On September 15th of 2007, Dr Jim Westgate took his GEO 3390 class (Environmental Geology) down to Holly Beach in Louisiana -- where Hurricane Rita came ashore and wiped the beach-house community of Holly Beach. Along the way we also looked at other environmental geology works and information. (Camera and picture information at the bottom.)

	Our second stop was the fill-end of a dredge operation, where the silt and mud from the bottom of the nearby waterway was filled in. This kind of operation created Pleasure Island, near Port Arthur, Texas.
	Dr Westgate had to yell a bit to be heard over the nearby power generator. In the background, you can see one of the local odd-ball pieces of equipment -- a scoop on a set of swamp treads. Grass is also claiming the mud and silt as fast as the dredging operation'll let it.
	Here we see the silt and mud being spewed out onto the flats. It looked so much like oil that we had to do a double-take.
	One of these days I'm going to have to get a camera with a telephoto lens. These were roseate spoonbills down in a rut in the mud and silt, though Dr Westgate joked about them being flamingos, as both species are the same color.
	Not too far down the road from the dredge-fill operation, we pulled over on the other side of the road and along the Intercoastal Waterway. Here, Dr Westgate checks the salinity of the water, which was around 2.7 parts-per-thousand.
	Here, the students look on and ask questions as Dr Westgate explains the nature, history, and geology of the Intercoastal Waterway.
	The dredger's head end, where all the silt is being pulled up to expand the Intercoastal. Whenever marshlands are destroyed in this fashion, such as the expansion, they're rebuilt elsewhere at a roughly 2:1 ratio -- although here in the pass, things have been rebuilt at a 3:1 ratio.
	Several more students look on as Dr Westgate continues to overfill our heads with information. I think this is where Kristin, the one on the right, is watching as something odd about the limestone rocks that everyone's standing on catches some attention.
	Though the image didn't come out well, the rocks were full of 'vugs' as Dr Westgate called them -- small nodes full of fool's gold and quartz crystals. The field trip almost ground to a halt as a bunch of geology students started wanting to dig into the limestone.
	The three massive structures in the distance will hold Liquified Natural Gas, and supposedly took a little bit of damage from Hurricane Humberto, which had blown through just a few scant days before the field trip. The picture was taken as we drove towards Louisiana.
	Here, Simons or the like builts a 'hurricane proof' beach house at Peveto Beach. Unfortunately, it was hit by a hurricane in the midst of construction. The white blocks that make up the walls are a styrofoam and plastic molding, in anticipation of concrete being poured into it. The stilts on which the house sits, as well as it's foundation and flooring, are all concrete.
	The beach house in the background is being rebuilt in a more conventional fashion, but you'll note in the foreground the remains of another beach house. Dr Westgate was telling us that the houses closer to the ground were all wiped away by Hurricane Rita.
	To give you an idea of Hurricane Humberto's winds... This was a frog that went *SPLAT!* into the concrete pylons of the Simons beach house.
	A little bit further down at Peveto Beach, Dr Westgate stops to talk about the dunes and their role as wind and wave breaks. The fence in the picture is actually an artificial wind break, installed to help the dunes catch and hold sand.
	This composite image shows the wave-breaks installed along the beach. The breaks help dissipate some of the wave energy, so that they drop their sand on the leeward side of the breaks -- although there is plenty of wave action between the breaks to chew up the shore. This gives Peveto Beach a scalloped appearance from the air.
This is a buoy that washed ashore -- probably from Hurricane Humberto just a few days before.
	We stopped at a nearby Audobon Society site only a hundred meters or so from the beach -- to discuss how such a forest could exist, and why. The detailed maps Dr Westgate has along with him help bring the beach's topography into perspective, as most of our concepts are exaggerated in terms of relative depth.
	We moved on to Holly Beach, and after a brief respite for lunch, I managed to snag a picture of this shrimp boat not too far off shore.
	Here we talk over the destruction of Holly Beach. Pictures of what Holly Beach looked like right after the storm can be found at www.ritaimages.com.
	This is the foundation for the Cameron County school that was wiped out by Hurricane Rita.
I think I want to be buried in a loose-fit pine box, to prevent this from occurring...

For those who are interested, all pictures were taken with a Canon PowerShot A40 on automatic settings. Most of these images have been shrunk from their original size and resolution to a 640x480@96, though I still retain the originals and some images not posted, on file. Any inquiries may be directed to: khavikanum@hotmail.com