Should worst-flooded areas be left after Sandy?
SEA BRIGHT, N.J. (AP) — Superstorm Sandy, one of the nation's costliest natural disasters, is giving new urgency to an age-old debate about whether areas repeatedly damaged by storms should be rebuilt, or whether it might be cheaper in the long run to buy out vulnerable properties and let nature reclaim them.
The difficulty in getting aid for storm victims through Congress — most of a $60 billion package could get final approval next week — highlights the hard choices that may have to be made soon across the country, where the federal, state and local governments all say they don't have unlimited resources to keep writing checks when storms strike.
But the idea of abandoning a place that has been home for years is unthinkable for many.
"We're not retreating," said Dina Long, the mayor of Sea Bright, N.J., a chronically flooded spit of sand between the Atlantic Ocean and the Shrewsbury River only slightly wider than the length of a football field in some spots. Three-quarters of its 1,400 residents are still homeless and the entire business district was wiped out; only four shops have managed to reopen.
Despite a rock and concrete sea wall and pumping equipment in the center of town, Sea Bright floods repeatedly. It is the go-to spot for TV news trucks every time a storm roars up the coast. But as in many other storm-damaged communities, there is a fierce will to survive, to rebuild and to restore.
"Nobody has come to us and said we shouldn't exist," she said. "It is antithetical to the Jersey mindset, and particularly to the Sea Bright mindset. We're known for being strong, for being resilient, for not backing down."
The story is different in the Oakwood Beach section of Staten Island, N.Y., where despite 20 years of flood protection measures, Sandy's 12- to 14-foot-storm surge inundated the community, forcing some residents to their attics or roofs to survive. Three people died.
"Building again and again in this very sensitive flood plain will only achieve the same results — flooding, and possibly untimely death," homeowner Tina Downer told about 200 of her neighbors who gathered to discuss a potential buyout program last week. "It is not safe for anyone to live there."
The problem has worsened in recent decades with an explosion of development near the nation's shorelines. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that in 2003, approximately 153 million people — 53 percent of the nation's population — lived in coastal counties, an increase of 33 million people since 1980. The agency forecasts 12 million more to join them by 2015.
Scientists say that putting so many people in the most vulnerable areas is a recipe for disaster.
Jon Miller, a professor of coastal engineering at New Jersey's Stevens Institute of technology, said retreating from the most vulnerable areas makes scientific sense. But he adds that the things that were built there — beach clubs, boardwalks and amusement piers — give communities their character, and fuel tourism and business.
If buyouts did occur, he predicted they would happen in areas with lower property values because of the high cost of buying up prime coastal real estate. That could have the unintended consequence of placing the shore off-limits to all but the wealthy, he said.
"I grew up in Rahway and I remember the controversy when several properties along the Rahway River were bought out due to repetitive flood losses," Miller said. "It was painful and caused dissension in the community."
Residents feared not only being forced from their homes but also not getting enough money to purchase a suitable home in the same community, Miller said.
A 1988 Duke University shore protection study cited a nor'easter that occurred in Sea Bright four years earlier, causing $82 million in damages — about equal to the value of all the town's buildings at the time.
"Clearly the economics of this situation dictate that Sea Bright is not worthy of salvation, although politics and other considerations may decide otherwise," the study asserted. "The prudent management alternative in this community would be the gradual removal or relocation of the buildings."
Talking about post-storm retreat is one thing; actually doing it has proven much harder.
After Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans in 2005, there was talk of abandoning some of the most flood-prone areas. But a proposal from a storm panel excluded the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward and New Orleans East, a neighborhood long home to affluent and upper-middle-class black families, touching off an uproar that scuttled the plan.
More than seven years later, much of New Orleans is thriving: unemployment is relatively low, the tourism industry is healthy, the city is preparing to host a Super Bowl, and no neighborhood has been abandoned.
But not everyone has come back. As of July 2011, the Census Bureau estimated New Orleans' population at 360,740, less than three-quarters its population in 2000. In the Lower 9th Ward, vacant lots and abandoned homes dominate the landscape, and four out of five residents who lived there before the storm have left.
The question of whether to rebuild or retreat touches many East Coast communities.
Westerly, R.I. recently got $1.1 million in federal money to buy eight low-lying properties near the Pawcatuck River that are frequently flooded. In North Carolina, some have called for deserting Highway 12 — the only land link between Hatteras Island and the mainland — in favor of a ferry system after Hurricane Irene and Sandy caused $14 million in damages. A state panel in Delaware found few affordable options as it considered what to do about seven Delaware Bay communities threatened by storms and rising sea levels.
