Nature created "barrier islands" as barriers, not resorts.

[Atman]

First off, having grown up on a barrier island, I am acutely aware how special it is to call one "home." My heart truly goes out to those in NJ, Delaware, Maryland and NC. I wouldn't wish this on anybody.

Still, it is important to remember that these islands are merely sandbars. Just big sandbars, which block the hostile ocean from attacking the mainland. Where I lived, Cocoa Beach, FL, the town was (is) in a perpetual battle with the sea. Some years the town urged residents to dump their old Christmas trees on the dunes to help capture sand. Others years, millions would be spent to dredge up sand from the ocean which had lapped its way perilously close to the expensive real estate, much of which sat unoccupied for months at a time, until the snowbirds returned.

The sandbars are designed to move and to shift. Dig as deep as you want, you don't hit rock, just more sand. That's the way it's supposed to be. And still, people put million dollar homes on these shifting sandbars and are constantly amazed when the sandbar shifts beneath their foundations. So they put houses on stilts, dig 3' thick concrete foundations...and still, the sandbar shifts.

The ocean always wins.

I know we'll never stop building on barrier islands. The lure of the sea is too strong. But it's something to think about when we gasp and call the destruction a "natural disaster." It's a man-made disaster. The shifting sandbar was just doing what it was designed to do. Shift.

[malaise]

1. Excellent post

Human beings are way too arrogant - some learn the hard way and some never learn

[postulater]

2. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there. nt

[Earth_First]

3. "The ocean always wins."

+1000

[Vidar]

4. Thirty odd years ago, Atlantic Monthly did a wonderful article documenting the tendency of many

humans to migrate to potential disaster areas: flood plains, fault lines, volcanoes etc.

[kenfrequed]

5. Odd

I would like to read this. I wonder if it has to do with the availability of land. Or perhaps it is a point between availabiliy of resources and availability of land. There are probably disaster prone areas that people avoid as well.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

31. that's where all the good stuff is...

along coastlines (any body of water, really). Flood plains and volcanic areas have excellent soil for crops.

this article explains it pretty well...
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/28/why-we-live-in-dangerous-places/

[Surya Gayatri]

6. Same human folly and arrogance when people build homes

on river "flood plains", in apparent defiance of natural laws.

These geological features are aptly named. When a swollen river has nowhere else to go, it takes the path of least resistance and floods into its ancient plains. "Water always seeks its own level", as the old adage goes.

It's astonishing that modern society seems to think they can ignore the basic realities of hydrology.

Members of my own family have essentially had to abandon a house to the Missouri River for this very reason. Every four or five years, the Mighty Mo goes on a rampage and nothing can stop it.

[Atman]

7. Guess which city has 500-year levies?

Surprise! It's Hartford, the insurance Capitol of the world. They knew better as they were building their empires along the Connecticut River. The city has an amazing system of levies and steel flood doors around the city. One of the only cities to bother with 500-year flood protection.

Also, the waterfront park has a clubhouse built to allow flood waters to flow through the ground floor without damaging the building, because spring snowmelt frequently causes the river to flood.

Point being, it's funny that private businesses like nuke plants view the flood protection to be an expense to be cut back on, and build 100-year flood protection. But the city full of the insurance companies that have pay out the damage claims look at the flood walls as protecting their investments.

[flamingdem]

8. That's really interesting!

I now have more respect for Hartford

[Surya Gayatri]

11. Fascinating picture of Hartford, CT. Makes sense that the

Last edited Tue Oct 30, 2012, 07:55 PM - Edit history (1)

heart of the insurance industry would know better than anybody how to insure its own perennity and survival.

And don't forget, with their trillions of dollars, insurers can largely afford to invest in expensive protections.

Out in the Midwest, where population density is much lower and the tax base much poorer, such massive infrastructure outlays are not an option.

[Chan790]

26. Let's keep in mind though these are the same people that...

*decided to reroute the Park River completely underground through a series of concrete drainage pipes.

