The natural instinct to “do something!” when in danger has run up against the cold hand of reality. Bobby Jindal thought he had this great idea to spend countless amounts of money – all of which he funneled to a wealthy campaign contributor – on building sand berms to stop the oil in the Gulf from reaching the Louisiana coast. Scientists told Jindal the initiative could harm more than it helped, but he didn’t care, using the lack of an Army Corps of Engineers sign-off to his political advantage. The federal government gave in, and allowed Jindal to go ahead with the sand berms. And they washed out.

A dramatic series of of aerial images show that plans to build artificial islands to block oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from reaching Louisiana’s sensitive marshland appear to be crumbling. Literally.

Two months ago, against the advice of many coastal scientists, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal began furiously campaigning for the construction of six artificial islands to hold back the advancing oil. The federal government quickly granted Jindal his wish, and construction on the islands has been continuing apace.

But images taken of one construction site near the northern edge of the Chandeleur islands appear to show the sea washing away a giant sand berm over the course of about two weeks.

Now, I’ve been calling for the federal government to create jobs through direct hiring, even if it led to funding boondoggles like digging a hole. But Jindal seems to have taken this literally. He put hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to dig holes of sand that only got washed out by the water, particularly during the stormy weather of the past couple weeks.

The photos of the crumbling islands can be seen here.