I can understand why these people are unhappy, but ‘passing a law against telling the truth’ is not a solution. Per the Washington Post:
NAGS HEAD, N.C. — The dangers of climate change were revealed to Willo Kelly in a government conference room in the summer of 2011. By the end of the century, state officials said, the ocean would be 39 inches higher and her home on the Outer Banks would be swamped.
The state had detailed maps to illustrate this claim and was developing a Web site where people could check by street address to see if their property was doomed. There was no talk of salvation, no plan to hold back the tide. The 39-inch forecast was “a death sentence,” Kelly said, “for ever trying to sell your house.”
So Kelly, a lobbyist for Realtors and home builders on the Outer Banks, resolved to prove the forecast wrong. And thus began one of the nation’s most notorious battles over climate change.
Coastal residents joined forces with climate skeptics to attack the science of global warming and persuade North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature to deep-six the 39-inch projection, which had been advanced under the outgoing Democratic governor. Now, the state is working on a new forecast that will look only 30 years out and therefore show the seas rising by no more than eight inches…
BruinKid
How have some of these people not Darwin Awarded themselves by now?
Seanly
SCIENCE! What good is it if it doesn’t confirm what we want to hear.
Isn’t this old news? I remember hearing about this issue a few years ago when I was working in SC. Maybe the issue was talked about a bit more in engineering circles…
Anyway, here’s a pro tip re: beach real estate – all beaches are either being eroded or built up. Coastlines are constantly changing. Don’t buy beachfront property.
xenos
The whole real estate industry is based on finding the next, greater fool.
I personally won’t buy real estate at less than a 300 metres above sea level, which means I am screwed if the ice age comes. Nonetheless, there is a good chance one of my kids will take over our house in a few years, so it is not a crazy investment. For retirees, they just want a couple decades by the water and to get bought out by some idiot who does not know that après lui, le déluge. So they need to make sure there are lots of idiots out there. If there are not enough by nature, maybe some can be manufactured.
Chickamin Slam
@Seanly: My 8th grade Geology teacher told the class to buy the lot across the street from the person on the beach. They get washed out and now you have waterfront property. You immediately sell (Ooo waterfront! $$$) and go further back, the process repeating. I’m not sure how much money he made out of doing that.
In a totally unrelated subject he was planning to name his daughter Molybdenum … Molly for short.
dance around in your bones
She Blinded Me With Science.
I am watching Boogie Nights for the umpteenth time and just saw Phillip Seymour Hoffman excitedly buying the same ‘genuine imported Italian polyester shirt’ as Mark Wahlberg did and it made me think of our Dear Bloghost in a most fond way.
I officially hate politics anymore.
Warren Terra
You post title is totally unfair to Canute, who iirc commanded the tides to retreat not from hubris but deliberately to demonstrate to his flattering courtiers that there were limits to his power, areas where his commands would not be obeyed.
⚽️ Martin
I wonder if these guys are smart enough to figure out that:
1) Insurance companies commission their own risk analyses. They can paper over the problem as much as they want, but the insurer will charge you for what their model says, not what the GOP legislature says.
2) Flood insurance is under FEMA. Federal. They care fuck-all about North Carolina’s flood estimates. The flood risks are determined by NOAA, USGS, Army Corps of Engineers, and EPA. Good luck getting them to support the idea of Zombie Reagan coming back in 20 years to hold the seas back.
scav
Hmmmmm, what else ruins property values and the chance of resale? Possibly being near to sex offenders for one thing, so will the same lobbyists for Realtors and home builders next start campaigning to publishing addresses of same? (Admit, it’d be a fun battle to watch). Crime in general is bad, so stop publishing mappable information on that — same with poor results in nearby schools … stop publishing anything that hurts resale value! Everything must must warp and obey the highest dictates of attaining maximum economic return! (offer not available for all entities)
The TIm Channel
In Holland they’ll be figuring out a way to build the dikes four feet higher. In the US they’re busy trying to legislate creation science. Enjoy.