*have constructed a downtown in which during rush hour it's impossible to travel from the train station to city hall (4 blocks apart) without getting on the interstate because all the main streets in downtown are one-way heading away from downtown.

*built 1000 units of luxury housing in downtown then realized that nobody would want to live in a downtown area where the closest supermarket was halfway across the city.

*invested a large share of the city's pension fund in Enron after Enron collapsed on the theory that it might rebound. It didn't.

*built the city jail at the further possible point from the municipal courthouse.

*built an interstate across what used to be the center of the city's largest and premiere park. They, of course, later used this to justify divesting half the park.

(I grew up in Hartford, I promise you that anything they got right was purely an accident of chance. Hartford runs like it was designed by a moron playing SimCity.)

[freshwest]

51. What a fascinating history. Never been there but have some friends in another part of CT.

[Arugula Latte]

12. I get what you're saying; some places just should not be built on, but

on the other hand it's pretty tricky to pick a place in the U.S. that is immune from natural disasters. I live in the Pacific Northwest; this entire region could be rubble and/or cinder if the subduction zone plate in the Pacific moves or Rainier or Hood or another peak decides to blow its top. I used to live in California--earthquakes, fires, and landslides were common. The midwest has tornados. The southeast has hurricanes. The mountain west has ridiculously huge wildfires. And so on.

[Atman]

27. That's a good point. By that standard, there are few places suitable for building in the U.S.!

But if you were a betting man, would you bet on a hurricane hitting the East Coast, or the Pacific Northwest being reduced to cinder by a subduction zone plate shift?

We have a "hurricane season." In which hurricanes are known to happen a lot. There are river flood planes which repeatedly destroy the same towns over and over again. But how often does California slip into the ocean? How often does the Pacific Northwest get reduced to cinders by subduction zone plate shifts?

We KNOW there will be hurricanes. We can predict with a good degree of accuracy when they will occur and where. Personally, I couldn't live in California. I like to visit, but I couldn't put up with the earthquakes, not knowing if today is the day the whole place disappears. A hurricane shows up on a weather map, and I can haul ass if I need to...but I've been back to my old home town a few times this year, and there is a LOT of property for sale, mainly because you can't get insurance anymore. The same insurance companies that built 500-year flood levies in Hartford have determined that the town's days are numbered.

Cocoa Beach has dodged the worst effects of the last several hurricanes. I lived there for nearly 20 years, and experienced only ONE hurricane which forced me to evacuate the barrier island. When I returned home, a tree had fallen on my house and ripped out the power lines, and my bathroom window had shattered and the whole bathroom filled with mud and debris. It sucked, but I didn't lose everything.

So, not to sound too Republican about this, but what is the threshold of responsibility? When I go snowboarding, they say I'm welcome to go out-of-bounds and do back-country, but the odds are you're going to get fucked up and need some help...and you are responsible for your own help. Why shouldn't it be the same in such ridiculously high-risk places?

The U.S. taxpayers are going pay billions of dollars to rebuild these resort towns for the people who own million-dollar properties. Yet, we're outraged at the thought of paying for health care for all, even though it is a guaranteed 100% certainty that virtually everyone will require health care at one point. But only a small percentage of our 300,000,000 citizens will require their beach rebuilt and their dune repaired.

I'm guessing the percentage of people worrying about Mt. Hood blowing it's top are even smaller.

[bvar22]

52. ...or on active fault lines,

....or in any of the Tornado states,

...or anywhere near a "dormant" or active volcano,
(the entire Pacific North West all the way to Yellowstone)

...or anywhere within 30 miles of the Gulf Coast,

...or any drought prone area,

...or....?

Point is, there are very few places that are "safe".

[meeshrox]

9. Yes, yes, yes!

Barrier islands naturally move with longshore currents and wash over during large storms. Renourishment projects are so expensive and commonly paid for with local taxes. I wonder if we will ever learn!

