Entergy is proud to support programing on LP and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

That stuff's going into the storm drain, and you may not see it, and this is the problem.

Cleaning up Louisiana litter, how is that affecting impact in the environment?

New Orleans natives making a healthier carnival season.

So we're right on that tipping point where we have to worry how a melting glacier is threatening Louisiana's coast in 24 hours.

Their life changed and not for the better.

An insurance option everyone should know.

Hi everyone, I'm Kara St. Cyr and I'm Andre Moreau.

Signs of peaking --That is the latest this week from state health officials about the Omicron variant of COVID.

They say it shows signs of peaking.

Governor John Bel Edwards and top medical leaders say the numbers of people in the hospital and the positive tests have dropped for a second week in a row, though cases still remain high.

If it is the case that we are peaking now and if the numbers do on a statewide basis, at least look to be trending in the right direction in the coming days or a week.

It's still worth remembering that that still has an absolute level of very, very high.

Basically the same place that we are now, which means it is true now, and it will remain true for the next couple of weeks that there's just more COVID out there in Louisiana than at any point prior in the pandemic.

The risk of being exposed, the risk of contracting the risk at risk of bringing COVID home to your family is as high, if not higher now, than at any point prior.

I think that's important for folks to realize as we watch these numbers closely in the coming days.

The total number of COVID cases in Louisiana over the course of this pandemic has officially surpassed 1 million.

The Louisiana Department of Health reported 14,000 new cases and 37 new deaths this week.

Infections and reinfections are still most common among the unvaccinated, and let's take a look at some of the other headlines making news across our state.

After over five months of limited electricity from Hurricane Ida's destruction, Louisiana's Barrier Island Grand Isle finally has fully restored power.

I'd made landfall August 29th, leaving Grand Isle nearly inaccessible for days after the storm.

For months, the island has relied on large Entergy generators.

This week, American Electric Power in Ohio based utility company announced plans for a new 100 million dollar transmission control center in Shreveport.

The company currently provides electricity in the Texarkana area.

The state offered incentive packages that include a 1 million dollar reward for infrastructure costs.

Construction is set to begin with operations midyear 2023.

New Orleans University Medical Center recently identified the first two known cases in Louisiana of a rare drug resistant fungus.

The fungus was found in at least 20 other states.

It's a harmful form of yeast that can be resistant to most of the common antifungal drugs.

The CDC has determined the fungus to be an emerging global threat and says it's especially dangerous to hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems after two years of jazz fest cancelations due to the pandemic.

Festival organizers have announced 2022 is a long awaited lineup.

This year's jazz fest will run from Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May eighth, with Erica Badu, the WHO.

Stevie Nicks and Foo Fighters as headliners, the governor announced this week.

The Army Corps of Engineers will receive more than two and a half billion dollars for the state under the Biden bipartisan infrastructure law.

It includes recovery money for coastal projects and damage from Hurricane Ida.

The 17th annual cinema on the Bayou will be held in-person and online this year.

The film festival will present over 200 official selections, which will be available to watch online, as well as daily in-person screenings.

All in-person screenings will be in compliance with applicable COVID 19 requirements.

The festival's film schedule can be found at cinema on the by EW.com.

And now to a story that we first talk to you about last week with Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser.

It's the governor's task force on litter abatement and beautification for the state of Louisiana statewide.

Mary Constantine is a photographer and a clean environment advocate.

You've worked on this for a long time and you are a member of this task force.

So how will the task force work?

Well, there's there's 26 of us.

So when you think about it, that's pretty frightening.

But my understanding is that they're going to break up into either teams or groups and then probably you'll be assigned maybe a couple.

I'm not sure some of the work you've done with Capital Lake in Baton Rouge discussed that and how that will be a model to help the entire state work toward this.

Will our stormwater coalition has been involved cleaning 1200 bags of litter out of Capital Lake.

342 tires, a couch and two toilets.

