Grand Isle, Elmer's Island, and Fourchon Beaches all closed

In my previous post, the last point I made was that Louisiana had precious few beaches.  Now it appears that all of the road-accessible beaches in and around Grand Isle have been closed as of May 21, because of the effects of the oil spill.  What a blow to the economy in Grand Isle, whose residents are heavily dependent on the tourists who would normally flock into Grand Isle this time of year to enjoy the beaches and go fishing.  Here's local news coverage (video footage).  And here's the local newspaper coverage.  I copied an image of the three beaches from Google Earth.  Go to Google Earth and type in Grand Isle, Louisiana.  Note that Grand Isle really is a road-accessible island.  The bridge crossing over to Grand Isle is where alot of fishing is done.  Zoom in on the bridge.  On the left of the bridge, inside the V- or 7-shaped Elmer's Island (depending on your view) is a great place for kayaking.  Fourchon Beach is on the lower left of the image I took, and fronts one of the most important industrial ports in the United States, Port Fourchon.  For the few times I have been down in the area, I preferred Fourchon Beach over Grand Isle Beach.  It's sort of like comparing Waikiki Beach (Grand Isle), which is so-so as a beach, but a major tourist destination, to Kailua Beach (Fourchon Beach) close to where we lived on Oahu, which, in my mind was a better beach to go swimming and playing around in.  NOAA will shortly give their predictions about hurricane season this year, which officially begins nine days from now.  I can only imagine what a Hurricane like Rita (2005) or Ike (2008) would do.  Both hurricanes remained offshore below Terrebonne Parish as they headed toward Texas, pushing deep water all the way to the Intracoastal Waterway that intersects east and west Houma 30 miles inland.  I'm not sure how habitable coastal Louisiana would be for any life, human or otherwise, if a similar hurricane were to impact us.