OK, folks, here’s the map you all wanted to see: What happens to Virginia’s Tidewater under a doomsday global warming scenario, a three-meter rise in sea levels? Answer: About 1/3 of of south Hampton Roads slips under the waves. (Click on map to view a larger, more legible image.)
Not shown on the map: When Pat Robertson dies and there’s no one left to avert the hurricanes through prayer… Hurricane storm surges swallow up even more.
The map is a stark reminder that, after New Orleans, Hampton Roads is the major metropolitan area in the United States most vulnerable to a direct hit by a hurricane.
(The map appears on page 17 of a presentation, “Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay,” by James E. Bauer, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, to the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change.)
A couple of caveats: This graphic shows what will be covered at high tide under a full moon. And it assumes that sea levels rise three meters. The Governor’s Commission has stated previously that sea levels are expected to rise about three feet by the end of the century. On the other hand, combine a three-fee rise in sea levels with a six-foot hurricane storm surge (hurricane storm tides can raise water levels 15 feet or more), and you’ve got the scenario displayed in the map.
This, it strikes me, is the No. 1 issue that the Climate Change Commission needs to grapple with. If sea levels rise, as many fear they will, the impact will be catastrophic for billions of dollars of development in Hampton Roads. As a believer in free markets, I think people should be free to build where they want, no matter how short-sighted and stupid their decision. But I will get up in arms if, after their stupidity is made manifest, they come whining to the government for relief.
Three key points regarding public policy:
First, Virginia needs to ensure that insurance companies are allowed to charge flood insurance rates commensurate with the risks of building in flood-prone coastal areas. Further, if a hurricane hits and homeowners are underinsured, legislators should not rescue them from their folly by forcing insurance companies to pay for flood damage homeowners never insured for, as some politicians tried to do in Mississippi after hurricane Katrina. Virginia needs to send a message of unmistakable clarity: If you choose to live in coastal areas vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges, you’re on your own!
Question: Is anyone from the insurance industry scheduled to address the commission?
Second, Virginia and Hampton Roads municipalities need to consider very carefully where they are willing to build public infrastructure. While citizens should be free to make stupid, short-sighted decisions on their own nickel, the saner segment of the electorate should insist that governments take a longer-term view.
The Virginia Department of Transportation needs to review all of its plans for road and highway improvements in affected areas and ascertain the likelihood that they could be submerged by rising sea levels. If the roads are at risk, do not build them! Municipalities need to review plans for water/sewer lines, locally funded roads, and other public infrastructure. Developers need to be told: You can build there, but don’t expect us to pay for the infrastructure. You’re on your own.
Third, we learned from hurricane Katrina the critical importance of wetlands in buffering populated areas from storm surges. As part of this study, the Climate Change Commission needs to explore the condition of Virginia wetlands and what, as a practical matter, can be done to preserve them.
