Some Experts Say It's Time to Evacuate the Coast (for Good)
October 4, 2005
By CORNELIA DEAN
nytimes.com
PENSACOLA, Fla. - As the Gulf Coast reels from two catastrophic storms in a month, and the Carolinas and Florida deal with damage and debris from hurricanes this year and last, even some supporters of coastal development are starting to ask a previously unthinkable question: is it time to consider retreat from the coast?
Yes, said Howard Marlowe, president of Marlowe & Company, a lobbying firm that represents counties and local governments, often in seeking support for coastal infrastructure, like roads, sewers and beach replenishment. "I think we need to be asking that and discussing that, and the federal government needs to provide leadership," Mr. Marlowe said.
He added, "I have never been an advocate for the federal government telling people that they have to move out, but it's important to have a discussion at all levels of government about what can be done to make sure more people do not put themselves in harm's way. It will not be an easy dialogue."
The idea that much of the coast is dangerous and getting more so is not new. Coastal scientists have been saying for years that global warming will threaten coastal areas with higher seas and more powerful storms, and that a hurricane lull that began in the mid-1960's will eventually give way to the far more dangerous pattern of storms that prevailed in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. Since then, though, development has transformed the nation's shoreline, especially on the east and gulf coasts.
By last year, when four hurricanes crossed the state of Florida in a matter of weeks, it was clear the lull had ended. This year, Hurricanes Katrina, Ophelia and Rita drove the hazard lesson home.
A. R. Schwartz, a Democrat who for decades represented Galveston and much of the Texas coast in the State Legislature, said he now regretted some of the legislation he had pushed that subsidized development on the coast, particularly a measure that provides tax relief to insurance companies faced with wind damage claims.
Mr. Schwartz, whose constituents knew him as Babe, said that measure was "a terrible mistake - in my mind, as opposed to my heart, because the people need the insurance - because it has been an invitation for people to build homes on barrier islands and on peninsulas that are exposed to storms, at public expense."
"We are facing a crisis now because of that law I passed," said Mr. Schwartz, who now lives in Austin where he works as a lobbyist and lawyer.
Daniel P. Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, said that as coastal areas, and islands, recover "there has to be a discussion of what responsibility we have not to encourage people to rebuild their houses in the same way."
Even the fate of New Orleans should be open to discussion, Dr. Schrag said. "Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild a city that puts it in harm's way once again and relying on technology such as higher dikes and levees seems to me a very dangerous strategy," the more so in an era of global warming.
Erosion already threatens 70 percent of the nation's coastline, and is especially severe on the east and gulf coasts. In a report to Congress in 2000, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that more than a quarter of the houses within 500 feet of the coast might be lost to the sea by 2060. The report said these losses would put an intolerable burden on the federal government, which insures many of the structures through its flood insurance program.
"We are getting these lifetime storms every couple of years," said Riley G. Hoggard, a resource management specialist at the Gulf Islands National Seashore, where the road to Fort Pickens, on Santa Rosa Island here, has been washed out and rebuilt three times in the last year. "Maybe we need to get into a program of orderly retreat."
In recent decades, people have been doing just the opposite. According to the Census Bureau, 87 million people, nearly a third of the nation's population, live on or near the Atlantic or gulf coasts.
Harry Simmons, president of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, which advocates for beach replenishment and other infrastructure support for coastal communities, said that 3,600 Americans moved to the coast every day.
"You cannot draw up a worse case scenario for increased property damage, risk to human life and cost to taxpayers," said Robert S. Young of Western Carolina University, who studies coastal development.
Just as a commission was formed to identify military bases for closing, he said, a commission should be formed to identify "those sections of shoreline that are clearly so vulnerable to storm damage that they should no longer receive any federal subsidy of infrastructure rebuilding, they should be yanked out of the flood insurance program, those sorts of things."
Mr. Young said the commission should be made up of representatives from FEMA, the United States Geological Survey, the Army Corps of Engineers and university researchers. "It could not have politicians on it because coastal politicians, even if they are fiscal conservatives, would want to defend their coastal turf," he said.
He said he would propose the idea this month, when he has been asked to testify before a subcommittee of the House Resources Committee. "We need to just make a start," he said.
Meanwhile, scientists from the geological survey have been making detailed observations of the coastal landscape, before and after storms, to try to identify characteristics, not always obvious, that make areas more or less vulnerable to storm damage.
The geological survey is not in the business of defining where people should or should not live, said Abby Sallenger, a scientist with the agency who has been leading data collection efforts on the gulf coast. But, he said, "There are sections of the east and gulf coasts that are extremely hazardous and the scientific community could come to agreement on where they are" so that policy makers could act on the information.
Like others who study this issue, he said two good candidates for retreat were Dauphin Island in Alabama, much of it wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, and North Topsail Island, N.C., which, he said, "gets wiped out routinely."
But plenty of people reject the idea that those who live on the coast are any more at risk than those who live in areas prone to tornadoes, earthquakes or forest fires, even in an era of increased storms.
"There are engineering solutions to almost any problem we face," said Mr. Simmons of the beach association, who is mayor of Caswell Beach, N.C., near Cape Fear. He said the problem with places like North Topsail Island is too little infrastructure support, not too much. "We are not doing a good enough job maintaining things" like beaches, he said.
In the past, the promise of engineering has prevailed against efforts to get the federal government out of the coastal development business.
More than a decade ago, for example, FEMA scientists suggested imposing new limits on federally subsidized flood insurance and government support for roads, sewers and other infrastructure in erosion hazard areas. But advocates for development denounced the move as undue federal interference, and it was defeated.
Setback requirements have been successfully challenged as unconstitutionally limiting people's use of their property.
But Mr. Marlowe, the lobbying firm president, said: "What I am looking for is a national commitment to a plan that says: 'O.K., we have people in these areas, how are we going to protect them? We have other people in these areas where we are going to discourage future development because we cannot protect things that are there.' "
Mr. Simmons said this kind of planning would be a good thing. But he said the beach preservation association "has always taken the position that sound development is the way to go," with zoning and building codes determined locally. "What I hear some people saying is you should just bulldoze the place and leave it to the birds and the turtles, and I don't agree with that," he said.
Mr. Hoggard of the Park Service said he would not consign even Fort Pickens to that fate. But, he said, it is time to consider replacing the road, possibly, for example, with a ferry service from the mainland. But, as is the case on all the developed shoreline, abandoning infrastructure means lost revenue, in this case fees from a year-round campground. So Mr. Hoggard said there would be pressure to maintain the road, flooded yet again by pounding surf churned up by Hurricane Rita. "We can do that with our technology," he said. "But only for so long, and at a great price."
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