When Hurricane Ida hit southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, it smashed into a territory populated by several Native American tribes, wreaking havoc on people already dealing with decades of coastal erosion, the long shadow of discrimination, and a more recent disaster — the pandemic.

The noises of recovery — the pop of nail guns and screech of circular saws — are largely absent as a new storm season begins. Tribal authorities are concerned that another disastrous season will put their people in the crosshairs.

“Ida was the worst storm we’ve ever had in our area,” said August Creppel, chief of the United Houma Nation. The tribe’s roughly 19,000 members are spread across coastal Louisiana, about 11,000 of whom experienced some sort of damage from Ida, according to Creppel.

“Some of our people don’t even have a house to go back to,” he said.

Historically, the Native American people in these areas are intimately tied to the land and water. Many make their living shrimping or crabbing in the marshes and estuaries; their parents and grandparents before them also trapped muskrats or nutria.

But decades of development have eroded that land from under them.

It’s unfair how they have to pay the probe for it without any fault of theirs.