Photo Credit: City Park Archives
In August 2005, prior to Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans City Park’s Couturie Forest was a healthy area home to a variety of trees, including mature live oaks, bald cypresses, sweetgums, magnolias, pecans, and palmettos. Birds traveling to and from Central and South America stopped to avail themselves of abundant food provided by hackberry, elderberry, and numerous other trees and shrubs.
The forest also is the highest point in all of New Orleans. Laborde Mountain is a whopping 43 feet above sea level. For those not accustomed to such high altitudes, oxygen tanks or a Sherpa are recommended.
Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters covered the entire forest—save for the mountain—in up to 6 feet of water. What the brackish seawater didn’t kill, strong winds and an overzealous federally funded cleanup crew did. Seventy-five percent of the trees in the forest were severely damaged, and approximately 50 percent of them were killed. The forest’s former thick overstory virtually disappeared. With the sun shining, the overstory destroyed, and the soil disturbed, invasive species flourished. Chinese tallow, Cayratia japonica (aka bushkiller), and giant ragweed seeds thrived in this new environment.