Every hurricane finds land that someone owns.

We Live on an Island is a climate resilience organization built on a simple fact: the places most exposed to storms and rising water are almost entirely private property. We work with landowners on Johns Island in South Carolina, in Manhattan, and in New Orleans, three flagship chapters in a growing network now reaching over a dozen island and coastal communities that have all learned the same lesson the hard way.

1,200+ private landowners across the network have changed how they manage their land

2,900+ acres now managed for resilience

How three islands became one mission

This started with a few landowners on Johns Island noticing the same thing. The tidal creeks were running muddier after every rain. There were fewer fish where there used to be plenty. Mowing had crept closer to the water, native brush was getting cleared for tidiness, and drainage ditches were pulling water off the land before it had a chance to soak in. None of it happened on purpose, but across hundreds of properties, those small choices added up to what happened to the whole island's water.

Then two of the most damaging hurricanes in American history hit two very different kinds of islands. Hurricane Sandy put much of Lower Manhattan, a literal island, underwater in 2012. Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans in 2005, a city that sits below sea level and depends on levees and wetlands the way an island depends on its shoreline. In both places, landowners found the same pattern the Johns Island group had already been working on: paved-over ground, cleared buffers, and drained wetlands had made the flooding worse, and recovery came fastest wherever the land itself had been managed with water in mind.

So the model that started on Johns Island became something bigger. Word traveled between landowners the way it usually does, one neighbor telling another, one chapter comparing notes with the next, and the network kept growing past its first three places. We Live on an Island now reaches over a dozen island and coastal communities, with Johns Island, Manhattan, and New Orleans still leading the way as our founding and most established chapters.

We're not asking any landowner to stop farming, building, or living on their land. We're asking them to manage it in a way that helps it, and the people around it, survive the next storm.

Three islands, one pattern

Our network now reaches over a dozen island and coastal communities. Johns Island, Manhattan, and New Orleans are our founding chapters, and the ones we know best, so they're where we go deepest below. Each works with landowners on its own kind of land, facing its own kind of water. The practices look different in each place. The underlying pattern doesn't.

Johns Island, South Carolina

A sea island of tidal creeks, working farms, and hunting land, and the founding chapter where this whole approach started.

Common practice

Mowing all the way to the creek's edge

What it does

Removes the buffer that filters runoff and holds the bank together

Voluntary alternative

Leave a strip of native grass standing along the water

Common practice

Clearing native vegetation for a tidier look

What it does

Strips out cover game and songbirds depend on, exposes soil to washout

Voluntary alternative

Keep pockets of native brush and understory standing

Common practice

Over-managing drainage areas

What it does

Moves water off the land too fast, flashing runoff straight into the creek

Voluntary alternative

Let low, wet spots stay a little wild instead of ditching them dry

Manhattan and the New York waterfront

Hurricane Sandy put much of Lower Manhattan underwater in 2012 and showed how much of the flooding came down to what covered the ground and what sat below it.

Common practice

Paving over yards, lots, and waterfront edges

What it does

Leaves stormwater nowhere to go but the street and the subway below it

Voluntary alternative

Put in permeable surfaces and small green buffers wherever pavement isn't required

Common practice

Keeping generators, boilers, and electrical panels at or below street level

What it does

Puts the building's most critical equipment first in line for a surge

Voluntary alternative

Elevate critical equipment above the flood line

New Orleans, Louisiana

A city below sea level, held back by levees and a coastline of wetlands that once slowed storm surge before it arrived. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed what happens when that buffer is gone.

Common practice

Clearing or draining wetland buffers at a property's edge

What it does

Removes the natural cushion that slows storm surge before it reaches homes and streets

Voluntary alternative

Protect and restore wetland buffers on the parts of a property closest to open water

Common practice

Paving lots to cut down on mowing and upkeep

What it does

Sends rainwater straight into a drainage system that's already at capacity

Voluntary alternative

Keep a rain garden or unpaved ground wherever it's practical

We know some of this can feel unfamiliar, untidy, or like it might invite trouble a property doesn't currently have. That reaction is fair, in a marsh, a city block, or a bayou. What we've found, working property by property across all of our chapters, is that a small, bounded change usually looks better within a season or two, and it's a lot easier to try on a corner of a property than the whole thing at once.

What we're actually working toward

Safer land. Buildings and streets that hold up through the next storm. Property that keeps its value instead of losing it flood by flood. Somewhere worth handing down, whether that's a farm, a brownstone, or a shotgun house.

Healthier creeks, wetlands, and waterfronts

Land and buildings that recover faster after a storm

Property that keeps its value instead of losing it flood by flood

Something worth handing down, wherever it sits

What landowners have done so far

This work happens one property at a time, by choice, at whatever pace an owner is comfortable with. Johns Island has been at it the longest. New York and New Orleans followed, and more than a dozen other island and coastal communities have joined since.

1,200+

private landowners across the network have adopted at least one of these practices on their own property

2,900+

acres now managed with water and habitat in mind

12+

island and coastal communities in the network, led by our Johns Island, New York, and New Orleans chapters

Talk to us about your own property

Whether you own land on a sea island, a city block, or a stretch of Louisiana coastline, if you're curious what any of this could look like on your own property, no commitment, just a conversation, reach out.

Get in touch