And so we recognize 41 bags flow in every month and we came up with this model.

You know, we cleaned it 15 times over from, I mean, made it pristine and we realized we we're just wasting our time because we don't have a litter capturing technologies in the outfalls.

And in the north of the capital, Lake is right in downtown Baton Rouge near the state Capitol.

So we came up with a model and it's a really easy model.

If you get a storm water management program in place, you have permanent funding from utility bill.

When you get the permanent funding, you drop in the equipment that's been around for 30 years in Florida.

Now they've already they're very done this.

All we have to do is learn from them and then you get you have the money, so you have the equipment serviced and cleaned.

Then you get the Girl Scouts and all the volunteers.

You go in to a legacy clean.

You clean up our litter, our grandfather's litter one time deal, clean it up, probably have to do a touch up once a year, but the equipment is going to stop the 41 bags.

And so this model is very different than any model you've ever seen when it comes to the watersheds.

Louisiana is a state that has gets more rainfall, more water than no one in raised.

OK, so that will contribute to the problem of litter on the street going into streams and rivers.

And what happens is unlike dry as a bone Arizona, they have wind problems.

We have flooding problems.

And so what happens to us because we're number one in rainfall?

If you if you throw stuff out on the street or drops out of the garbage truck or gets there, somehow what happens is every two weeks it gets washed into this the sportsman's paradise, the soul, part B, it gets washed into there.

And the storm drains are essentially freeway onramp systems, delivering massive payloads into what we live in play.

And you mentioned Florida, why they are a great model for us to follow.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious there.

The weather is very similar to ours where we all go there to vacation because it's so beautiful, but they have the same topography.

You know, we always like to look at Texas for business and things for Florida.

If we want to look at the environment, look at Florida, they have the same topography and they're typically no foreign rainfall and we're number one and they did this 30 years ago.

Our storm drains, it might have been built in the fifties and even earlier were never intended for single use items.

So what happens is they get clogged up.

And then when we create when we send in plastics and sediments, flood causing sediments, we create impermeable surfaces and soils.

This is played out all over the state, right?

And every year exactly what if you have storm drains and you're not, you know, taking care and you don't have good garbage contracts and you have a lot of people are throwing those kinds of things and it's ending up on the street.

That stuff's going into the storm drain and you may not see it.

And this is the problem.

But that is going to get delivered.

That outfall is going to deliver that payload and it's going to get stuck somewhere.

Some of it's going to go to the ocean, but some of it is going to get stuck in your favorite place to go hunting.

The point is to keep Louisiana beautiful.

We are the sportsman's paradise and this will go under the Visit Louisiana campaign, and that's where it's going to go from.

So that's a lot of where this can happen.

It's so great to have you here.

Thank you very constaté.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Louisiana sees a surge in our litter problem every year during Carnival season.

Beads, stuffed animals into balloons are quintessential Mardi Gras.

But these items often take a heavy toll on the environment.

Experts say that most of the throws we catch at parades will end up in the streets or in landfills.

New Orleans natives deep in the culture are creating something more sustainable to ease the burden on our country's landfills by producing biodegradable solutions.

I spoke with the creators of Epiphany Throws, a business dedicated to making sustainable beads about the importance of an eco friendly carnival season.

Mardi Gras produces nearly 1000 tons of trash each year.

All the bags, beads and stuffed animals usually end up on the streets or in the garbage.

Penny Orochi, Melissa Montgomery and Allison Taylor are a group of women working toward a healthier carnival season.

Through talking to other people realized that we all had a major problem with the waste and the trash going on at Mardi Gras, and we heard some people saying they didn't even want to ride anymore because of all the trash , and it was just felt so wrong and people just leaving things on the street.

And how is that affecting impact on the environment?

Regular plastic beads are hazardous for several reasons.

They can last in landfills for up to 200 years, and they can damage storm drains needed to prevent flooding.

