The federal government has drastically changed its storm protection plan for the Jersey Shore, according to the Associated Press. However, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has acknowledged the new plan would be less effective in protecting communities from another major storm.
What's happening?
After Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the Jersey Shore spent years recovering and rebuilding. Now, a revised protection plan has been released for keeping residents safe.
Per the AP, the federal government has dropped plans to install huge gates at the mouths of three inlets and internal waterway barriers, both of which would have protected the shore's back bays from the type of severe flooding that devastated the region during Sandy.
The revised plan pushes for "elevating thousands of homes, hardening police and fire stations, hospitals and critical infrastructure, and restoring salt marshes to act as natural sponges capable of absorbing floodwaters during severe storms," per the AP.
While the change limits the protection of the shoreline, it cuts the protection plan's cost down from $16 billion to $7.6 billion.
Experts speculated the price of the initial protection plan was the main factor for its revision.
"The overwhelming cost probably had a lot to do with it," executive director of the American Littoral Society Tim Dillingham told the AP. "There's a growing awareness on the part of local officials that the maintenance of these projects falls to them. Maintaining miles of dikes and thousands of feet of gates is very expensive."
Why is the revised protection plan important?
The revised plan underscores the difficulties in protecting communities from extreme weather. Numerous factors, including costs and environmental consequences, must be considered when developing protection strategies.
While extreme weather events have always been a part of Earth's history, the use of dirty energy has made storms more powerful and frequent, making areas such as the Jersey Shore more vulnerable. Superstorm Sandy cost the U.S. $88.5 billion in damages, making it the fifth-costliest hurricane in the country's history, per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information.
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Definitely 🥰 What's being done about extreme weather along the Jersey Shore?
While the AP noted the original storm gates protection plan would have been the "most ambitious and costly efforts any U.S. state has yet taken to address back bay flooding," there were also some downsides to it. Outside of cost, the barriers could have posed a threat to fish and wildlife, as they would have disrupted water circulation in bays.
Moving forward, the new plan still offers the Jersey Shore some form of protection along its coastline.
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