[MynameisBlarney]

10. I think NC stopped building on their barrier islands

after a hurricane whose name I can't remember right now, pretty much wiped out all the homes on said islands.
I could be mistaken, as I've not lived there for some time, and my memory is crap lately.

[marions ghost]

15. You might be thinking of this hurricane,

but I don't think building has stopped, in fact it's accelerated. To a large extent the North Carolina coast is maxed out, a classic example of unregulated over-development. The natural beauty has been destroyed. You can still get glimpses of it in a couple of spots managed by the Park Service.

-------------
For example, Topsail Island was obliterated by Fran in 1996 --and they didn't learn

http://www.ncseagrant.org/home/coastwatch/coastwatch-articles?task=showArticle&id=477


Topsail Island, North Carolina

Topsail Island is a popular beach vacation spot along the North Carolina coast. This barrier island was extensively developed for tourism with the construction of condominiums and beach houses. In September 1996, Hurricane Fran made landfall near Wilmington, NC. The counterclockwise air circulation around the hurricane's eye caused heavy wave action and storm surges over Topsail Island. The storm eroded much of the island, causing overwashes. Several places on the island were eroded, and the island's only highway was seriously damaged. Residential homes were destroyed, and property damage was several-hundred-million dollars.

[MynameisBlarney]

16. You are probably right.

But I could have sworn it was a bit more recent.
Ah well...
Damn republicans and their deregulation.
PAH!

[marions ghost]

23. Well if you read the article at link

they were still talking about Fran in 2006, ten years later.

Irene in 2011 did a whammy to Hatteras with access roads destroyed--and now Sandy has messed it up again. At this point we don't exactly know how bad--but looks like they'll be only reachable by ferry again.

So no, what they mainly have done is provide extended insurance coverage to beach house owners.

[MynameisBlarney]

36. I started to read it

but had a phone call and a customer walk in.
I'll have to read it at home later.
It must be Fran I'm thinking of.

[Bette Noir]

19. Same thing happened in Oregon.

I think the place was called "Bay City."

There's talk of naming winter storms, now. It would help with hive memory.

[Atman]

29. Seems like you only have to look at a map of the U.S. to know...

...this pattern has been repeated for centuries. The two areas most hit by hurricanes are neatly carved out of the East Coast, and guarded by barrier islands.

Cause and effect? Do the hurricanes like this route because of the coastline, or is the coastline shaped like that because of eons of storm erosion? Look at the shelf...hmmm.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

39. part of it is because of the storms hitting it for million of years

and part of it is the type of rock in those areas compared to the ones that hold up better to erosion.
not the best map to show this, but
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/gmna/

[marions ghost]

49. You might be interested in the map of the change since 1849

in the location of Assateague Island (VA and MD) --and how it has been affected by erosion from jetties at Ocean City MD.
The map is at the top right of this page:

http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2002/11/research.html
-----------------
"During the past century, however, manmade alterations in the coastal zone have become increasingly responsible for a share of the erosion. All of this erosion is taking place at the same time as explosive population growth and development along all coasts.

Ocean City inlet, MD, is one of the most striking examples of the unintended consequences of engineered inlets causing increased erosion of adjacent barrier islands downdrift from the jettied inlet.

The Ocean City inlet opened during a 1933 hurricane, and soon after, the twin stone jetties were built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to maintain the inlet for navigation. However, the jetties also severely disrupted littoral-inlet processes, trapped sand on the north side of Fenwick Island (site of the Ocean City amusement park and parking lot), and severely starved Assateague Island National Seashore to the south of sand.

The result of almost 70 years of disrupted sand transport along the coast has been an offset in the two barrier islands—Fenwick and Assateague—by approximately 1 km, along with accelerated erosion, reduction and alteration in beach-berm heights, and loss of critical beach and dune habitats. The effects attributable to the jetties have extended about 15 km southward from the inlet." (more at link)

[Atman]

38. Orrin Pilkey

He is the pre-emanate scholar on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrin_H._Pilkey

[marions ghost]

50. Yes absolutely

Duke's Orrin Pilkey has been on it for decades...(not to be confused with any other Orrin Pilkey)

[LynneSin]

13. Don't forget the wetlands are also to help filter things out.

The barrier islands, dunes and wetlands were created by mother nature and took millions of years to form after countless hurricanes and other storms hit the coast of the country.