Sea Bright is requiring homeowners to raise their rebuilt properties higher — as much as 17 feet above sea level in some cases — if they want to qualify for federal flood insurance.
Frank and Dee Kurzawa, whose home near the river took on 4 feet of water, could have to spend $30,000 to raise it. Yet they're staying put, even if it's a little higher than before.
"Even with the possibility of this happening again, we're coming back," Dee Kurzawa said. "We plan to pass this house on to our grandchildren."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie considers strategic retreat from some storm-damaged areas on the table "in a broad way," but said he wants to leave the ultimate decisions to individual towns after giving them advice later this week on how to rebuild.
Part of a neighbor's home broke loose and smashed through the wall of Karen Finkelstein's Sea Bright home. She's still "shell-shocked" in Sandy's aftermath, but can't see herself leaving.
"I want to see us come back, but with precautions in place," she said. "You're taking a risk by choosing to live in this area. But when it's home to you, it's really hard to leave the familiar place where your roots are."
The difficulty in getting aid for storm victims through Congress — most of a $60 billion package could get final approval next week — highlights the hard choices that may have to be made soon across the country, where the federal, state and local governments all say they don't have unlimited resources to keep writing checks when storms strike.
But the idea of abandoning a place that has been home for years is unthinkable for many.
"We're not retreating," said Dina Long, the mayor of Sea Bright, N.J., a chronically flooded spit of sand between the Atlantic Ocean and the Shrewsbury River only slightly wider than the length of a football field in some spots. Three-quarters of its 1,400 residents are still homeless and the entire business district was wiped out; only four shops have managed to reopen.
Despite a rock and concrete sea wall and pumping equipment in the center of town, Sea Bright floods repeatedly. It is the go-to spot for TV news trucks every time a storm roars up the coast. But as in many other storm-damaged communities, there is a fierce will to survive, to rebuild and to restore.
"Nobody has come to us and said we shouldn't exist," she said. "It is antithetical to the Jersey mindset, and particularly to the Sea Bright mindset. We're known for being strong, for being resilient, for not backing down."
The story is different in the Oakwood Beach section of Staten Island, N.Y., where despite 20 years of flood protection measures, Sandy's 12- to 14-foot-storm surge inundated the community, forcing some residents to their attics or roofs to survive. Three people died.
"Building again and again in this very sensitive flood plain will only achieve the same results — flooding, and possibly untimely death," homeowner Tina Downer told about 200 of her neighbors who gathered to discuss a potential buyout program last week. "It is not safe for anyone to live there."
The problem has worsened in recent decades with an explosion of development near the nation's shorelines. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that in 2003, approximately 153 million people — 53 percent of the nation's population — lived in coastal counties, an increase of 33 million people since 1980. The agency forecasts 12 million more to join them by 2015.
Scientists say that putting so many people in the most vulnerable areas is a recipe for disaster.
Jon Miller, a professor of coastal engineering at New Jersey's Stevens Institute of technology, said retreating from the most vulnerable areas makes scientific sense. But he adds that the things that were built there — beach clubs, boardwalks and amusement piers — give communities their character, and fuel tourism and business.
If buyouts did occur, he predicted they would happen in areas with lower property values because of the high cost of buying up prime coastal real estate. That could have the unintended consequence of placing the shore off-limits to all but the wealthy, he said.
"I grew up in Rahway and I remember the controversy when several properties along the Rahway River were bought out due to repetitive flood losses," Miller said. "It was painful and caused dissension in the community."
Residents feared not only being forced from their homes but also not getting enough money to purchase a suitable home in the same community, Miller said.
A 1988 Duke University shore protection study cited a nor'easter that occurred in Sea Bright four years earlier, causing $82 million in damages — about equal to the value of all the town's buildings at the time.
"Clearly the economics of this situation dictate that Sea Bright is not worthy of salvation, although politics and other considerations may decide otherwise," the study asserted. "The prudent management alternative in this community would be the gradual removal or relocation of the buildings."
Talking about post-storm retreat is one thing; actually doing it has proven much harder.
After Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans in 2005, there was talk of abandoning some of the most flood-prone areas. But a proposal from a storm panel excluded the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward and New Orleans East, a neighborhood long home to affluent and upper-middle-class black families, touching off an uproar that scuttled the plan.
More than seven years later, much of New Orleans is thriving: unemployment is relatively low, the tourism industry is healthy, the city is preparing to host a Super Bowl, and no neighborhood has been abandoned.