Mary G
It’s like they are just stuffing their fingers in their ears and so they can’t hear you. Ugh. I agree with @⚽️ Martin: insurance companies are paying attention and her rates will either be astronomical or they will refuse to insure her at all, period. And since they are dedicated to starving the government, good luck with that Federal flood insurance/disaster relief their sons and daughters will be screaming for.
srv
Why are you people all bothered about something a 100 years away when Leboufie is in chains?
Higgs Boson's Mate
Considering the hurricane damage routinely taken by the Outer Banks, you’d have to be a damned fool to buy real estate there in the first place. These guys are just pissing in the wind.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
I’ve only ever seen one thing Shia LaBeouf was in that I really liked: The Goldberg Variation, an episode of The X-Files he did when he was twelve. He played a cute, sickly little boy.
Sophist
Damn government, infringing on her inalienable right to sell a lemon to an unsuspecting buyer by providing them with relevant facts.
Higgs Boson's Mate
If the government of North Carolina had offered Kelly salvation in the form of dykes, seawalls, etc., in return for an increase in his taxes he would have screamed and cried. He would be justified in a way; we already pay a fortune to the Army Corps of Engineers to keep him and his friends in place where no one should have built to begin with so why not throw money at an effort to stave off the effects of climate change?
J R in WV
Perhaps one thing we should have learned from the 2008 crisis is that houses are things you live in, not savings bank accounts.
There is never any guarantee that something you buy will sell for more money later on – or sell at all. No guarantee! Realltors are in the business of denying that, but we should all know it is true.
That said, we bought our first house for $17,500, and sold it 4 or 5 years later for $37,000, back in the 1970s. There was a big remodel of what was a rental house when we bought it, too. I imagine the shag carpet is gone now!
;-)
Beachfront property shouldn’t be eligible for loans from banks, only from guys named Vito. Insurance for beachfront homes should only cover accidents to residents and guests, not storms and floods. They’re playthings, for vacations, for most people, and the “normal” real estate features of full-time houses people live in and go to work from shouldn’t apply.
A relative many years ago (pre-1995) looked at a lot on a barrier island (west coast of FL) where he thought he might put a beach cabana for family picnics. It was described by the realtor’s data as 50×300 feet – but the ocean was only about 80 feet from the road! Nerly 70% of the lot was already gone, and they thought it was still worth $300K !!!
Dreaming about money doesn’t make it so.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@J R in WV:
I’ve lived near the water for most of my life. One of the things I’ve learned during that time was that if you live on the beach the ocean will come in and visit you sooner or later.
The Pale Scot
@⚽️ Martin: Unfortunately the insurance for the riskiest coastal properties is covered by the feds, precisely because no rational CEO would allow his company to write the coverage, so instead of statistics it’s a matter of politics. Canute has left the building, and his lackeys are running the show.
Just google “flood insurance rollbacks”
The Pale Scot
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: ‘morning HBM.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@The Pale Scot:
Mornin’. Sleep is eluding me, tonight, good to have somewhere to hang out.
TheMightyTrowel
As an entirely self-indulgent off topic aside… it really fucking sucks having a nasty cold in the middle of winter when your partner is in another country. GRRRRRR
J R in WV
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
YES!
You would think anyone who watches the Weather Channel would be fully aware of this!
Or visits the beach when there is a tropical storm 500 (or anywhere near the ocean the beach is on!) miles away and sees huge waves breaking on the pier, and water spurting 100 feet into the air on rocks.
Where do they get these ideas about “investments”?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@TheMightyTrowel:
Is there ever a good time to have a cold? I just shook off a ruthless Summer cold so I sympathize with you.
J R in WV
@The Pale Scot:
If you can’t afford a DISPOSABLE home you shouldn’t live on the beach, should you?
The government here is truly acting as a nanny, much as I hate to admit it. Stupid is the only fitting descriptor for this one.
Big day today, 11 am trip to our friend the dentist for a crown repair for Mrs J R, then a 1:30 physical therapy appt for my neck/shoulder. Wish us luck.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@The Pale Scot:
I recall seeing a documentary a few years back about Malibu, CA. It was based on a university study that concluded between wild fires, flash flooding and beach erosion it would be cheaper for the state long term to just buy up the whole works and let it go back to nature.
