The Coast's Lost Shores — Erosion, Hurricanes, and Rebuilding on Shifting Sands

The Mississippi Gulf Coast doesn't just survive storms — it watches the ground itself disappear. A lighthouse built in 1859 on Round Island stood in open water for decades after the island eroded away; it was rescued and moved to the Pascagoula waterfront in 2010. Twelve miles off Biloxi, the Isle of Caprice ran bootleg liquor and gambling through the 1920s, drawing tour boats full of people to a sandbar that mainland laws couldn't reach. By 1932 it was gone — erosion and a hurricane took it. NOAA marks the passes where it stood. No ruins, no marker. Then Katrina made landfall at Waveland on August 29, 2005, and 95 percent of the town went with the surge. The 1927 elementary school held. It's a museum now. The coast has always been this — land that vanishes and people who stay anyway.