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I just read an interesting article in the local paper, the Sun Sentinel, where it looks like the cost of housing is going to go through the roof in this area that's already rated as the third most expensive area in the U.S. to live in, in regard to what the average worker here pays out of their monthly income for housing.
Because the rivers and the canals off the rivers are connected to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Intracoastal Waterway, sea level rise on the Atlantic is causing the level in the rivers and thus the canals to also rise during high tides as ocean water flows into the rivers and causes them to flow backwards into the canals, which has been creating some flooding over the current seawalls during high tides.
The article stated that the City of Fort Lauderdale is working on requiring that all the seawalls on the rivers and canals be raised by two feet, which would cost the average home owner about $120,000 as the homeowners are responsible for the seawalls as they are on private property and were built privately.
Some of the seawalls on the rivers and canals were built over 70 years ago with the knowledge that they would hold up well for about 30 years so the expiration date on many of the seawalls is now over 40 years past that date.
Considering the number of hurricanes that have caused flooding and major structural damage to homes and businesses in other areas of Florida since hurricanes first started being charted, the Fort Lauderdale area has been lucky so far to have not been hit by a major hurricane such as Maria that devastated Puerto Rico, or Katrina that flooded large areas of New Orleans and knocked out the electricity during high temperatures and humidity or Andrew that hit south of Miami and ripped through and tore apart parts of the Homestead area and caused flooding there or Irma whose storm surge and winds destroyed homes and businesses in the middle and lower Keys.
The raising of the seawalls would be required of anyone who owns property on water as all the seawalls have to be raised as water could easily flow over a section of the seawall that wasn't raised and flood the areas next to the property that didn't raise their seawall.
There's also the issue with iguanas tunneling into the seawalls which weakens the seawalls but since iguanas are here to stay unless a major disease or long periods of unusually cold weather, which we don't see here anymore due to Global Warming, wipes them out, the only way to keep their numbers under control on your property is to pay a pest control company to remove them unless you know how to catch them yourself without being slashed by their tails but of course, other iguanas can just move onto your property from neighbors who can't afford to have them removed from their property.
It looks to me when considering the high cost of living here that's inevitably going to keep going up as more protections against sea level rise are going to be put in place as the sea level goes higher and higher, that this area will eventually go back to the way it once was with mostly wealthy people from other places with cold winter climates using the area as a winter home spot, except in a high rise instead of in a house to avoid rising sea levels, along with the exception that instead of native born Americans being the norm here as service industry workers as it once was, the working class population here will consist of mostly unskilled immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean which has put a lot of stain on service industry workers who only speak English as so many companies here are starting to require that new service industry workers be fluent in Spanish in order to provide good service to the large increase in number in recent years of residents in this area who have refrained from learning English and who consider living in homes with large numbers of extended family members more the norm than the exception, which of course helps them to afford the rising costs of housing here.
There was never any government foresight to provide for affordable housing for working people when wages were steadily on the rise and working people had more buying power than they do now in this area and the land values have gone up so much with so much immigration into this area from Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years, along with a sizable wealthy retired older Gay population, there is not much undeveloped land available for local governments to attempt to build affordable housing for workers here as property taxes have to be raised as they were in Miami Beach to try to protect the streets from flooding due to rising sea levels.
Most working people here would not consider the new high rise and mid rise residential buildings built in the past few years and still going up north of downtown to be affordable and it seems that those who live in them don't have much of a disposable income to spend on luxuries such as dining out as some of the restaurants that opened up on the first floor of one fairly new complex on Federal Highway have already closed down.
Since there's no parking to speak of for affluent people who live outside of that area to utilize to frequent new businesses in that area, it seems any new business in that area is highly dependent on the residents of all those residential buildings where the rents are way beyond what the average worker here can afford.
Last edited by HotandHumid; 04-16-2019 at 05:06 PM..
I agree that's the conservative estimate of time before Miami starts to turn into an island from rising sea levels but nobody much talks or writes about the Fort Lauderdale area, I guess because it's not a major city like Miami and doesn't have the tourism Miami Beach does, nor is there so much money invested here as there is in Miami and Miami Beach.
According to National Geographic Magazine, several scientific communities from around the world are keeping a close eye on an area of Antarctica where a large crack has been forming in a section of the ice shelf that melting water is seeping down into.
The ice shelf with the crack forming in it sits in a bowl shaped area of land where a large land ridge holds it in place back from the ocean but if global temperatures keep going up and the rate of melting increases, the increase in water melting and traveling down under the ice shelf will cause the shelf to rise like an ice cube floating to the top of a drink and could create a worst case scenario where the shelf rising along the ridge could cause the ridge to start to break up at the narrow areas near the top which would allow the ice shelf to crash through to the ocean where it will melt pretty quickly and cause a dramatic increase in sea levels around the world due to the huge amount of ice in the shelf.
