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The effects of climate change are both acute and chronic, leaving many communities in a perpetual state of uncertainty. For others, there is no such uncertainty—their communities will soon be uninhabitable. Some levels of government have begun to recognize and slowly respond to communities facing the possibilities of relocation. This paper considers the impact of transdisciplinary thinking and collaborative moments in the planning phase of one of the few community‐scale managed retreat attempts in the United States. In January 2016, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded the state of Louisiana $48.3 million to plan, design, and implement a structured and scalable resettlement with former and current residents of Isle de Jean Charles. The paper uses data from surveys and interviews with the practitioner team, fieldnotes, review of published reports, and a sample of more than 400 media accounts. Our analysis highlights how developing a transdisciplinary process may render a new understanding to the tasks and meanings of planning resettlements in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]