Scientists have also linked to be paint to carcinogens.

IronKey, Taylor and Montgomery created Epiphany throws so they could sell Mardi Gras products without the added risks.

Let's let's be proud of what we throw and let's, you know, let's let's be the city that cares.

Their throats are comprised of mainly two things are seeds and dead stock cotton textile epiphany throws offers ethically sourced painted beads made out of seeds that are strung together with cotton strings.

The headdresses and bags are made from leftover factory cotton and old Mardi Gras costumes.

Unlike regular plastic throws, these can degrade in about ten years or so, but the goal is really to make something people will remember.

It's really nice to make that connection with the writer when they get something that's really exciting, they're like, Oh, this is different.

Epiphany throws aren't the only group trying to make Carnival better for the environment.

Now, Hero Catto, an LSU professor, developed a special type of Mardi Gras be that's eco friendly.

As a biologist, I knew there is a product called Bio Rabaul Plastics.

Kato's method starts with microscopic algae called a diatoms.

If you harvest them, you can use their oil to create beads and a blooms.

After Mardi Gras is over, they can degrade in one or two years.

Louisiana is a great place to grow the microalgae out of all of those to meet sun-dried.

So why just regrow the microalgae and then directly produce plastics from the oil within the microalgae?

Although the process is eco friendly, it's also very expensive.

Kato's first batch of Mardi Gras beads would cost around $40,000 for only 3000 beads.

On average, plastic ones only cost about 25 to $40 per case.

Kato says he might be able to lower the cost if he can produce more beads quickly.

But even then, the price would still be higher than the plastic ones.

If we produce a lot of amount and then the cost price could be down to about $0.20.

Palm are still.

You know, three times, four times more expensive than.

They get on Mardi Gras beads, but ultimately, Kato says real sustainability is more sentimental than biodegradable products.

If there's some sort of value attached to the items being thrown, then people will take them home instead of throwing them in the streets or in the garbage.

2022 is Epiphany throws first full year of operation.

They plan to expand their business and supply sustainable throws in bulk for big Mardi Gras crews in the future.

Louisiana loses a football field worth of land every hour and a half to sea level rise.

That's a tennis court worth of land every few minutes as rising temperatures quickly melt glaciers in the Arctic states like Louisiana stand to lose a lot more if they're quickly disappearing coastlines.

Brett Gehring, a professor at Tulane University, explains why a glacier enhanced Arctic air is melting so quickly and how Louisiana could be affected.

7289 miles away from Louisiana's coast, a threat is brewing in the heart of the ocean.

The Thwaites Glacier is a massive ice approximately the size of Great Britain.

It's been slowly melting for decades and is responsible for 4% of global sea level rise.

Scientists like Brant Gehring say we could see catastrophic levels of flooding if we don't act fast.

Thwaites Glacier is up to a kilometer deep or more in place, so a significantly different different magnitude of of flowing water just in a frozen state.

Gehring is part of a network of scientists researching the Thwaites Glacier and its impact on sea level during his tenure as the principal investigator at the International Thwaites Glacier collaboration.

He's seen the temperature of the water underneath the ice mass rise with climate change, which is creating a huge problem for the Antarctic ice shelves that hold the glacier above water.

The West ice sheet in the East Ice Sheet keep the weights planted in the ground.

The East Ice Sheet is above sea level and is considered stable by most scientists, but the West ice sheet isn't warm.

Water is breaking off chunks of the sheet, which causes pieces of the glacier to break into the Pacific Ocean.

The more the glacier breaks, the higher sea level rises.

So we're right on that tipping point where we have to worry.

For coastal states, the sea level rising could cause severe problems in Louisiana, where the coast is already disappearing at a devastating rate.

Experts predict the glacier could add another two feet of water.

Gehring says that type of increase would cause more storm surges and mass flooding on the coast.

Gehring says that these impacts may come a lot sooner than scientists anticipated.

