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Regarding "The Next Hurricane, and the Next ..." (editorial, Aug. 24):
Referring to beachfront homes, you write, "Reconfiguring could mean raising the house on pylons above the high water level." This is not a solution to home destruction.
On a gently sloping Long Island beach, a sea-level rise of one foot leads to an inland movement of the shoreline of several hundred feet. This is a geometric reality.
Estimates of sea-level rise in this century are from one to three feet. As the oceanfront recedes by storm erosion in a rising sea level, elevated homes will eventually be destroyed, as they now occupy the surf zone.
Coastal experts call this scenario "barrier rollover." Sequential aerial photography on many shorelines shows the destruction of row after row of oceanfront houses each decade.
You cannot build fixed structures on a moving shoreline. The only realistic answer is to limit development in the vulnerable areas using restrictive zoning or government buyouts of threatened properties. The only alternative is for inland taxpayers to repeatedly pay for our failed coastal management policies.
NICHOLAS K. COCH
Flushing, Queens, Aug. 24, 2013
The writer is a professor of coastal geology at Queens College, CUNY.
To the Editor:
You correctly identify a critical component of the federal government's report on the lessons from Hurricane Sandy: the need to adopt new standards rather than simply rebuild. Left out of this vital discussion is the effect of natural disasters on inadequately protected businesses.
The Labor Department estimates that 40 percent of businesses never reopen after experiencing a natural disaster. Businesses need to take a hard look at where their facilities are to assess whether the ones in disaster-prone areas even need to be there as well as determining the risks of new construction in harm's way.
For those facilities that must stay where they are, the time to begin the process of enhanced protection is now. The surest foundation of resilient communities is resilient businesses that can reopen quickly or, even better, never have to close.
JONATHAN W. HALL
Johnston, R.I., Aug. 27, 2013
The writer is executive vice president of FM Global, a commercial property insurance company.
To the Editor:
Your editorial about the report from the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force hit the nail on the head: better preparation for increasingly stronger hurricanes and other climate-change-related events must include risk-based flood insurance rates, flood maps that reflect increasing hazards and improved building codes.
For too long, government policies, including ill-advised, state-run insurance schemes, have encouraged development on beachfront property regularly devastated by weather-related incidents, leaving taxpayers on the hook when disaster strikes.
The task force report gives us hope that these reckless policies will finally be revised in favor of a smarter, safer approach: lining the coast with flood barriers and other low-impact structures where necessary and finally accounting for the true risk of hurricanes.
Without these common-sense measures, we will all continue to pay the price when the next hurricane hits.
STEVE ELLIS
JOSHUA SAKS
Washington, Aug. 26, 2013
The writers are, respectively, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense and legislative director for the National Wildlife Federation.
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