[...]
He says peoples' attitudes here are different now -- like, whether the climate is really changing. "Man, like overnight they went from 'Hell no' to 'Hell yes.' That is the surprise that I saw, that all these people who used to give me a lot of grief about sea level rise and climate change, are now asking me what they can do."
[...]
For people living in Sandy's wreckage, it's a real dilemma. People really don't know what to do. Rebuilding will cost a lot. Some want to; others want to leave. Property values are rock bottom now along the shore. People are in a daze. "They're completely freaked out," Weltner says. "Nobody seems to have a real good grip on what to do and how to fix this because people think it's going to happen again. Should they rebuild? But they don't have any other place to go."
This is where science should have answers, like, what's the best way to prepare for the next one? At least, that's the view of Jamie Austin, the senior member of the Texas team.
"We need to show society they can use science to help them prepare for what inevitably will be the next cataclysm," Austin says while thawing out in a motel room after a cold day on the water.
Austin says teams like this one -- he calls it a "Rapid Response" approach to science -- need to parachute in after big storms to figure out what happened. They have to move fast to gather the evidence, to do the "storm forensics" before the evidence washes somewhere else. But no matter what they find, Austin says, people along the shore should be prepared for bad news. "The notion that the coast is a constant is a lie," he says emphatically. "It's a myth. This coastline is the front line. It's the battleground."
Sand After Sandy: Scientists Map Seafloor For Sediment
by Christopher Joyce, npr.org -- January 29, 2013
Listen to this interesting sciency story from NPR -- HERE.
Let's hope they don't "flip the switch" OFF, as easily as it's been suddenly flipped ON.
Were a smart bunch here. Maybe we can give them some "rebuilding advice" eh?
... I was thinking, if they must rebuild on the same lot (due to financial constraints), that putting their new home "on stilts" -- couldn't hurt.
Then again those future storm surges, probably won't be getting any weaker either, the way the Extreme Weather events have been going the last decade or so.
They might need some pretty TALL Stilts in the long run ... "It's a battleground, at the coastline" afterall.