Dirt Is Better Than Air
Build heavy. Before you need it.
In South Lafourche, Louisiana, storms are just part of life. They come hard and often. Decades ago, a man named Windell Curole took over the local levee district with one job: stop the water.
The engineers had rules. The feds had policies.
Curole had local judgment, shaped by storms and sharpened by pressure. He didn’t trust risk margins or empty promises. So he made a call: build higher. And do it now.
When you build a levee, you don’t fill it with air.
You pack it with dirt: thick layers of clay and sand, compressed.
It’s not pretty, but it works.
Leave a gap, a tiny pocket of air, and that becomes the weakest point.
The water finds it. Exploits it. Breaks it.
Life works the same way.
We’re all building something: careers, relationships, identities.
And too often, we fill them with air.
Things that look good on the outside but don’t weigh much. Likes, shortcuts, vibes, the next big thing.
Air.
But dirt is different.
Waking up early to move your body, even when no one’s watching.
That’s dirt.
Taking a deep breath instead of sending the angry text.
Dirt.
Calling your friend just to ask how they are, not because you need something, because you care.
Dirt.
Curole kept stacking dirt. Quietly. Without fanfare.
He raised the levees higher than the federal standard then in force and reinforced them beyond the specifications the district had been given.
Not with cutting-edge materials, just with time-tested earth.
It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t cheap.
And it definitely wasn’t federal policy.
When the district pushed past federal requirements, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers eventually decertified the system from its rehabilitation program.
The message was clear: it did not follow the post-Katrina standards.
No money. No support.
But Curole didn’t back down.
Because he understood something they didn’t:
When the bottom falls out, you don’t rise to the occasion. You fall to the level of your preparation.
On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida smashed through south Louisiana.
A Category 4 storm, with winds near 150 miles per hour at landfall, hit the coast near Port Fourchon.
The system was tested like never before. The water rose and caused minor overtopping in places.
No structural failures were reported inside the South Lafourche levee system.
Local reporting after Ida said no storm-surge water got into homes or businesses within the district.
The levees held.
Not because they were smart.
Because they were solid.
Because they were built with real material, layered slowly, and compacted over time.
Because they were full of dirt.
And Windell Curole, high and dry behind his levee, finally proved what he’d been saying all along:
“Dirt is better than air.”
Air feels good until it’s all you’ve got.
When the pressure hits, it won’t hold you.
It won’t anchor you. It won’t protect you.
It lets you drift.
It lets you drown.
So build with weight.
Layer by layer. Before the flood comes.
The routines. The rest. The real conversations.
The boring stuff no one applauds.
That’s how you build a life that doesn’t collapse.
Dirt is better than air. Always has been.
Closing Note
This isn’t just a story about levees. It’s a story about life.
We all face storms. We all build walls to hold them back.
The question isn’t whether the pressure will come.
The question is whether you’ve built with dirt or with air.