On Monday, Secretary of Health Dr. Rebekah Gee announced the state had finally done away with the waiting list for services for developmentally disabled people and ensured that every eligible person who was in line asking for help from the state had received some form of assistance.
“At one point we had 16,000 families on our wait list,” Gee said. “We wanted to come up with something that was better than that. So we said, ‘Let’s fundamentally transform how we have families access disability services. Let’s get rid of the wait list.” Story by The Advocate.
The $118 million restoration of Whiskey Island on the edge of Terrebonne Bay is one of the world’s biggest land building projects. More than 15.8 million cubic yards of sand – enough to fill the Superdome three times – has been dredged and spread across the island, creating nearly 2,000 acres of new beach and marsh. More sand was moved than the state’s previous record, the Caminada Headland restoration, which spread 8.8 million cubic yards across 13 miles of coast, from Port Fourchon to Elmer’s Island.
Whiskey Island’s restoration, which is set to wrap up in early fall, amounts to only a fraction of the money and sand Louisiana is pouring into the rescue of its chain of barrier islands. And for good reason. Growing smaller and fewer in number by the year, the more than two dozen barrier islands are Louisiana’s “first line of defense against hurricanes and storm surges,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said. Story by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.
