From books to barbecue, and current events to Colonial history, historian and author Walter Edgar delves into the arts, culture, and history of South Carolina and the American South. Produced by South Carolina Public Radio.
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WEJ at 21: A Rising Sea, a Vanishing Coast, and a 19th-Century Disaster that Warns of a Warmer World
As part of our on-going series, Walter Edgar's Journal at 21, we revisit a conversation with the late Dr. Abby Sallenger, who tells the cautionary tale of Isle Derniere.In the summer of 1853, many of New Orleans’s citizens traveled to Isle Derniere, an emerging island retreat on the Gulf of Mexico, presuming it a safe haven from yellow fever. On August 10, 1856, a hurricane swept across the island, killing most of its 400 inhabitants. What remained of the island was a forest stranded in the sea, a sign of a land that would eventually vanish.