BAD NEWS UP FRONT WHERE IT BELONGS

Sometimes we do not want to face the inevitable. We know bad days are coming, but close our minds to it. Like a child putting his or her head under the pillow hoping the ghost will go away.

Climate change has been discussed for years. Many concerned. Not many panicked.

Start!

The wake up call is bad news in one’s face. Stark reality.

Key Westers and lower key residents got it yesterday. Rising ocean levels are going to replace many roads and homes.

Can the problem be avoided? If not, who pays? Are government entities financially responsible? Or, do homeowners lose their homes and no one pays them for their loss?

A climate change conference was held yesterday in Key West. A meeting of the Southeast Regional Climate Leadership Conference.

I first read about the meeting last night in a New York Times article: Florida Keys Deliver A Hard Message: As Seas Rise, Some Places Can’t Be Saved. Then the report which appeared this morning on the  front page of the Key West Citizen: Price of Protection High For Keys.

Opening comment in the first 2 paragraphs of the Times article began the eye opener: “As seas rise and flooding gets worse, not everyone can be saved…..And in some places, it does not even make sense to try.”

A key speaker at the meeting was Rhonda Haag, Monroe County Sustainability Director. She reported the results of a one year study to calculate how high its 300 miles of roads must be elevated to stay dry and at what cost.

Note the study was only as to roads. Not the houses and buildings on certain roads.

Haag said the county can’t do it all. She was talking “cost.” She said some places cannot be protected at a price taxpayers can be expected to pay. She further advised that the County may have to say “no,” that not all steps required would be “doable.”

The study results focused on Old State Road 4A in Sugarloaf. A single 3 mile stretch of road at the southernmost tip of Sugarloaf Key.

Two dozen houses located on the 3 mile stretch.

In order to keep the 3 mile of road dry year round, it would have to be raised. Raised 1.3 feet by 2025, total cost $75 million. Broken down, $25 million per mile. Raised by 2045 to an elevation of 2.2 feet, $128 million. Raised by 2060 to expected flooding levels, $181 million.

Not chicken feed. Big dollars. Taxpayer dollars. To provide access to 2 dozen homes.

Haag made it clear that elected officials will be faced with difficult calls to make. The County alone could not do it.

County Mayor Carruthers said,  “We can’t protect every single house.”

One homeowner living on the 3 mile stretch said, “This is all I have. If that road goes under, I go under.”

Such the case for most homeowners. Their homes all they have. Their primary investment in life. Their retirement.

Enjoy your day?

21 comments on “BAD NEWS UP FRONT WHERE IT BELONGS

    • Is this just another example of your struggle with reality and critical thinking, or is it just another one of your trolling outburst suggesting you should have your internet privileges better monitored at the asylum?

    • See the pic of Obama’s new Martha’s Vineyard mansion? right there on the waters edge. He must have purchased the extra “global warming, rising sea levels insurance”… or maybe he didn’t cuz AGW is a total scam and he knows it.

      • Get your facts straight, the House is NOT on the waters edge, not even close. It is actually on Edgartown Great Pond and considerably set back and high above the waters edge. Please try and get your personal smears (at least) correct.

        and BTW, only GWD is a total scam, not AGW itself, just look around you fool.

        • you are fake news. Here’s a pic of the Obama mansion… oddly, right on the ocean with no cliffs in sight. forbes.com/sites/kathleenhowley/2019/09/01/obamas-buying-marthas-vineyard-estate-from-boston-celtics-owner/#529085385300

  1. We will have 5 more years of Trump and will be 5 more years behind in dealing with climate change. But he will probably toss another unpaid for tax cut to the mob and keep them happy for the time being.

  2. Fake news, really?

    A. Doesn’t look like water’s edge to me.

    B. Try these pictures people.com/home/barack-michelle-obama-buy-marthas-vineyard-mansion/ and read the copy here and elsewhere, it’s NOT on the ocean and it’s several football fields away from ANY shore.

    And what kind of IDIOT tries to justify global warming denial by smearing the Obama’s purchase of house anywhere, particularly one that is NOT in harms way?

        • The Obama house is on Great Pond, not on Chappaquiddic Island, where the Kennedy incident took place over 50 years ago. Why do you insist the Obama house is “right on the ocean,” although the facts are that he is inland nearly a mile on the 890 acre Eggartown Lake Pond, which is separated from the ocean itself by a sandbar/beach. And why do you insist it is on the beach when even google maps clearly shows this house is not on the beach. The house itself is over 150 feet (a football field) from the (his) closest beach (and is elevated from the beach itself a little, as is clearly shown by all the photos.

          It is true that the new Obama home is somewhat more in harms way than say a home in Pittsburgh, but no more so than ANY other home on Martha’s Vineyard or Chappaquidic Island and probably a lot less so than Mar-a-Largo is from the Ocean off south Florida’s coast.

          Your argument (whatever it really is) seems to fall apart with the actual facts, just like you denial surrounding global warming.

          You seem mostly to just want to argue or complain, instead of solve any problem. And you insist on false facts and logic to try and make your convoluted points. “looks like it’s right on the ocean to me.” Proves that point alone.

          • You need to read and understand topo maps. Obama’s home is approx. 10 feet above sea level. Doesn’t matter if it’s 150 from shore, Distance from shore isn’t the “danger”, it’s elevaton.

            The reason Obama is mentioned is because he is either a hypocrite or he doesn’t believe global warming will impact this property.

            • It’s actually both, he is a hypocrite and he doesn’t believe in Global warming. Why else would he buy in such an endangered location.

              • I guess that’s really just your problem, not mine or the rest of the world. Frankly the rest of us think you are a fool, chasing some deep seated problem within yourself that is of no real matter to anyone else Obama isn’t relevant to any of this. Climate change is along with the hypocritical fools who deny it, stuck with immature and irrelevant arguments.

                Real climate change problems are making a fool of you and you don’t know it. You are stuck in some small box with your hatred of Obama. Tell you mother your going out for a while and find some bridge somewhere and end the embarresment

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *