Reality Starting to “Sink In” for Oceanfront Cities, Towns, But Not Necessarily Property Owners

April 14, 2020 – Along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, beachfront properties have always been desirable real estate. But climate change with attendant sea-level rise is turning that real estate investment with beach and ocean view into a money pit.

Take Norfolk, Virginia as a prime example. The seas have been rising here for several decades, in fact, more than 15 centimeters (6 inches) since 1992. That’s twice the global average. And research indicates that the rise is accelerating.

There is a reason why Norfolk is seeing higher water than average along its shores because:

1. The Chesapeake Bay area is continuing to sink ever so slowly as the areas of the North American continent to the north and west rise from isostatic rebound after the end of the last Ice Age.
2. The water along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States is getting warmer which is causing it to grow in volume. It can only grow up, not down.
3. Changes are occurring to the offshore Gulf Stream which runs along the Eastern Seaboard. It is slowing down which means an accumulation of even more warm water near the coast.

Norfolk until recently allowed building on floodplain lands, in old creek beds and along the low-lying edges of the Elizabeth, Lafayette and Nansemond Rivers which flow through and around much of the city. Much of the city is built on land that lies within a meter of sea level today. Currently, tidal flooding inundates 56 kilometers (35 miles) of roads regularly. Should sea level rise three times higher than it has in the last two decades, the flooding would inundate 166 kilometers (104 miles). Six times higher than in the last two decades and inundation increases to 430 kilometers (269 miles).

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Jim Morrison has written an article entitled, “Climate Change Turns the Tide on Waterfront Living,” with a subtitle, “Rising seas and worsening flooding are forcing many communities to plan their retreat from the coasts.” Morrison spoke with George Homewood, the city’s planning director who talked about whether the city should continue to try and maintain roadways inundated constantly by high tides and storms, or should it begin its retreat from the ocean’s edge.

Right now the city is building storm surge barriers and floodwalls. The Norfolk Naval Station has its own sea walls rising to protect what is the largest and oldest U.S. naval installation on the Atlantic coast. But the billions being spent to hold back global warming’s impact on the Eastern Seaboard is becoming a money pit. What the city needs to do is begin a managed retreat.

The alternative, the fortification of America’s Eastern Seaboard will cost U.S. cities trillions of dollars over the next half-century. It’s not just the building of seawalls. It means rebuilding ports, storm and wastewater infrastructure, freshwater management systems, roads, bridges, and, of course, buildings and homes. There isn’t enough money to go around to achieve this, let alone, money to repair what gets built and rebuilt after extreme weather events like hurricanes and storm surges.

What’s counterintuitive in the story of America’s Eastern Seaboard is the way real estate values for oceanfront properties don’t reflect the precarious nature of these investments. An ocean view, a property right at the edge of the beach, fetches top dollar in the real estate market. Yet it is increasingly at risk of being inundated within decades. And property valued at top dollar comes with premium property taxes which fund coastal cities and towns. When ratepayers of these properties start complaining about rising water, the cities and towns listen. So they invest in building temporary fixes, raising a seawall a meter here, and adding a berm and levee here and there to put the rising waters on hold.

In Morrison’s article, he puts some numbers to the problem.

• 126 million people live in coastal counties and communities.
• $8.3 trillion in goods and services are produced in these coastal counties and communities.
• 41 million live in areas susceptible to 100-year floods (which now seem to be decadal rather than century experiences).
• $1.2 trillion in damage is the expected cost of one of these 100-year floods.
• On North Carolina’s Outer Banks where property values have increased 25% in the last seven years, beach rebuilding in the past 15 years has cost the state $503 million. The town of Nags Head has budgeted $10 million plus over the next 6 to 8 years just t replenish sand on 16 kilometers (10 miles) of beach.
• Norfolk has more than 1,000 properties at risk from inundation with the number growing each year. The city’s latest studies identify an additional 2,500 vulnerable properties. The city is billions of dollars in debt and cannot afford to offer buyouts.

What’s involved in a managed retreat?

1. Building and living on floodplains and in areas where sea-level rise is anticipated has to end.
2. If floods do occur, there should be no rebuilding in these areas.
3. U.S. federal, state, county, city, and town governments have to stop offering programs that fund rebuilding in place, but rather provide incentives to move to higher ground.
4. Insurance providers of flood policies in flood plain and coastal areas have to raise the cost of premiums to reflect the real risk.
5. Cities and towns need plans to pick up and move to higher ground. (When the St. Lawrence Seaway was built in the 1950s, the village of Iroquois and all its homes were relocated in this way.)
6. And where the towns and cities once existed, wetlands need to be restored or established to mitigate storm surges and flooding because these form natural barriers to sea-level rise.

Morrison in talks with homeowners in Norfolk describes their lack of concern about the rising of the ocean that they look out on every day. One was incredulous to think that the city would move to higher ground when his taxes were paying for Norfolk to keep the water from causing his home to be inundated. As a taxpayer, he was incredulous noting that what happens decades from now is too far in the future to worry about. That homeowner valued his property at a half-million dollars, and his flood insurance annual premium cost $500.