Shore Withdrawal: An Equitable Solution
Victoria Durand
Drexel University, History & Politics Department
Introduction
What is shore withdrawal, and why? >Global warming has
caused ocean temperatures to rise dramatically in the past
decade. Scientists agree that this increases the severity of
hurricanes and other natural disasters
>Scholars like the former Duke researcher Orrin Pilkey believe
that rebuilding destroyed seaside towns is a pointless and
dangerous endeavor, as their destruction is in his view,
inevitable . A retreat or withdrawal, is then, necessary for safety
reasons.
>Seaside living is also becoming unrealistically expensive. The
federal flood insurance program was intended to combat the
high costs of coastal insurance, but the program is now millions
of dollars in debt and in need of restructuring.
>Hurricane Sandy, its financial damage and the difficulty that
citizens had getting back on their feet demonstrated that without
serious intervention, coastal settlements will soon become
unlivable, particularly for those on the lower end of the
economic spectrum.
Methods
The best example of recent shore retreat is in many shore
communities in New York after Hurricane Sandy.
>The bulk of my research involved comparing two towns
that were effected by Hurricane Sandy: The town of
Graham Beach in Staten Island, and the town of Seaside
Heights New Jersey
>I intended to find the differences between the two
communities that led to them taking such radically
different approaches. That is, the residents of Graham
Beach decided to abandon the town entirely and find new
residence, while Seaside Heights poured a huge amount of
funding into rebuilding.
>I examined the economic state of each town, their
demographics, politics on both a statewide and local level
and searched for other factors that may have contributed
to the difference.
Data/Results
Economic Reasons:
From the beginning of my research the most obvious
difference between the communities was their
economies. Graham Beach had a somewhat sluggish
economy, even before the hurricane, as an aging
former tourism spot. As such, the community had
nothing to gain from maintaining its position on the
shore.
On the other hand, Seaside Heights was a community
subsisting largely on tourism. Nearly half of its
residents were seasonal, and it relied on attracting
those seasonal residents to maintain economic
stability. Withdrawal would take away its position as a
tourist attraction, its main form of income.
The other differences were political, both on the
part of the towns and on the states they were in.
While Seaside Heights stayed for economic
purposes, it was also influenced by the politics of
the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie. Christie,
from the time Sandy first damaged the state, was
insistent about rebuilding. He talked extensively,
publically, about how New Jersey was “strong”
enough to rebuild. This was likely related to his
plans for advancement in the Republican party,
including a potential presidential run. He knew that
rebuilding, and the “Jersey Strong” campaign
would be good political ammo for a potential
presidential run.
Cuomo seemed to do less political grandstanding, and focused more on
preparation for the storm. Making the buyout program available was a decision
on Cuomo’s part, but takin advantage of it was solely up to the discretion of the
community. A community ballot, based on grassroots action by individual
members. It was a great example of how future withdrawal will likely be
undertaken: under the direction of community members, rather than under the
direction of outside forces.
Conclusion
Withdrawal from the shore is an inevitability, but it
must be done right.
>Overall, Cuomo's solution seemed more ethical and
more feasible for people in most situations.
>In my opinion, a program similar to the New York
buyout program on a larger scale would work, but with
added measures to ensure economic prosperity after
the fact. There should be attention paid to ensuring
that displaced citizens are more somewhere that they
can continue their livelihood. In this way it may benefit
to keep the community together where at all possible.
>Cuomo coupled the buyout program with a number of
other relief programs that were meant to ease the
financial burden on displaced citizens such as tax
breaks and student loan repayment delays. In a larger
scale displacement these would be absolutely
necessary.
Future Work
The most important, and obvious future work would
be to implement some of the ideas for shore
withdrawal on the scale of smaller disasters, to
ensure they would work on a large scale, should it
become necessary.
I think it must also be examined on a larger scale.
Most of the nations most important city are on
increasingly volatile shores. Eventually, entire large
cities may have to be abandoned , and we must
prepare politically for that.
References
Legal and population statistics come from the official state and
local websites, respectively. Special acknowledgement to the
National Weather Service for climate statistics.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Scott Knowles, my mentor on this project, Eva
Thury and all others involved in the humanities research fellowship
program which directed m research.y