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Growth Collides With Rising Seas in Charleston 50

Posted by msmash from the selective-protection-services dept.
Charleston's planned $1.3 billion sea wall will protect the city's historic downtown peninsula while leaving lower-income neighborhoods like Rosemont exposed to rising waters. The eight-mile barrier, with Charleston contributing $455 million, excludes historically Black communities already experiencing regular flooding.

Meanwhile, developers have received approval for thousands of new homes in flood-prone areas, including Long Savannah's 4,500 units and Cainhoy's 9,000-home development on filled wetlands. Charleston's sea level rose 13 inches over the past century and faces another four-foot rise by 2100. Climate Central projects 8,000 residents and 4,700 homes will face annual flooding risk by 2050. The Bridge Pointe neighborhood already underwent FEMA buyouts after successive floods, while coastal South Carolina zip codes report among the nation's highest insurance non-renewal rates.
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Growth Collides With Rising Seas in Charleston More

Growth Collides With Rising Seas in Charleston

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  • Any financial institution issuing a mortgage on properties not protected by the sea wall need to be prosecuted for blatant misuse of their shareholders' money. Given that, no new properties should be being built that are in danger.

    Beyond that: we face a major issue which nobody is facing up to...

    • that's kind of the pickle the poor neighborhoods are in. Their house really isn't worth much because when they sell, the new people won't be able to get insuance. Building a seawall around those neighborhoods that are uninsurable give mixed signals. A no win situation all around.
      As far as the new development is concerned, the city is probably more interested in revenue today then worrying about tomorrow's problem.

    • It's hard for us to sit here and judge the risk of each development given future plans. It could work out so long as insurance is allowed to do its thing, and price in the risk. This could result in spending extra to build structures resistant to flooding, or could result in building only cheaper smaller structures with unconventionally high insurance rates with the expectation of rebuilding them periodically. Where it goes off the rails is if voters move in and then start complaining that insurance is no

      • Where fire insurance has been underwritten by the state for some time.

      • Responsible governmental spending would be better directed at buying out the houses in flood prone areas and building more in safer locations. Thats what works well in the midwest with flood prone rivers, that had dump developers build next to. This is on a whole different scale though... At least Miami is more just, the areas near the ocean are the expensive ones, and those higher up and farther away were historically poorer areas.

      • Or, gasp, abandoning non-viable coastal cities.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hadlock ( 143607 )

          This is the correct take; coastal cities from georgia to virginia largely exist due to inertia at this point; they aren't growing, and if they are it's largely due to people fleeing rural areas, or HCOL situations. The central/south coast is largely unproductive which is one of the reasons it's so easy to buy huge plots of land for cheap and fill factories there with labor. That entire coastline is low-lying swamp already, anyone who visits the area understands the long term trajectory of the region. Land o

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by IMNTPC ( 45205 )

            Ok, just checked, Charleston has grown 15-25% per decade for the past 45 years. Wilmington, NC has had 3 25% growth decades in the past 45 years but has slowed recently. So the statement that that the cities aren't growing isn't "entirely" true. But I can also remember my grandparents being like "who would want to invest money down there" because they had a lot more "common sense" attitude. i.e. Folks had a place at the beach back then, but it was like a Cinder Block Building, or a 2nd hand mobile hom

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by JoshZK ( 9527547 )
      It's interesting as most mortgages require that the house be insured. And in flood-prone areas, they would want more. It seems that banks will ultimately not give out mortgages because they are likely to lose money. So developers would stop building houses that people cannot get mortgages to buy. The problem should correct itself, but someone is doing something shady. Wierd right?
    • So long as it can be insured, why would they care? The bank/lender won't give you a mortgage if the property can't be insured.
    • At some point, we need to stop giving people money to keep rebuilding on locations that are going to keep getting wiped out too. Mortgage lenders all require property be insured to cover their interests. What insurance companies are insuring these soon to be underwater properties?
  • Half that is the land sinking yet they continue to build more.

  • Did Climate Central grind out their flooding projections on a Beowulf cluster or something?

    • "As man-made climate change causes sea-levels to rise, wealthy build seawall to protect themselves while leaving poor to drown outside" is about as cyberpunk as it gets. Do nerds not do cyberpunk anymore, now that we're living it?

