Boothville, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 54.2 miles northeast of Boothville, LA?
USGS's shoreline-change data puts this stretch, 54.2 miles northeast of Boothville, LA, at 2.18 feet of erosion a year on average, a long-term rate for this specific ~3.5-mile section, not one storm's damage. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 21.8 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Boothville, LA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 29.95, -88.85. USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2001, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
What 2.18 ft/yr means over time
Run 54.2 miles northeast of Boothville, LA's 2.18 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 55 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
Where this fits nationally
85 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 1.64 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 125 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. Rank 292 nationally for erosion belongs to Carrabelle, FL, 254 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.52 ft/yr, 0.2x this stretch's rate. 3.3 miles up the coast, Boothville, LA shows 3.7 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Boothville itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.