California’s Highway 1 is very scenic, very popular, but nevertheless is falling into the sea, a victim of climate change.
The term “coastal highway” is fast becoming an oxymoron in the age of global climate change — which, while we were distracted by Donald Trump denying that it was coming, has arrived. The triple threat of rising sea levels, intensified storms and, on the west coast at least, raging wildfires has made it increasingly difficult and expensive to keep seaside roads open.
California’s spectacular Highway 1, for example, whose 650 miles of breathtaking views are on bucket lists around the world and draw millions of tourists every year, is seldom completely open from one end to the other. The latest worst case scenario was a landslide of mud scoured from 125,000 acres of land burned over by a wildfire, by a record 16-inch rainfall, which wiped out 150 feet of the highway 165 miles south of San Francisco, closing a 23-mile stretch for months.
Three years ago, a similar slide 140 miles south of San Francisco buried a quarter mile of the highway and relocated 15 acres of land. That repair took a year and cost $54 million. In a little over 5 years, keeping the road open has cost California $200 million in emergency funds.
Highway engineers are increasingly desperate. Debris from wrecked seawalls thrown up to buy some time litter the shore for miles along the highway. Plans are afoot to relocate 40 miles of the road much farther inland. Which of course will leave 610 miles of road still exposed.
On the other coast, similar desperation is rising around Florida’s Highway One, especially south of Miami as it reaches for the Keys. The highway and its associated networks of streets that serve the small Keys communities are at sea level, and are increasingly plagued by what Floridians now call “sunny-day flooding” — floods that are not caused by rain or storm, but simply by the rising sea. Every spring and fall, so-called king tides, augmented by the proximity of the moon and sun to the earth, bring the worst of sunny day flooding.
During the fall king tides of 2019, parts of the highway system serving the Keys stayed underwater for 90 days. In the fall of 2020, large sections of Key Largo had to deal with submerged streets and highways for 82 straight days. They Keyshave asked the state for an emergency appropriation of $150 million to deal with sea level rise. (Until recently, the Florida state government forbade the use of the terms “global warming,” or “sea level rise” in state applications, legislation or official documents of any kind. The ban had no effect on the problem, however, and has since been abandoned.)
If approved, it will take almost all the emergency funds to do one project — to raise the level of a three mile stretch of highway on Sugarloaf Key, where 30 people live. So that’s taken care of then, mission accomplished. It’s only 166 miles from Miami to Key West.
Slowly, reluctantly, and with great strife, the communities of the Keys, along with many towns and cities along the coastal highway in California, Oregon and Washington, are beginning to face the fact that they cannot win this fight. You can ignore it, you can prohibit discussion of it, but there is no way to ignore the fact that the water has reached your knees and is still rising. (King Canute, please go to the nearest courtesy phone, you have an urgent call.)
In 2019, the Keys began a program of buying and demolishing homes substantially damaged by Hurricane Irma, focusing on the ones most in danger from rising sea levels. Similar struggles began at the same time in places such as Packifica, Imperial Beach and about40 other communities in California and along the west coast; Norfolk, Virginia and South Miami Beach, Florida. (See “Don’t Say Anything, But We’re Losing This War,” the Daily Impact July 16, 2019)
In every one of the places where this is happening the situation is highly fraught, the contention between those trying to face reality and those who prefer to scream, “You have no right to take my house,” at fever pitch to start, with nowhere to go but worse. We are about to learn what happens when the unstoppable — climate change — meets the immovable — the profoundly ignorant and supremely arrogant know-nothings who make up a distressing proportion of America’s ruling class.
” … keeping the road open has cost California $200 million in emergency funds.”
Isn’t weird to think that the 5th largest economy* in the world has to dip into emergency funds to come up with a measly $200 million?
That’s quite a bit less than the cost of just two – obsolete on the drawing boards- Lockhead Martin F-35 fighter jets. The Governor of California should be able to pull 200 mill out of his left pocket, and toss it in whichever direction needs it most.
Ike must be rolling over in his grave. How many brick school houses and hospitals – and so on – could we build if we only used our fiat currency in a wiser way?
Quite a few Ike.
* I’d like to note again that California’s GDP is nearly a third larger than the GDP of the “rump state.” Rump state, I love that one. That’s what President Obama called Russia during his first term. Little did Obama know, back in circa 2010, that Russia would rise up, and with a defense budget smaller than Saudi Arabia’s, use frugality, guile and quite a bit of intrigue to surpass the American Military Industrial Complex as the number one threat to the Republic.
Great article, great pic.
Historically, low-lying costal areas have been prized for development due to their compatibility with shipping. This fact has also made these areas ‘target intensive’ in times of war.
The 1814 British assault on Washington DC was largely symbolic. The Red Coats knew this, and promptly moved north to strike at America’s economic jugular – trade. But the heavy guns of Fort McHenry prevented the British armada from entering Baltimore harbor, and the enemy had to withdraw, pretty much ending their northern campaign.
Now, Fell’s Point – the last stand of the Baltimore’s old harbor district – is threatened by rising waters, and there’s not much that can be done about it.
Another threatened historic gem is Hoboken NJ. I have people in both of these locations, so I take this climate disaster personally…There is a deep sense of impotent loss about all of this.
Florida’s sunny-day floods have been a particular thorn in my side for some years. Had not heard that the FL legislature abandoned its ostrich-syndrome gag orders. I’d enjoy a little Schadenfreude if horrific losses (past, present, and future) weren’t so sobering.
Natural disasters borne out of climate chaos have been multiplying in the past two decades. They’re now pretty undeniable, though Americans have tried futilely to pretend there’s nothing to see, so just move along and go back to the new abnormal. Additionally, rebuilding in the same damn spots — especially all along the N. Amer. coastline — demonstrates a flat inability to understand what the future promises to deliver over and over. For instance, TX has been hit repeatedly by droughts, fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and now deep freezes. Yet it’s not well hardened against these eventualities occurring at narrowing intervals (read: constantly) because of continued demands for the lethal combo of efficiency/vulnerability. We defiantly learn nothing because there’s no market for it. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you: insurance companies refuse any coverage whatsoever in certain zip codes.
Something like that is already happening.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-insurance-florida/florida-consumers-flabbergasted-as-property-insurers-push-for-double-digit-rate-hikes-idUSKBN2AC111
That’s how we will know the apocalypse has really and truly arrived: insurance company refusal to insure, putting themselves out of business in the process.
The greatest – and only truly vital – liabilities in rising sea scenarios are coastal nuclear power plants. Here’s Turkey Point, just north of Miami. It’s a submarine masquerading as an NPP:
https://www.nexteraenergy.com/content/dam/nee/us/en/images/stlucie-power-plant.jpg
The Lesson of Fukushima* when applied to climate change, rising seas, Cat 7s, societal breakdowns, collapse, chaos, et el, is simple and there to learned; safeguard your nuclear power plants first and last, everything else is noise, for if you lose control at just one facility, like say, a Turkey Point, all of southern Florida will have to be abandoned.
At minimum.
*It’s not like it’s a dark secret. In fact, I just watched a new film on the subject, Fukushima 50, with Ken Watanabe. A terrible movie, but it does make it clear that if weren’t for extreme good fortune (and some plucky resolve), Japan would no longer exist.
At minimum.