Rebuilding the east coast

[CathyA]

There is so much damage along the east coast. People are talking about rebuilding. But with the possible "new normal" in weather........seems like a pretty risky thing to do. And I wonder if the insurance companies will quit insurer these people who live on the coast?
What do you think?

[Tussiemussies]

Think they should rebuild the East coast since that is where all the tourist attraction is. It's just so unusual for us to get hit like this. We never experience earthquakes or anything. So this may have been a freak experience...:)

[San Onofre Guy]

The barrier islands from Sandy Hook to Key West should never have had permenant structures built on them. My advice is that the Federal Government should reimburse property owners for the value of their improvements in exchange for no permenant structure being built on that site with a deed restriction. If the property owner chooses to rebuild on the site they can with a similarly sized structure, however no federal assistance including federally guaranteed flood insurance can ever be used for this property.

While we are at it, no federal dollars for rebuilding beaches, harbor dredging ok, beach sand replenishment no.

[CathyA]

I fantasize letting our coastal lands go back to completely natural, but that's not ever going to happen, unfortunately. (until humankind is gone).

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Cathy, there is a stretch of the Jersey shore called Island Beach State Park which they have kept all natural. It is really pretty and they let you bring your dog there. :)

[pony mom]

On one beach, they had wanted to build large dunes to protect the town; many people complained that they would block their view of the ocean. Some towns agreed to the dunes and were spared major damage. The others, well, they've got an ocean view IN their home (if they still have a home).

I read in our local paper that since the storm wasn't classified as an official hurricane, some insurance companies took that as a loophole for covering their clients.

You can't mess with nature; if you build near a river, don't cry when you get flooded. Same with the ocean. It's big and powerful and you're taking a chance.

I've always found the Jersey shore a bit seedy (except Cape May). Guess I'm more of a country girl.

[Gregg]

Building mega-cities on major fault lines or at the base of volcanoes doesn't seem all the prudent, either. There are good reasons for civilizations to grow up on coastlines, we all get that. Global weather and climate cycles exist on many levels. When we talk about storms being the new normal it is probably just part of a cycle ramping up. The problem is that if that particular cycle happens to be hundreds of years long our lifetimes may fall completely in the most active part. If we assume this could happen again then rebuilding on barrier islands is obviously a high risk proposition. Moving those settlements is obviously a far cry from moving NYC. I think insurance carriers will simply refuse to write (affordable) policies for people in "Zone A" which should virtually eliminate any new or re-development. As far as federal intervention I don't know any of my neighbors in Nebraska who think we should do any less than send all the help we can muster to the east coast. If things were to be rebuilt and washed out and rebuilt again that level of willingness to financially support the rebuilding would probably wane.

[CathyA]

I can maybe understand the development happening where there is lots of shipping in and out, but just to have residential homes everywhere, seems to be just asking for trouble. It would be wonderful if we had the insight/foresight/concern about the environment to not build in these places, but I'm not holding my breath. I guess the next 10 years will tell us if this is a trend. But I wonder how much resources and energy will be put into rebuilding up to that point.

[JaneV2.0]

I suppose there could be a tsunami on the west coast, but so far so good, Alaska excepted. The ocean front houses built before I was born in my childhood coastal village are mostly still there--except for the ones replaced by condos. Mt Rainier may blow up in my lifetime, but it probably won't. I survived Mt. St. Helens with nothing more troubling than gutters full of ash. I don't think there are many areas that are immune to natural disasters. Consider the Yellowstone caldera and the New Madrid fault. That said, I wouldn't build on a flood plain.

[ToomuchStuff]

There are, have been and will continue to be reasons to build on coasts (fishing, transportation, etc). The big trick is to adapt when disaster hits, and learn and use other techniques, etc.

One of the reasons my dream home is still one of these (survived fires, tornado's, huricanes, not heard about an earthquake yet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St4umWJttYk

But as the old saying goes, stupidity is trying the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.

[RosieTR]

Galveston Island in TX was completely obliterated in 1900 by a hurricane. Thereafter, houses were built on stilts. This worked well but there was still extensive damage by Hurricane Ike as recently as 2008. So mitigating storm issues can help, it's possible that nothing will completely prevent problems. There are some areas of any coast that would be best left as natural or restored to natural. OTOH, there are very few places in the world where weather cannot possibly cause a disaster of some type or other. My guess is that the insurance companies will evaluate the very riskiest areas as uninsurable or with extremely high insurance, and continue to insure others with (probably) higher premiums. Whether the power companies bury the lines as they probably ought to, is anyone's guess. Our power lines are buried because guess what? We routinely get >50mph winds even when there aren't storms. After a couple of iterations of storms on the East coast, power and phone companies will likely see fit to bury the lines, and some of the problems experienced with Sandy will not be repeated.