Botsplainer
@J R in WV:
Back was I was a kid, I remember that there were a few types of beachfront property when we’d visit Florida.
There were the larger resort high rises in pricier resort areas, there were “family scale” motels in abundance, and what there seemed to be the most of were cheap, bungalow style 3 br houses along streets that ended at public beaches. Restaurants were kinda cheap, and lots of dumpy fish houses with some outdoor seating and lots of indoor seating in rooms with drippy window AC. Retailing was from shitty, cheap strip malls.
When the hurricanes came, they’d trash a lot of stuff, but replacements and repair were simple and cheap.
Somehow, the notion of the Feds subsidizing the current state of overpriced development bugs me. Why can’t Limbaugh self insure?
TheMightyTrowel
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I don’t know. Last time I had a really bad one was in the middle of a visit from my mother, so I spent 4 days getting homemade chicken soup and all a mother’s indulgence. I figure that’s probably the best time to get one… At least the teaching semester is over and there are no students expecting shit from me.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@TheMightyTrowel:
Home made chicken soup is sovereign. Can you get any fresh made where you are?
The Pale Scot
@J R in WV: @Higgs Boson’s Mate:
It’s the classic ponzi scheme; my perspective is an ill spent youth (and young adulthood) spent at Long Beach Island, NJ. Back in HS, my friend’s blue collar parents had small cottages along the bay and we would drive down and spend the weekends clamming, fishing and surfing. These houses were built before federal flood insurance existed, and the philosophy was build cheap, they had no AC or heat, if it gets washed away for 5000 bucks you build another one, the important thing was the extended family had a place to gather when school was out. Envision the first floor covered with sleeping bags, and outdoor showers made it all possible. (Make sure the mom hot water or lose the invitation :D)
When the parents passed the family didn’t hold on the cottages because the value had risen and they could use the money in better ways. I wished they had waited a few years, because the values skyrocketed in the early 80’s, and most of those cottages have been replaced by Hollywood style construction. Really ridiculous monstrosities, and tax money is going to pay, like it did for Sandy, to replace all that vanity when the tide comes back, like it inevitably will.
When the properties got expensive, the population definitely changed, instead of the neighbors being from Allentown, they were from NY (suddenly the houses along the beach had spotlights pointed out to the beach).
How can you have a good beach party with spotlights hiding the stars?
TheMightyTrowel
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: From my very own freezer. I tend to make a bunch before winter starts so I’ve been sipping broth all day. Still not as good as my mom’s though. There’s some sort of crazy mother magic that I guess I’ll never learn.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@TheMightyTrowel:
Good job! Take care of yourself. I’m cooking up big batches of this and that and freezing them for those hot Summer days when cooking is inconceivable.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@The Pale Scot:
You have the memories of those days. You are way ahead of the mansion builders.
J R in WV
Yeah, I remember the old style beach with two story motels. The first one we ever stayed at had a kitchen so you could cook (Moms loved that!) instead of eating at a fish house every night. Also bottles of kerosene to get the beach tar off your feet!
Then a few years later folks rented a condo on the 8th floor of a tower on Longboat, and the fish house was a glass cube with trees inside!
The old style cheap motels were all replaced by Sheraton, etc.
What a loss! Beach Camps were so much better than Towers for the wealthy. Those were the days! You can still find those old style motels, but now they charge $250/night for the old fashioned style…
Higgs Boson's Mate
@J R in WV:
The worthiest among us deserve the very best – don’t you know?
MattF
Recall Bill O’Reilly’s deep thoughts about tides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb3AFMe2OQY
What I don’t get is how we ever found ourselves having to deal with this level of ignorance.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@MattF:
Yeah, the stupid. It leaves me in an uncomfortable place sometimes because, as an Old in my mid-sixties, I do my best to avoid the “When I was young,” bit. As an observer of our nation I am appalled at how stupid large segments of the population have become. Not just ignorance, which has been assiduously and proudly cultivated in some places, but plain fucking self-destructively stupid.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv:
This guy missed his calling as a staffer in the deserting coward White House.