To be honest no one should be living on those islands. They are exactly what they are called - a barrier between us and whatever mother nature hits the USA with here on the East Coast. And the Wetlands are just as important because they act like a sponge and a filter between the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of the country. The Wetlands filter out the saline of the ocean so we can drink non-salty water and even clean up mild waste (ie nutrients from fish crap). The Barrier Islands are meant to 'slow down' these storms. Remember that it's water that speeds up a hurricane but land can slow it down. The barrier islands are that speed bump between the 2.

[snooper2]

14. the barrier islands were not created by nature to protect the "mainland"

that's just ridiculous LOL


That's like saying rivers and gravel beds were created so Salmon can spawn or mother nature makes the nile flood so organic material can be brought to the desert

[heaven05]

20. huh

[snooper2]

24. did you mean to use the "over head" smilie?

[caraher]

21. Right

But humans do have this persistent habit of assigning agency to natural processes.

Either way, the caution that these are not unforeseeable disasters but in fact likely consequences of building in these areas is sound...

[heaven05]

17. truth

+1000. humans.

[Bette Noir]

18. "The foolish man built his house upon the sand."

I know it's a metaphor, but, people, it works literally as well. That's the Bible, Jesus's own advice on city planning. "The wise man built his house upon the rock."

[Atman]

32. This third little piggy built his house of brick!

Lots of metaphors that we silly humans miss.

[stopbush]

22. First off, Nature had no intent in "creating" barrier islands. Nature has no consciousness.

Barrier islands exist due to physics and the way tides work. They are only called "barrier islands" because human beings have designated them as such. We could have just as easily called them sandbars and left it at that.

Second, in the right situation, sand provides an excellent foundation for building as it can be highly compacted. But you're right - a shifting sandbar isn't the "right" situation upon which to build.

As far as man-made v natural disasters, we see all disasters through the prism of how they effect human beings. A tsunami that kills 200,000 people is a horrible disaster. A tsunami that spares the people but drowns 30-million cockroaches? Not so much.

And you're right, the lure of the sea is very strong. After all, the sea is the place whence we came. Most people live near the coastline, and coastline weather can get dicey, whether it affects a barrier island or the mainland. Unless we're going to put a 20-mile no-build zone around the entire coastline, people are going to find themselves the victims of natural disasters that have been exacerbated by man-made decisions.

[nichomachus]

25. The lure of the sea is very strong

But I solved the problem by moving to a place that used to be the bottom of an ocean -- so I'm spared hurricanes but get the connection to the sea.



Now, earthquakes -- that's a different matter.

[docgee]

28. Socialism for the rich!

Dumping sand on Cocoa Beach is a perfect example of socialism that benefits rich beachfront property owners. They don't seem to mind that kind though.

[Atman]

35. I was back home for part of the dredging.

It was eerie. In the half of the town not yet "reclaimed", the beach was literally eaten back to the backyards and seawalls. At high tide, you couldn't even walk on the beach. But in the "reclaimed" area, you had a huge, wide, beach...of weird funky sand. It wasn't really like beach sand. It was dredged from half a mile offshore.

All night long, 24/7, you could hear the giant dredging machines, and their lights glowed on the horizon. They looked very much like oil derricks. A giant pipeline ran up onto the beach, pumping sand and water from the Atlantic bottom, all day, all night. You'd wake up in the morning, and the beachfront extended another 15-20 yards. The tourist sea-shell collectors LOVED IT, because the dredgers would suck up anything on the ocean floor and deposit on the beach. Sand dollars, shells of every time, occasional treasures.