There is an immediate impact that if water does start to get under the glacier on the order of a half a foot to a foot may happen within the next few decades to 50 years.

So time scales that you and I are going to be living through, and children are most certainly going to have to be dealing with those impacts in the near future.

While this prediction is generally accepted among glacier scientists, not everyone agrees with the timeline.

Some argue that the meltdown could take up to ten years before we see effects, while others argue that we're already experiencing them now.

There have been thoughts about geoengineering.

It's very unlikely that those are going to work.

The one thing we can do right now is start to conserve in any way we can just to slow the impacts of climate change.

Climate change has inertia.

It has momentum.

And so what we did as a world 20, 30 years ago, the atmospheric system, the oceans, they're all still evolving and responding to that.

But the sooner we can act, the better.

Gehring says that limiting CO2 exhausts is one thing people can do to slow the ice, but ultimately proactive protections are our best bet.

I think we need to, as a state start to be more proactive in terms of potentially moving businesses off of the coast, potentially moving residences away from the coast outside of, say, you know, vacation type homes.

You know, we just have to be wiser with how we are preparing rather than reacting.

The international Thwaites Glacier collaboration is studying the ice mass closely.

So far, there hasn't been any consensus on how to stop the ice sheet from melting.

That hurricane either damaged your home, maybe any other hurricane, did you get everything in repairs to rebuild or recover the value?

A second opinion is recommended from leading home lenders and that comes in the form of a public insurance adjuster.

They'll visit you free of charge and they act solely on your behalf.

one of the things that we experience the most is we're dealing with people who've been through a trauma, and it's horrific.

In 24 hours, their life changed and not for the better.

Susan Magee and her working partner, Emile Wolfhard, are public insurance adjusters.

They're hired by a homeowner and work for the homeowner, not an insurance company.

In the wake of damage to a property, most of the people that we get that don't know about public adjusters are out.

Googling help help me with my insurance.

Then we pop up.

They work with the Noble Public Adjuster Group, one of the nation's largest and the creator of the reality TV show Insurance Wars.

They say the point of the show is to educate people what a public adjuster does and why.

As a public adjuster, when we walk into a house or a building after a catastrophic event, a hurricane, an earthquake, we know the telltale signs to look for first cracks in the sheetrock separation with a crown molding, cracks and tile.

We know to look at the chimney if they've got chimneys wind damage.

When you're looking at the outside, you're looking for shingles lift.

I'm haeg certified.

Lift doesn't necessarily necessitate a damage.

So there's got to be a better inspection than simply lift.

But you're looking for stucco very fine cracks that you will often miss unless you know what to look for.

It's what happened to John Caldara and her family in Homa.

We talked with her in the days following Hurricane Ida.

You couldn't tell the extent of the damage from the outside of her house.

Even though Ida's cat four winds peeled off every layer of roofing there was allowing water to intrude in every way.

And then, as the days went on, we would see mildew growing in all the rooms, so I knew they were wetter than what I could see.

Called a Reira is an actress who found out about public adjusters when she was cast as a homeowner in an episode of Insurance Wars.

The role wasn't a hard one to play because she and her family were living through it in real time.

Chris?

Hi, Chris.

Hey, Amber.

Hi, Bob.

Nice to meet you.

Welcome to my once beautiful home.

Yeah.

When the wind gets into the attic, it puts an incredible amount of pressure inside that attic and the house almost Belcher's goes and as it does the all the ceiling boards, the windows, everything is affected by that belch.

Then what happens is afterwards, when the is released, the ceiling boards that have been pressed down when they were pressed down the nails that held them off and that pushed those nails down when the ceiling boards got up again.

Nothing pushes the nails up, so you start to see this little nail pops in the ceiling boards and cracks around the windows.

OK?

And then water or whatever.

Then then yeah.

Then then it starts.

The public adjuster she hired discovered there was more damage inside her home.

She says they sent out structural engineers twice, sent out air quality experts.

