Something about this just isn’t right

Even though we get enough of them that they should be no big deal, big storms in the Boston area are always big news. And you can be guaranteed that each big storm will have a reported on the beach in Plum Island on the North Shore, and Scituate on the South Shore. That’s because every big storm is pretty much guaranteed to completely wipe out at least one home on Plum Island, and partially crush at least one home in Scituate.

I do feel bad for the folks that live in either of these places, or in any of the other storm-battered shoreline communities of Massachusetts. Many of the waterfront homes have been there forever, many in the same family for all that time. Tough to see your cottage floating out to sea: all those mildewed cushions that Great-Great Aunt Ethel made in 1922, the tennis trophy your father won in 1947, the bathroom papered with New Yorker covers from the 1960’s, all those mismatched Melmac plates.

Of course, many of those beachfront “cottages” have swanked up over time. So when one of them tumbles into the drink, it’s a lot more expensive to replace. But, what the heck, that’s apparently what taxpayers are for.

Case in point, a place in Scituate that started out life as a humble cottage, but, over time turned into a 4-bed, 3.5 bath sprawler. This house was last sold for $1M in 2007, which is pretty much the same amount it’s valued at on Zillow. Which may just be Zillow being Zillow. Or it may be that it would be tough to sell, given that it’s been storm damaged “at least 10 times.” For its troubles, owners over time have gotten $1M in subsidized insurance payouts and grants – a cool (or wet) million that helped the owners turn the modest cottage into this:

Twelve years ago, the house was – with the help of a $40,000 federal grant – raised up 3 feet. Now it’s going up another 5 feet, thanks to another grant, this one to the tune of $180K. Raising the structure makes sense. Let the water flow under, rather than over and through it. Most of the towns in vulnerable areas like these have new construction laws that regulate how high a structure has to be, and you see all kinds of new builds on stilts.

But here’s the question: If a house is a repeat offender, and is in a vulnerable area, why should taxpayers be on the hook for raising and/rebuilding?

I can definitely see it for the first instance of the destruction of a home that’s been there from before we knew as much as we do now about weather and climate effects. Maybe even some help the second time around. But there will get to the point in some locations where it’s going to happen over and over and over.

Yes, I understand that folks who live in these locations do pay really high flood insurance rates. But I’d say a place in Scituate that’s had a string of major damage incidents is the kind of place that we the people might want to give up on when it comes to throwing good taxpayer money after bad. There’s got to be a point – three strikes you’re out? ten strikes you’re out? – when it’s time to let someone who wants to stay put foot the bill on their own.

“This is a repeated mistake,” said Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations for Mass Audubon, an advocacy group calling for better management of coastal resources in light of global warming. “The way the federal flood insurance is administered now, there is a threat to public safety, a threat to public tax dollars and a threat to the environment by rebuilding in these vulnerable places. (Source: Boston Globe)

As the seas warm and the water levels rise, the storms are going to get worse and beaches are going to erode regularly. Chalk it up to man-made climate change, or just what happens over time, but yesterday’s waterfront is tomorrow’s underwater. We joke that Worcester (50 miles inland) will someday be on the ocean. And there’s some grim truth to it.

I live on land reclaimed from the ocean, and half of my unit is below sea level, so I’m probably just a Hurricane Sandy from being able to launch a rowboat in my den.

And I sure hope that someone’s there to rescue me if and when the time comes.

But if I found myself flooded out repeatedly, after a couple of rounds, I’d expect someone to tell me I was on my own.

There’s something not quite right about taxpayer money going to help rebuild or raise up a home that’s been at the trough so many times. Maybe time to up stakes in Scituate. Lots of nice lakes out Worcester way.