But not everyone has come back. As of July 2011, the Census Bureau estimated New Orleans' population at 360,740, less than three-quarters its population in 2000. In the Lower 9th Ward, vacant lots and abandoned homes dominate the landscape, and four out of five residents who lived there before the storm have left.
The question of whether to rebuild or retreat touches many East Coast communities.
Westerly, R.I. recently got $1.1 million in federal money to buy eight low-lying properties near the Pawcatuck River that are frequently flooded. In North Carolina, some have called for deserting Highway 12 — the only land link between Hatteras Island and the mainland — in favor of a ferry system after Hurricane Irene and Sandy caused $14 million in damages. A state panel in Delaware found few affordable options as it considered what to do about seven Delaware Bay communities threatened by storms and rising sea levels.
Sea Bright is requiring homeowners to raise their rebuilt properties higher — as much as 17 feet above sea level in some cases — if they want to qualify for federal flood insurance.
Frank and Dee Kurzawa, whose home near the river took on 4 feet of water, could have to spend $30,000 to raise it. Yet they're staying put, even if it's a little higher than before.
"Even with the possibility of this happening again, we're coming back," Dee Kurzawa said. "We plan to pass this house on to our grandchildren."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie considers strategic retreat from some storm-damaged areas on the table "in a broad way," but said he wants to leave the ultimate decisions to individual towns after giving them advice later this week on how to rebuild.
Part of a neighbor's home broke loose and smashed through the wall of Karen Finkelstein's Sea Bright home. She's still "shell-shocked" in Sandy's aftermath, but can't see herself leaving.
"I want to see us come back, but with precautions in place," she said. "You're taking a risk by choosing to live in this area. But when it's home to you, it's really hard to leave the familiar place where your roots are."
Sand spits were NEVER ment to be built on PERIOD!
Barrier islands should be just that; barriers to the worst that nature throws at the land. The way they work is they shift with the storms, sand is removed and replaced naturally. Because of the way they work there should never have been building allowed on them in the first place. Right now I'd say buy out all homes on the barrier islands and let them do as nature has them do. To pay either through increased insurance costs for all of us or through tax payer underwriting flood insurance is the ultimate folly. I worked a couple floods in Skagit and Whatcom counties and after that I would never buy a house on a flood plain. Man vs nature, man always loses.
I say if they want to stay let them on the condition that not one tax payer dollar will be there to help the stupid bastards. Not even one dollar to help save them. Tired of the rest of the U.S paying for people to keep rebuilding in areas that get destroyed repeatedly. Time for America to stop bleeding to death.
It's none of our business if they chose to rebuild in that area or not. But what should be our business is that NJ just passed a law that says "if you are not union you are not allowed to work here". That's 50 / 60 mil of our tax payer money they're spending and they are locking out 70% of the people from earning any of it. Christy just lost my vote.
@lmdk2 WTH does this have to do with this artical????
 @Nightshift  @lmdk2 Well / seeings how the headline was from Sea Bright, New Jersey and the picture was of a bunch of wrecked houses in Sea Bright, New Jersey one must assume that a whole bunch of the Tax Payer sent to New Jersey was going to be spent there wouldn't you think ??
I have a hard time feeling bad for people who live in areas where they KNOW they're going to get slammed by storms that will most likely destroy their homes. Thanks for spending my tax dollars.Â
I am a proponent for personal responsibility. If you want to re build your home, I completely understand. However do it with your own cash or insurance. My tax money should not pay for your ocean front home. As far as paying for the destroyed infrastructure, that is up to the local municipalities who own them to decide.
Hmm...so you know you live in a place where it floods repeatedly and you constantly have to rebuild. If you didn't have all the federal aid coming in to do so I bet you wouldn't be so dead set in your ways. And by the by, that federal aid that you rely on has my tax dollars in it so you're welcome. When Mother Nature decides she wants something she'll take it. You guys need to take the hint.
It seems almost foolish to rebuild, but what other choices do the storm-ravaged have? How can someone just pullup their roots and move to another location? There is a reason this is an age old question. Throughout Washington State we have people living on the flood plains and every year the get flooded out and every year they get the money to rebuild. It does not make sense to me why they do it year in and year out, perhaps they accept the gamble and holdout for a better result.
 @left-center The degree of damage on houses between flooding vs. getting pounded by 20-foot waves is immense. The houses deemed too close to the shore should not be rebuilt. The added cost and time to repair/replace of infrastructure damage such as roads, bridges, sidewalks, sewer, utilities leading to these homes would be too burdensome to the public.Â
Â
The earth is 4.5 billion years old. People need to simply move on or mother nature will do it for them.
To predict the future, study the past.