The Earth is warming.
Even the climate deniers recognize that, they just refuse to accept responsibility. Sea levels are rising, storms are becoming
more ferocious and perhaps will become more frequent. Living on the seacoast has become more
hazardous and it will only get worse.
One might expect that the prudent would retreat in an orderly fashion to
higher ground, but what is actually happening is far from prudent. Gilbert M. Gaul provides a view of what has
been occurring along our eastern and gulf coasts over recent decades in his
book The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America's Coasts.
Our coasts, except for the cities and towns long
established at strategic locations, were relatively undeveloped until the era
of postwar affluence when even the middle class could envisage a small summer
home along the ocean for escape and recreation.
This surge of building would lead to organization into municipalities
that bred politicians and real estate lobbyists. The result was a need to maintain and protect
whatever had been built, even if the homes were periodically flooded or
destroyed. As it became clear that the
costs of residing on fragile coasts exceeded local and regional means, it would
have to be the federal government that acquired the responsibility for
supporting this infrastructure.
“Over the next few decades, a
surge of second homes filled beach towns and communities along the ocean, gulf,
and bays. That wave of development has
only accelerated since, backed by an array of federal and state programs that
provide inexpensive financing and tax breaks; offer heavily subsidized flood
insurance; underwrite roads, bridges, and utilities; and distribute billions
more in disaster aid to help beach towns rebuild after hurricanes and
floods—setting the stage for a seemingly endless loop of government
payouts. It isn’t an exaggeration to say
that without the federal government, the coast as we know it simply wouldn’t
exist.”
“The result, this book argues,
is one of the most costly and damaging planning failures in American history,
with at least $3 trillion worth of property now at risk of flooding and catastrophic
storms, and the U.S. Department of Treasury serving as the insurer of last
resort.”
The combination of climate change and continuing real
estate development has dramatically increased the cost of maintaining this
system.
“Hurricanes and coastal storms
now account for sixteen of the twenty most expensive disasters in U.S. history,
with well over half a trillion dollars in damage in the last two decades
alone—far more than the damage caused by earthquakes, wildfires, and tornadoes
combined. Worryingly, the pace of
destruction has accelerated, with seventeen of the most destructive hurricanes
in history occurring since 2000. In
2017, Harvey, Irma, and Maria resulted in over $300 billion in losses, the most
in a single year. As I write, Florence
is bearing down on an area of North Carolina that has repeatedly been pummeled by
storms, yet is rapidly adding houses and people. No doubt the damage will cost taxpayers
billions. Meanwhile, federally
subsidized flood claims at the coast have increased twentyfold in the last two
decades and account for three-quarters of all flood losses nationwide,
effectively leaving the government’s insurance program insolvent. Now with rising seas, warmer oceans, and more
property than ever before at risk, even more calamitous storms—and government
payouts—are inevitable.”
Gaul devotes much of his book to the history of Long
Beach Island which stretches along the New Jersey coast. Barrier islands such as this are common along
our shores. They are essentially mounds
of sand that have accumulated over time.
The sands naturally shift and move under the action of currents and
waves, with major storms capable of causing significant erosion. Early builders of houses seemed to recognize
that their investments were risky. They
built modest structures that could quickly be replaced if destroyed. Once one allows houses to be built in a significant
number the pressure builds to protect that net investment. Local politicians and real estate interests
would clamor for ever more assistance in rebuilding or in replacing continually
eroding beaches with dredged-up sand.
One ends up with a never-ending rebuilding and maintenance cycle.
What is curious about this process is that it has led to
ever greater property values—at least thus far.
The more middle-class initial homeowners have been replaced by a
wealthier class better able to deal with the frequent damage and the paperwork
involved in filing federal claims. The
process is akin to the gentrification that is often identified with urban areas.
“By the mid-1980s, the rapidly
rising cost of land at the coast motivated homeowners to build bigger houses to
maximize their investments. Real estate
records highlight the trend: in the 1960s, the average size of a Long Beach
Island bungalow was about 600 square feet.
The following decade it grew to 1,000 square feet. In the 1980s, it crept up to about 1,500
square feet and then 2,000 square feet.
After Hurricane Sandy wrecked the island, the average size of a new house
swelled to over 3,000 square feet, which is about 500 square feet larger than
the typical American house in the suburbs.”
The value of the island’s property would rise from about
$100 million in the 1960s, to over $15 billion today. The island’s communities would undergo
fundamental changes as the homeowners they fought to protect became infrequent
visitors.