In the end, all the floors, all the ceilings and most of the walls were replaced.

You provide a service to a lot of people don't even know exists.

Yes, and that's the amazing thing we want to, especially here in Louisiana, because after the fact, you hear people over and over saying, Oh my gosh, I'm sure I'm not getting nearly what I need to get this thing fixed.

A lot of our clients, we have insurance adjusters as our clients, insurance employees, as our clients because they know the value.

We have some insurance adjusters that I mean, we really want what they recommend.

The clients get a public adjuster, you know.

So we wish more folks understood the value we do.

And the heartbreak is when you get somebody who has insurance, they're 80 years old, they've lost their home and they have no way to get it back.

On average, most of our clients are 60 to 90 days out from the event, and they haven't gotten what they need or they've gotten a small check in.

The insurance carrier has said, OK, we've paid.

We're done.

That's it.

And so they bring us in because they can't get the work done at that point.

Do you increase the length of the claim?

And our answer is no.

The insurance company was going to give you X.

We've not increased the length of that.

They're still going to give you X.

What we're doing is our time takes for the stuff they weren't going to give you.

So we've not increased the time to get what the insurance company was going to give you, where it takes us time to get what they should give you now, have they some insurance companies that or some claims that pay well, that part, right?

So I want to be careful not to generalize, but where there's a lack of payment alignment isn't made whole.

Again, we extend the time not for what they were going to get.

That time is set.

That's what they weren't going to get to say.

X Company has told this family, this is what you're going to get for it.

They're not satisfied they call you.

Yes, you come exactly examine the situation and say, Well, look at this, this and this.

We've not only got to tell them what we want, we've got to be able to articulate why we're asking for that unless we can answer the why the insurance company is under no obligation to give us the what.

So we base that why on six things.

I don't know if there's any value in understanding them, but the things like we're not asking for pixies and goblins, we're asking for things based on state statutes, building code, manufacturer requirements, case law history expert opinion, what the policy says.

So probably.

But with the policy said yes, the homeowner should get out.

So those six things onto the Y. Susan, we've done what, 1214?

I don't know how many thousand claims we've done as a company, how many of those have gone to court up to this week, including this week zero , not a single claim, the insurance company understands with what we present.

If it comes before any legal opinion, it's obvious that's got to be paid.

So our job is to provide the why and the better we answer the why, the more effectively the carrier is going to settle.

In Louisiana, the average cost for a public adjuster is $5,000.

The sales and marketing executives of Greater Baton Rouge awarded LPB President and CEO Beth Courtney with the now Mitchell Doty Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday at a luncheon in Baton Rouge, Beth's daughter, Julie George Moore, accepted the award on her behalf.

In a video was shown with a recorded message of thanks for the acknowledgment of her work.

Let's take a look.

Thank you all very much.

It is a real honor for me to receive the Neil Mitchell Dhoti Lifetime Achievement Award.

I had the pleasure of working with Nil, which makes receiving this award all the more special.

Helping to establish the statewide network that is Louisiana public broadcasting is something I am very proud of.

And your knowledge GMA today, I truly appreciate.

As you well know, the media landscape has certainly changed a great deal since I began my career in public media almost five decades ago.

But one thing that was true then and that is true now, is that a story told with integrity and with purpose is always relevant and meaningful.

As LPB continues to break new ground in digital first productions alongside its documentaries, news, stories and its library of educational resources, being true to our mission continues to be the key to success and longevity.

Thank you.

Sales and marketing executives of Greater Baton Rouge for this award and for the good work you are doing every day.

You know there.

There's no doubt Beth has been a pioneer in public broadcasting and also a pioneer in public broadcasting for women.

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

Well, everyone, that is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB PBS app, you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows , as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and now.

Tick tock and tick tock.

That's right.

Well, if everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Moreau and I'm Kara St. Cyr, until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Entergy is proud to support programing on LP and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.