Hi everyone:
 
Catching up on the last two weeks of email.
 
Living in the high desert of New Mexico, beach refurbishment is not a
common topic.  However, back in 1969-1974 (showing my age) I was stationed
at Eglin Air Force Base in NW Florida.  We (the wife and I) lived in a
little cider block "summer" house (which was later destroyed by a
hurricane) about 100 yards from the Santa Rosa Sound which separated us
from the barrier island and the Gulf of Mexico.  A little town called Mary
Esther if anyone has ever been through that area.  We use to travel
frequently to Destin on the barrier island for picnics since it was one of
the most pristine and beautiful beaches in the world (at that time).  The
pure quartz sand dunes behind the beaches were so white that when I show
pictures to people they think that they are snow drifts!  You could stand
on the beach a couple of miles east of Destin (a sleepy fishing village at
that time) and see no sign of civilization except for the occasional
fisherman or surfer trying to catch waves from an incoming hurricane!
 
I have been back through that area years later and all the pristine beauty
has been marred by development.  In my humble opinion, the root of the
problem of development right up to the shoreline is when the federal
government instituted "cheap" flood insurance.  People can build whatever
they want, wherever they want, and not worry about rebuilding after a
hurricane because of the insurance.  When I lived in Virginia Beach in the
1960's there was a similar out of the way place south of Virginia Beach
called Sand Bridge.  People would also build summer houses before National
Flood Insurance came into affect.  They would build the wooden house on
stilts (commonm sense) and live in it during the winter and rent it in the
summer and pay it off in 10 years or less (from the summer rentals),
figuring that the house would be destroyed about every 10 years by a
passing hurricane or even worst a northeaster!  They took their chances,
sometimes they made money when the house was not destroyed in 10 years,
sometimes they lost, but they at least they didn't have to replace the
pilings since they were always there even after the house washed away.  One
of my professors went down after the infamous "Ash Wednesday Storm" (if
anyone remembers that one) and his pilings were still there but a channel
20 feet deep was where his house was.  Alas, Mother Nature's long shore
currents "refurbished" his land in less than 2 weeks.
 
Our problem is cheap flood insurance.  People don't have to gamble with
their money anymore now that government insures them.  If we want to do
something we ought to put our muscle into repealing flood insurance along
the marine coastlines.  Believe me most would not rebuild if it had to come
out of their pocket.  You could have insurance for any sane individual that
builds a certain distance from the beach (e.g., greater than 500 feet).
That gives mother nature a lot of space to do her stuff.  The national
flood insurance people have finally learned their lesson with rivers that
flood each year in the Midwest and wipe out houses and then they have to
pay to rebuild the same homes year after year.  I see where they have taken
whole communities and moved them to higher ground.  Wow, what a novel idea
and also cost savings at the same time!  Maybe one day the feds will learn
their lesson along the marine shoreline but it will probably take a
Category 5 hurricane the goes slowly up the east coast littering wiping out
everything along the beach in its path.
 
If is was my nickel I would either get the cheap flood insurance revoked
within a certain distance of the shoreline (probably make some enemies on
this list) or make it so expensive that some people will think twice about
building or rebuilding right along the beach.
 
I will never forget passing through Pass Christian two years after
Hurricane Camille came ashore and seeing all those empty concrete slabs and
concrete front steps that lead to nowhere.  Many of those people thought at
least twice about rebuilding after that, but I hate to have people suffer
to get the feds to wake up along the shoreline and do what they are
beginning to do along the flood plains of middle America.
 
Just my two cents.
 
Paul