Xenos
After the hurricane of ’38 my grandfather bought a lot on the dunes of westhpton and put a mail order shack from Sears. It lasted until ’90s when the next door neighbor bought it so there would be space for his hot tub,
satby
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: right there with you, Higgs. Even people who I know were taught critical thinking skills because I’ve known them since childhood seem to have lost the ability to use those skills. And then I look like the grumpy old when I have to walk them through thinking out the stupid in whatever they’ve credulously announced.
satby
@Xenos: I live down the street from one of those Sears shacks in farm country. Still in excellent shape. They really knew how to make stuff back then.
skwerlhugger
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Aren’t dykes illegal there?
PurpleGirl
I wanted to add this to the mix earlier in the thread:
Their worried about a 39-inch rise in the water level. Well, has any of them heard about the volcanic ridge Cumbre Vieja (Isla de La Palma, the Canary Islands). If its west coast should slide into the ocean, there’s gonna be a tsunami which will be quite high and affect most of the East Coast of the US. (I guess they don’t watch any of the geophysical science shows on the TV.)
Sherparick
@xenos: The magic phrase: “Federally subsidized flood insurance.” The 1% owns a good part of Atlantic Coast from Key West, Florida, to Kennebunkport, Maine. These are the folks that can call their senators directly. And even the upper middle class owners of houses at Rodanthe have lots of “clout” with politicians. So there will be sea walls and rebuilding of the houses with other people’s money after the sea walls fail. The thing is all the science news on sea level rise the last 5 years has been “bad,” as the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers appear to be melting faster than forecast and the warming oceans expand (another one of those facts of physics that a warm fluid/gas is less dense than it is when in a “cold” state). The rate since the mid-nineties now appears to be roughly 3.8 mm a year (which works out to 3.8 cm a decade and 38 cm cemtury). But that rate appears to be curving up. http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm Basically, the owners, realtors, and developers are all getting rich due to a huge subsidy from the rest of us. So much for the Plutocrats earning their keep..
PJ
The NYTimes has an essay today about our attitude towards the future and the quality of modern construction:
Jasmine Bleach
Our home is about 240 feet above sea level and fairly near coastal waters.
I’ve taken a look at those maps that show where coastlines will be if all the ice in the world melts (Greenland, Antarctica, all glaciers, etc.), and in my area, the sea will variously rise 220 to 270 feet (depending on whose estimates you use).
So, maybe in a couple centuries we’ll have beachfront property or be underwater. I realize my descendants probably won’t still be in this house, of course–but it’s interesting to think about.
And, yeah, we actually thought about sea level rise potential when buying this place a while back. Nowadays, it’s silly not to think about it!
CONGRATULATIONS!
My first job, so long ago, out of college was working for a small real estate broker.
Worst job ever, but I learned a lot.
To say the industry is “dishonest” is to say that water is very, very wet. Here’s some things I learned in no particular order:
1. There’s always a bigger sucker.
2. Cash flow is life or death.
3. Use a lawyer, not a broker, for your transactions. Yes, it’s a lot more expensive that way.
4. Everyone lies.
5. If someone comes in and needs an interpreter to explain an agreement, it’s probably not going to end well for you.
6. If someone comes in and wants to do business in all cash, it is really not going to end well for you.
7. The credit check is your lifeline. Use it, every time, no exceptions.
8. Home inspections are a fucking joke. I’ve seen three separate inspectors greenlight the sale of a house that wasn’t hooked up to any sewage system.
9. Real estate agents will stop at nothing to make the sale. See OP and NC’s legislation, above.
10. You think the real estate industry is dishonest? Wait ’til you start talking to the guy who’s going to write your mortgage.
artem1s
@⚽️ Martin:
well Paul Ryan’s austerity Congress tried gutting at least three of those agencies and if the pubes get control of the Senate expect any agency that might support evidence of climate change or a social safety net to go the way of the WPA. I just don’t see these freaks getting any less delusional with time. Who cares if the flood is coming if you believe you can always go Galt or get Raptured?
