I have to wonder about that solid wall of ugly condos on the outer of two barrier islands, Cocoa Beach in Florida. Apparently they've dredged offshore and dumped sand on the beach, but how long are they going to be able to do that before the glitzy lobbies, function rooms, swimming pools and gyms on the first floors of those high rises flood? Are they going to try to keep people living on the upper floors with water taxi service to the mainland? Those things are on pilings sunk down to solid rock, so they'll probably be sound until the first category 5 hurricane hits.

Megacities like NYC will be partially saved. People who bought retirement places on barrier islands will be completely out of luck.

My guess is that they'll be abandon before the sea reclaims most of them. There might be enough elevation in the outer banks to keep portions of them above sea level not withstanding the efforts of the locals. What will be a problem is the connector bridges. The landward sides are lower in elevation than the islands themselves. As sea level rises the back swamps will flood quickly and the bridges and infrastructure that connects the islands will have to cross longer and longer distances across the back bay. At some point the connections will be abandon and the islands will become more isolated. Once the tourists can't reach the islands via a bridge then the island's "life blood" will be severed and their future will become doubtful.

Thanks for the thread, octoberlib.

I was gonna say, "Let em sink under the weight of their gold."

Some very valuable pieces of property are soon going to lose their entire value.

during the late 60's and early 70's and you could see the erosion working. A beautiful place, primitive and undeveloped at that time. But even then at a visitor center they were showing the vulnerability of the Outer Banks and how in time it would disappear.

The famous Hatteras Lighthouse was under the gun then with the sea endangering its base. Originally built 1,500 from the sea in 1870, the waves were at it base at times during high tides and storms. Then they moved it via tracks back from its original location another 2,500 feet.


http://www.nps.gov/caha/historyculture/movingthelighthouse.htm

Glad I didn't buy that lot at Kitty Hawk .

We were one house off the beach with an ocean front view. When standing on the porch or looking out the living room windows you could see the next 6 houses in a row were all condemed or were to be torn down. Storm damage from 2 years ago did them in, but they were still standing. We watched a 3-4 man construction crew work for two weeks rebuilding a porch, two staircases, a raised A/C platform and probably some interior work all designed to get the home ready for sale in the following spring. There may be one other home in that group of six that could be salvaged, but I sure would not want one of them. Our beach was next to nothing, at hide tide the surfline was flush up against the sand dunes. Other portions of Nags Head has descent beach front, we stayed at a different rental unit last year and had a good 75-100ft of shoreline above high tide before storm actions would hit the sand dunes. But this years' rental was slap dab in storm damage zone. The OBX is fading away. As kids, both my wife and I spent time at OBX and the beaches were wide and clean. Not anymore. Lots of trash washing ashore, beachfront erosion, construction up and down the islands plus moving Hatteress Lighthouse so the sea will not claim the light....lots of changes at OBX and still it's about a billion times better than anything Myrtle Beach in SC has to offer or even the Wilmington ares of NC....