not only have many of their vessels been damaged, but so have their homes. Nungesser said they need help to get their vessels back into the water and their homes repaired so they can live nearby.

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