The vast majority of this was paid for by federal taxpayers. Most of the people who paid for it will probably never, ever visit Florida, let alone Cocoa Beach.

[NYC Liberal]

33. Seems to me houses on the beachfront should be cheaper, not more expensive,

given all the dangers and the costs in repairs every time a hurricane rolls through.

[Atman]

41. I think that's called a lease.

I'll buy it for five years. If it's still standing in five years, and not damaged by storms or mis-use, I'll have the option of a buy-out, or upgrade to another model.

Hey, I kinda like that!

[hootinholler]

34. Please don't anthropomorphize nature

She hates it when we do that!

[edhopper]

37. Agreed

I have been saying this for years.

[cthulu2016]

40. Nature created barrier islands only to comply with the natural laws of our universe

[eShirl]

42. Sandbars were designed, huh?

Interesting theory.

[cthulu2016]

45. And not a single one of those meaning applies here.

You posted a ridiculous headline. People point out that the headline is ridiculous. So they are douche-bags.

[Atman]

48. PEOPLE don't point it out. One guy does.

BTW, my headline said CREATED, not designed. Everyone else understands the meaning. Go figure.

[eShirl]

55. the word "designed" was in your OP

The shifting sandbar was just doing what it was designed to do. Shift.

If it was designed, who or what designed it?

[aikoaiko]

43. You're right that barrier island development is precarious, but...

... but the earthquakes win, the forest fires win, the tornadoes win, the ice storms win, the droughts win, the overflowing rivers win, and tsunamis win.

Every where we go, nature can take us out.

[Atman]

47. Oh, I TOTALLY agree. Nature always wins.

I worded it differently, honestly, because I figured the usual DUers would jump all over it and say "But there is GLOBAL WARMING!" or some such. So I confined the comment to the subject at hand.

Nature DOES always win. I always love the "we're killing our planet" crowd. No we're not. Far from it. We are killing ourselves. The planet will still be spinning in another billion years, and it might be ruled by cockroaches. And no, I don't mean the GOP. The fact is, NATURE will survive. The earth will survive us. We'll just choke ourselves to death with ignorance.

[dreamnightwind]

58. I think we could actually render Earth inhospitable to life

Nature may survive, but life will not. It's likely that an environment hospitable to life is just one phase in the existence of a planet.

I have seen no evidence that human induced changes are incapable of destroying the environment's ability to support life. If anyone knows of such evidence, by all means let me know, it will ease my mind in some weird way. Until I see some, I will continue to fear that our actions could indeed render this planet a barren wasteland. And in my opinion, it is folly to dismiss such a possibility.

[joeybee12]

46. Also, people are shocked when they build their mcmansions in a forest with

trees surrounding them, even touching the house, and it burns down.

[bvar22]

53. 40- 50 years ago, people who built on Barrier Islands...

...EXPECTED to have their homes washed away every 10 - 15 years,
and built accordingly.
Most of the people who lived in the coastal fishing and shrimping communities along the Gulf Coast built disposable houses/camps, the majority of them hand built by the owners.
Few carried any storm or flood insurance,
or cried for Federal Disaster Funds.
After the storm, they picked up the pieces and rebuilt.

THAT was the Way of Life in the coastal communities along the Gulf Coast.

[Major Hogwash]

54. Good thread.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[lindysalsagal]

56. Agreed.

I see no reason why insurance companies insure them at all. Build at your own risk.

Put up a simple shack that's basically disposable, and take your propane/oil/gas out with you when you evacuate, exactly when told to.

Period. No exceptions. Get. The. Hell. Out. Just in case. No whining!

[Eyes of the World]

57. Nature neither plans nor creates - at least according to Darwin

Nature just is, in all its myriad ways.

So no one designed the sand bar or put it there. It is the product of the random conditions that created it, as we are the culmination of the random conditions which lead to our creation.

That said, it does seem like a less-than-ideal spot to build a home. But if people are prepared for the risk and able to shelter We The People from having to pay extra expenses on their behalf...