Louisiana town's battle with rising sea levels raises a question: How far should the public treasury go to save it?

A view of Jean Lafitte, La., along Bayou Barataria. (New York Times photo by William Widmer)

How far should the public go to save a town losing its battle with rising ocean levels? The New York Times' Kevin Sack and John Schwartz explore the question in a gorgeous multimedia package about Jean Lafitte, La., a village steadily losing ground to rising sea levels. The story is part one of "The Drowning Coast," a three-part project by the Times and the The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about Louisiana's vanishing coast.

Just a few miles south of New Orleans' levees, Jean Lafitte (pop. 1,903) is only two feet above sea level and loses more ground with every year and every hurricane. The coastal land southward is disappearing fast: "In all, more than 2,000 square miles, an expanse larger than the state of Delaware, have disappeared since 1932," Sack and Schwartz report.

But though the land is disappearing, and fishing and offshore oil drilling jobs have declined, locals are trying their best to stay. New homes are built on six-foot mounds, and some older buildings have been placed on pillars--which can cost almost as much as the house is worth. Some residents say the government isn't spending enough to help with such flood-proofing programs, and complain that a cost-benefit analysis doesn't take into account the value of their community or its culture.

Lawmakers "don’t place value on anything but the money, not the longevity of these communities, not the culture," resident Tracy Kuhns told Sack and Schwartz. "One of the problems in this country is that people don’t have any connection to where they live. People really want that. Why would you take it away from people who already have it?"