The other scenario, the one most scientists are hoping for, is that the land ridge holds against the weight of the ice shelf as it slides upward along the ridge being pushed by the melted ice water under it in order that the ridge holds the shelf from going into the ocean while the leaders of other counties of the developed world that aren't in the hands of the oil companies, can work together to lower carbon emissions and somehow try to start cleaning the excess carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere to lower temperatures in Antarctica to try to keep the shelf in place by not having the current higher summer temperatures in Antarctica that is causing so much ice to melt.
If the ice in the shelf keeps melting into the crack in the ice shelf at an accelerated rate before it can be refrozen by the ice remaining in the the ice shelf during warming summer temperatures, the water forming under the shelf will eventually raise that section of the ice shelf next to the land ridge above the land ridge and that whole section of the ice shelf on the side of the crack next to the land ridge will fall quickly into the ocean and the melting of it in the ocean will cause most of the coastal cities around the world to be covered by sea water much sooner than expected, which of course also includes Fort Lauderdale.
I always wonder what other people here are doing to try to lessen Global Warming as I've seen so much of an increase in the motor vehicle traffic here in just a few short years as I try my best to work to keep this area of Florida from going under the sea.
I ride a bicycle almost everywhere so I don't burn up hardly any fossil fuels for transportation purposes.
If I have to use a rental vehicle, I plan out everywhere I need to go with it in a route in a circle to keep fuel use down instead of zig zagging all over the place.
I recycle plastic, glass and metal containers for beverages, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc. and I recycle paper packaging, etc., and most of the things I have in my home are vintage so fossil fuels weren't burned recently that create carbon dioxide that contributes to Global Warming. I try to buy as many of the new products that I need that are made in the U.S. since I don't see the sense in burning up all that fossil fuel and putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to cargo things here from overseas countries when most of the things now in stores used to be made here in the U.S. and still could be made here in the U.S. where the fuel expenditure to bring it from the factories to the stores would be way less than bringing it into the U.S. from places like China and it would be nice to if some companies made some things in Fort Lauderdale to create better paying jobs here.
It seems very strange to me that if American corporations really wanted to do their part to keep places like Fort Lauderdale from going underwater, along with most of our major coastal cities in Florida and the U.S., the least they could do if they feel they have to take advantage of cheap labor in foreign countries to remain competitive is to do so in places like Mexico and other poor parts of Latin America and the Caribbean that are way closer to the U.S. than places like China so that so much fuel doesn't have to be burned to cargo products here and then perhaps people could stay in their homelands where they can find jobs instead of risking life and limb and separation from their children by illegally coming into the U.S. to find unskilled and low skill work such as landscaping, home cleaning, etc., that results in legal immigrants who don't speak Spanish and people born here in the area who do unskilled and low skill work being forced out of their jobs or not being able to take certain jobs because they can't afford to work at the low wages illegal immigrants do or they don't speak the language of the illegal immigrants who have moved here in such large numbers, Americans and non-Spanish speaking legal immigrants are being told they need to learn to speak Spanish in order to compete for jobs here.
My uncle built a new house in Harbor Beach in 2004. The driveway was literally a ski slope up to the garage, building it as high as possible on the lot (to prevent flooding in the future). He lived there for 10 years, paid 100K+ a year in taxes, 40K a year in insurance and about 7K a month in utilities. House was a money pit but a rockstar house. He died in 2016 shortly after selling this magnificent house.
Moral of the story, despite the best plans the house outlived him so to worry about catastrophic flooding 50+ years from now is a moot point for most adults as they probably won't be alive to see it. A friend just signed a contract on a 20+ mm house in Ft lauderdale. At his age he won't see any flooding either! Remember, you got to get busy livin' or get busy dyin!
600 amp service (most regular homes have 150-200 amps).
10 a/c units, 2000 gallon fish tank (big enough to swim in) which had a chiller/2 pumps running 24/7, 7 pool pumps between the 2 pools/rock waterfalls. The 75 ft motoryacht was plugged in to keep the a/c running on that (hot boats = mold).
Crazy part: Guy drove a 20 year old Mercedes that wasn't worth $10,000! He looked at cars as utility items.
600 amp service (most regular homes have 150-200 amps).
10 a/c units, 2000 gallon fish tank (big enough to swim in) which had a chiller/2 pumps running 24/7, 7 pool pumps between the 2 pools/rock waterfalls. The 75 ft motoryacht was plugged in to keep the a/c running on that (hot boats = mold).
Crazy part: Guy drove a 20 year old Mercedes that wasn't worth $10,000! He looked at cars as utility items.
If he can afford it. Bravo!
We run a decent electric bill on 400 amp service and it's not barely a fraction of that, lol. We hit around $650 in the summer.
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If Antarctica Holds onto It's Ice Shelfs
