15 Million Homes Already At Coastal Flood Risk; Another Foot Of Rise Coming By 2050
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Already, about 15 million American homes are at risk of flooding, and the threat is only going to get worse. A report released in February by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projected that sea level along the US coastline would rise by 10 to 12in, on average, in the next 30 years – an uptick that would make damaging flooding occur 10 times more often than it does today.
“It’s important to understand in these communities that sea level rise is happening now,” said William Sweet, an oceanographer with NOAA’s National Ocean Service and the country’s top scientist studying sea level rise. “Its impacts are happening now, and those impacts will grow worse in the next 30 years. Minor-nuisance flooding will be replaced by flooding that’s more damaging to economies and to infrastructure.” That future could very well touch off a mass migration of people away from coastline and flood zones. Research published in 2020 in the journal PLOS One estimated that sea level rise could cause over 13 million Americans to relocate inland by 2100 – an outcome with huge economic, social and political consequences.
Yet, even with the deluge of warnings, there is no centralized lifeline available to coastal communities. There are a number of federal programs designed to give assistance to such areas through government bodies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud), but those pots of money are far from adequate to tackle a problem of this scale. Some local governments have chosen to offer – and in a few cases mandate – buyouts to homeowners in vulnerable areas, who wind up dispersing. Others would prefer to keep the neighborhood intact – in Taholah’s case, by moving the whole village.
In 2017, the Quinault Tribal Council adopted the Taholah Village Relocation Master Plan, which would move the lower enclave of the village about a half-mile uphill by 2030, where a new 200-acre development would offer flood-free land for over 300 housing units, a police station, a courthouse, a K-12 school and a museum, among other buildings. The initiative makes the Quinault among the first in the US – alongside communities in Louisiana and Alaska, among others – to voluntarily opt for a strategy of managed retreat away from impending climate threats. To date, the council has been able to build a new administrative complex, a so-called generations building to house Head Start and senior programs, and approximately 150 homes – construction that is owed to a combination of US Department of Agriculture grants, HUD money and the tribe’s own funds. To pay for the rest, Ralston estimates they’ll need an additional $200m – a daunting sum, especially considering the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was signed into law by Joe Biden last year provided just $130m to support relocation efforts for the 574 federally recognized tribes across the US.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/07/its-happening-now-how-rising-sea-levels-are-causing-a-us-migration-crisis