Opinion: ‘Ike Dike’ sets wrong precedent. We’ll all end up paying for someone else’s beach house.
A video of a North Carolina beach house being dismembered by a voracious ocean was a viral hit this spring. But it won’t be long before the novelty wears off. As sea level rises and storm surges grow more intense, beach towns on every coast of the United States will soon be sacrificing more real estate to Poseidon. A 2018 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that more than 300,000 coastal homes, currently worth well over $100 billion, are at risk of ‘chronic inundation’ by 2045.
The matter of large swaths of deluxe real estate erected in harm’s way is not new.