      • > username checks the fuck out

        Can't see the forest for the trees, or, more accurately for [$CURRENT YEAR], the fire for the flames I guess.

  • WHy? (Score:2, Troll)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 )

    Why are they building a sea wall? What makes them think climate change is real?

    If it's not real, as the governor keeps saying, then no sea wall is needed. If climate change is real, then everyone should get one.

    You can't have it both ways. Unless you're being deliberately racist.

  • Anticipated Sea Level Rise (Score:3)

    by irchans ( 527097 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @10:09AM (#65650636)
    The article states "Charleston's sea level rose 13 inches over the past century and faces another four-foot rise by 2100." The current rate of sea level increase is about 4.62 mm (0.182 in)/yr [wikipedia.org] based on satellite data. If sea levels continues to rise at that rate, the total rise by 2100 would be 0.35 meters (13 inches), but the rate has been increasing so we should expect more than 0.35 meters. The IPCC has predicted a global sea level rise between 0.38 meters to 0.77 meters (1.24 to 2.53 feet). (See IPCC Report [www.ipcc.ch].) If some time in the future, the Antarctic ice cap melts, that would cause a sea level rise of 58 meters. The melted ice from Greenland would add another 7 meters. (See antarcticglaciers.org [antarcticglaciers.org].)

    • 35 ft (10 m) of sea level rise could breach the sill that separates the Sea of Cortez from the Imperial and Coachella valleys. Hundreds of thousands of acres of highly fertile land would be submerged. It'd be like a mini-Mediterranean event.

    • Sea level rose by 5.9 mm [nasa.gov] last year. The number you quoted was the average for 2013-2022, which is already out of date. It's changing that fast.

      Sea level rise also varies by location. The east and gulf coasts of the US are one of the places where it's rising much faster than average. If the average global sea level rises by 2.5 feet, that would likely mean at least four feet in the southeast, consistent with what the article says. And the IPCC report is itself already considered out of date, with curren

  • We all know this 'climate change' is a hoax.

    They should save a ton of money and do this stupid wall for just the poors. (The rich know this is just another socialist plot to steal the their money.)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Why don't deniers buy up all the East Coast properties that are at a discount due to sea rise predications? If sea rise is a hoax, you'll be bigly rich!

  • Just to be clear: this is an area affected by severe subsidence.

  • Exposed to sea level rise? OHMYGOSH! CLIMATE CHANGE!

    Actually, no. https://www.wsoctv.com/news/lo... [wsoctv.com]

    "...Charleston is one of the fastest sinking cities in the country, with an average rate of around 4 millimeters a year or an inch every six to seven years...."
    That's a subsidence of 15" a century, compared to PERHAPS a foot of sea level rise in that span.

    Yet....somehow this only gets faintly mentioned then discarded mid article. It's all about sea level rise. The Guardian: "...Driven largely by sea level

    • My feeling too. But do we really expect that journalists care about facts? One of the reasons why 'there are more flooding disasters' too is that due to population growth houses are being built in bad places, and often on bad ground. Here's a non flooding example: When I lived in a big metro area in Colorado a big deal was house damage due to bentonite in the ground, if the construction did not properly mitigate it. That was because non bentonite land in the metro area was pretty much already developed.
    • You quoted the article you cited but didn't include here that it agreed with the Guardian's take on sea level rise? Right after the "faintly mentioned" it says:

      “Sea level rise is going to make that even worse going forward,” he said. Charleston has experienced 13 inches of sea level rise in the past 100 years and Morris said the city expects the water to rise another foot by 2050. With large portions of the peninsula less than eight feet below sea level, every inch counts. “We have this really complex challenge of how do we stay here,” he said.

      Unless I'm missing something, be better! Maybe you should take your own advice.

  • "Rich white people love building on coastlines. Blacks hardest hit."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )

      Ha! Same thing I thought. The reality, whether you're talking New Orleans or anyplace else is -- the money gets spent to repair and protect the areas that bring in the most continued wealth. Racism has nothing to do with this.

      If you have an area that's full of tourist traffic or that continually draws in the super-wealthy for amenities like the great golf courses or waterfront or ?? You've got an area that generates enough revenue, it cost-justifies having to rebuild there occasionally when natural disaster

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