“Tellingly, as prices, taxes,
and other costs soared, Long Beach Island began emptying out. In 1980, when Jim Mancini was battling the
state over the right to build along the oceanfront, he told regulators the
local population would double by the year 2000, to 28,000, as baby boomers
reached retirement age and moved to the shore year-round. In fact, the year-round population of Long
Beach Island (and many other shore communities) has plummeted to about 7,000 as
families sell or are priced out and wealthy investors gobble up more of the
real estate.”
“In winter, Long Beach Island
takes on an abandoned, ghostly feeling, with row after row of blackened houses. There are fewer year-round workers, fewer
families, and far fewer schoolchildren.
The island once sponsored four Little League teams. Now it doesn’t have enough kids for one. A few years ago, Long Beach Township tore up
its field and replaced it with pickleball courts favored by the elderly.”
One of the reasons the costs of coastal storms have begun
to skyrocket is that the residents have become wealthier and have built more
expensive structures. Government
policies put in place to protect the vulnerable from devastating financial
disaster are now being used to maintain the lifestyles and playgrounds of the
wealthy.
The barrier islands represent one form of evolution along
our coasts. Because of the wealth
concentrated there they receive political and financial consideration from the
powers that be. However, there is
another class of places equally threatened by rising seas and climate
change. There the residents are much
poorer and often of darker skin. In a practice
that has been referred to as climate apartheid, they are generally left to fend
for themselves.
Gaul tells of a tour he took of small towns along the shores
of Eastern Carolina with a coastal geologist named Stan Riggs. There, many of
the towns had an elevation of less than a foot and were encircled by a complex
array of waterways whose threat to the populations was increasing rapidly as the
ocean water rose.
“The towns were tiny and
poor. The dwindling populations ranged
from the hundreds to a few thousand.
Some had been formed by freed slaves who’d worked for decades on nearby
farms. Others were fishing villages now
trying to reinvent themselves as ecotourism destinations. They were filleted by black-water creeks and
rivers. Water abounded in bogs, swamps,
agricultural dikes, rivers, lakes, and sounds.
Trees stripped of foliage and color haunted the landscape where
saltwater had invaded fresh. ‘Ghost
forests,’ Riggs said. A wharf that was
once three feet above sea level was now two feet below…All were choking on
tidal water rising up from the nearby estuaries and rivers.”
“Riggs was angry because no one
was paying attention. Most of the focus
of the rising water was on the barrier islands, which was where all the
property and money was. ‘The issue isn’t
the Outer Banks,’ Riggs stressed. ‘They
can take care of themselves until the water gets them. The politics ignores all of these small, poor
places on the Inner Banks’.”
Karen Plough, an associate of Riggs, put the town of
Columbia in perspective for Gaul.
“…some residents of Columbia
didn’t want to hear about sea-level rise.
‘They enjoy living here for the simple life and values and don’t want to
leave,’ Plough said. ‘Fishermen will
tell you that they see it. But people
fifty and younger don’t believe it. I
think part of it is that people are afraid of science. They don’t understand it, or they don’t trust
it’.”
“In North Carolina, it is
practically a blood sport to attack scientists.
A few years earlier, Riggs had quit a state panel on sea-level rise when
state lawmakers rewrote the panel’s report after being pressured by real estate
and development interests.”
“Until then, North Carolina had
enjoyed a reputation as a national leader in coastal management, even embracing
rules limiting oceanfront development.
But after conservative Republicans took control of the state capital,
the politics turned ugly, and they began rolling back rules. In 2012, they criticized the committee’s
findings on sea-level rise as unfriendly to business and rejected the science
as unproven estimates…”
Columbia is luckier than many of its neighboring towns. The
time still exists to save the town if there was the will to do so.
“Columbia has some time, Riggs
said, but the residents need to act now.
‘If the sea level rises two feet, Columbia will have to
move—period. If it rises three feet, it’s
gone’.”
That conclusion illustrates what Gaul has been trying to
demonstrate. One can hold back the
waters for a long time if there are only a few places to protect and one is
willing to spend enormous amounts of money to do so. But there are many places where the people
will have no choice but to pick up and leave at some point. The ideal situation is to try and recreate a
town further inland at a higher elevation if possible. Such an outcome would take years of planning
and considerable resources. The worst
result would follow from ignoring the problem until the town essentially dissolved,
dispersing refugees throughout the region.
Retreat will be necessary. We might as well recognize that fact and
plan to do it efficiently.
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