ThresherK
@Warren Terra: That’s the way I heard it, too.
Maybe something was misappropriated or lost in translation by interested parties.
oldswede
The folly of beachfront property has been known for a very long time:
“And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.”
Matthew 7:26
Elizabelle
This story is just perfect. Convergence of the free market Republicans and bible-thumping conservatives. In the far right paradise befallen North Carolina.
The ocean has the last word, not the market. And what about the good book, with its emphasis on the Golden Rule and some stern words on not building a house on sand, not to mention responsible stewardship of the earth?
I wonder if the state should buy out the homeowners, at less than market rates, that will go down the longer homeowner waits. Give them the option of losing less now. But stop further development in its tracks, because it’s not sustainable.
State owned homes can be rented out, while safe, and even be kitted out less luxuriously. Make them more affordable, for middle class renters. Not just the landed (on sand) gentry.
(Liked the stories of the cheap little seaside houses of days past. They were charming, and affordable. Probably firetraps too, but that can be controlled with building regs.)
Income returns to the local community and state, and there is not as much controversy down the road when a home must be condemned and demolished. Eminent domain? The state owns the houses, the land, for the public.
You support the tourism industry, but in time those houses go and the beachfront returns to oceanside dunes, in a state or national park. They’re natural buffer zones.
Maybe Route 12 stays, maybe it becomes seasonal, with a ferry if need be.
Would that work?
I think the town manager talking about 30 years out makes a lot of sense, in the short-term. That’s the longest of mortgages, and — as Martin commented — insurers will do the rest to keep the market in check. Uninsurable limits the market.
But nature will win. Biggest question is how much you let these fools churn the real estate market — then scream — in the present.
Bubblegum Tate
My dad has a house on Ocracoke. It’s something he dreamed about for decades. Now that he’s basically retired, I’m glad he can go out there on the regular and enjoy it. It really is a lovely island, though the entire battle of development vs. nature is a surefire loser for development sooner or later (probably sooner). I’m reasonably sure my dad didn’t join on with this “if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then it doesn’t exist!” effort, but I’m not 100 percent sure some sort of knee-jerk “damn gummit can’t tell me I’m not allowed to have my Ocracoke house!” thing didn’t get him involved.
sicilian dish
I will certainly respect her choices when she spends out of pocket to repair her Outer Banks home year after year from flooding during hurricane season and doesn’t ask for one penny from FEMA and the Feds.
pseudonymous in nc
@sicilian dish:
Exactamundo. Living on the coast means dealing with garden-variety climate, whether it’s high tides or high winds. Historically, you lived on the coast because it was the high-speed transportation network of choice, and a source of wealth as a result. By doing so, you took the damn lumps. OBX has always been a mutable environment, and the main change here is that the environment will come back more often and more intensely.
Fucking real estate agents. They’d demand that maps remove nearby volcanoes.
pseudonymous in nc
@J R in WV:
I’d prefer to see some kind of grandfather clause there. If you’re in a flood-risk house and of modest means, then chances are that you don’t have the flexibility to pack up and move: your home’s your financial security, however suboptimal that might be.
If you’re buying beachfront homes (or ones in any high-risk flood plain for that matter) then you’re on your own for insurance. Caveat fucking emptor.
Helmut Monotreme
I’d like to see eminent domain used to buy out and condemn stretches of coast, but I have no clue where that money would come from.
RSA
@Seanly:
Yes. I remember reading about it back in 2011 or 2012. I don’t know what’s brought the topic to the Post right now.
My wife and I visited the Outer Banks a few years ago over Thanksgiving, for a change of scenery. We stayed in a bed and breakfast managed by a local couple, and the guy was what I’d now immediately recognize as a tea bagger. One morning at breakfast he started to go on about federal regulations destroying the locals’ way of life in the area; he was talking about rules against people driving their SUVs and trucks on the beach, because they were running over sea turtles and the nests of endangered birds. But those rules prevent fishermen from driving up to the surf and fishing from the tops or backs of their vehicles.
I had to hold my thoughts back; I didn’t want poison in my eggs.