Not ‘enough money to save them all.’ Florida oceanside towns grapple with double hurricane whammy
The next storm could send it crashing into the ocean, just like some of her neighbors’ homes in
“You open up the door now, and it’s a 25-foot drop straight down,” Rose said, adding that the initial repair bill came in at almost
Everyone has their eye on the vanishing sand. The pounding surf wiped out protective dunes, leaving coastal homes sitting ducks for Mother Nature’s wrath as seawalls crumbled.
But
“There will come a time, 10 years from now, who knows, 15 years from now, when you’re going to have lots of places like this all over Florida,” said Young, director of Western Carolina University’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines. “You’re not going to have enough money to save them all.”
A walk down the beach reveals Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole’s destruction in
The storm surge cleaved houses into two, exposing rooms like a dollhouse. It unearthed swimming pools and left them sprawled on the ground like empty tubs. Condo buildings stand on the edge of cliffs. The storm uncovered a shipwreck believed to be from the 1800s.
Time to retreat?
Floridians need to start asking themselves some hard questions, Young said. Does rebuilding on the beach in high-risk areas or on critically eroded beaches make sense with rising seas? Will nourishment projects that involve dumping sand to build back beaches become cost-prohibitive with climate change?
Young’s answer is that Florida’s ever-expanding coastal development isn’t sustainable, and leaders need to stop incentivizing construction right on the beach.
“If your house is teetering on the edge of a bluff, then I think that’s a pretty clear signal that’s a part of the shoreline that we should be taking a step back from,” Young said.
The state is grappling with out-of-control property insurance costs, a problem worsened by repeated hurricanes. Private insurers increasingly refuse to write policies in storm-prone areas, forcing more people onto the state-backed
Local leaders need to start thinking about relocating, instead of always rebuilding, Young said. One solution could be a buyout program that would turn the most vulnerable properties into public land that would serve as natural barriers during storms.
“At some point, these oceanfront residents have to realize that [the] sea level is rising and the shorelines are eroding and moving, and you cannot rely on the public sector to keep a beach in front of your house forever,” he said. “We’ve got thousands of miles of shoreline in the
Young’s ideas haven’t caught on in
Instead of shunning danger zones, investors are snatching up oceanfront properties destroyed by recent hurricanes and building bigger and even more expensive homes, said
“We are seeing a trend across the country of more people living in harm’s way than ever before,” he said. “Despite the potential hazard of a catastrophe impacting you and your family, people want to live along the coast.”
Florida’s world-famous beaches are one of its primary draws. About three-quarters of Florida’s 21.5 million residents live in coastal counties.
Compounding the issue, state lawmakers haven’t fixed a “manmade crisis” of fraud and excessive litigation that is driving up property insurance rates in
Friedlander doesn’t expect Floridians will see immediate relief with rates expected to rise 40% or more on average next year, on top of this year’s 33% increase. The average
‘It’s the American spirit’ to rebuild
“People love the beach and love the area,” Meister said, while awaiting a call from his contractor. “As long as we know the property will be protected for the next 50 years, people are going to rebuild. It’s the American spirit. We take a hit, then we recover and we rebuild.”
Meister said he isn’t asking for the state to pay for his seawall, just for it to expedite the permitting process.
Rose, too, is reluctant to abandon her family’s property. She grew up on Wilbur’s beaches and was married at the local boathouse. The unincorporated community retains an “old
“It’s home,” she said. “A lot of people have been there for years and years and years. And even the younger residents are the children or grandchildren of the people who built or bought that house back in the ‘50s.”
Census figures aren’t available, but a 2006 county report estimated only about 2,000 people lived in
Rose faults
“I think the answer is to provide adequate armament for the beach line,” she said. “That is the shared responsibility of private property owners, state and county property managers as well. We would not be in the situation that we are in today in
DEP issued an emergency order allowing existing seawalls to be repaired or replaced as long as they are within the same footprint as the previous structure with a typical processing time for applications of five days,
The
Before
About 13 condos, hotels and other buildings remain off limits in
An initial damage assessment found 29 homes in
A pretty penny for sand
Homeowners are looking at significant repair costs to replace lost sand, rebuild seawalls and address other issues caused by the erosion, said AJ Rockwell, owner of
“It is pretty typical to have a million dollars of damage just in your backyard,” he said.
Insurers are denying claims because of an “erosion exclusion” in their policies, Rockwell said.
Beach-quality sand is in short supply. It must be either trucked in from inland mines or dredged from the bottom of the sea. But repeated storms are making it harder to find, Rockwell said.
The cost of sand doubled after Hurricane Ian, going from about
Seawalls also aren’t cheap, costing anywhere from
The barriers help protect valuable coastal real estate, but they aren’t without drawbacks.
Beach is lost in front of a seawall because it disrupts the natural sand replacement cycle. That means less sand for the public. It also carries environmental effects, harming sea turtle nesting and habitats for shore birds. Building a seawall increases erosion on neighboring properties that are unprotected.
Even before the most recent hurricanes, about 426 miles of
Local, state and federal governments share the hefty cost of beach nourishment projects. It’s a temporary fix, as the sand eventually must be replenished.
More than
State economists, though, say those projects have paid off. A 2015 analysis found that for every dollar spent on beach management and restoration
The projects create a first line of defense during storms, preventing damage to everything from mom-and-pop T-shirt shops to nuclear power plants, he said.
“It’s a lot of commerce along the coast,” said Marlowe, president of
Expensive road to recovery
It’s a word
The back-to-back storms proved to be a catastrophe for one of Florida’s most iconic stretches of beach where cars once raced and college students rocked out at
The beach that residents and visitors knew over the summer is gone,
“It was nothing short of devastating. ... You’ve seen tears,” she said. “You’ve seen heartbreak, and our beach is truly changed.”
President
County officials fear a winter storm could worsen coastal erosion even more. Gov.
That’s only a start of what will need to be spent to rebuild Volusia’s coastline, said
“Volusia County is looking at a pretty big bill,” Leatherman said. “I’d say hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Sand will return in the summer, Leatherman said, but he expects extensive beach nourishment and improvements in coastal defenses will be needed. That could affect the future of beach driving in
A
Rockwell, the contractor who lives in
“The county is going to have a tremendous problem drawing people to our beaches,” he said. “Our beaches have always been known as the drive-on beach. ... The only way to get the visitors and everyone back in our hotels is to get the beach built back up.”
Statewide, Hurricane Ian is on track to be the second costliest disaster in
But Lavigna, the
“There is nothing like living on the ocean,” she said.
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