While the other chapters of City at the Water’s Edge focused primarily on the history of colonial settlement and its effects on the ecology of New York City, this chapter discussed some of the future ramifications of current environmental practices, and it was only fitting that it was the last chapter. Aside from the centuries-old anecdotes about dams in the Netherlands being built to ward off flooding from the North Sea, many of the storms that were mentioned to have affected our area were from around the 1900s to the present-day. Interestingly, this book was published in 2007, two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, so Hurricane Ike (2008), Hurricane Irene (2011), and Hurricane Sandy (2012) were all never mentioned. All four are within the top ten costliest Atlantic hurricanes in history, and it is worth noting that they have all occurred with the past decade.
Winds, flooding, and even tornadoes were common with these storms, but as described in the chapter, the most catastrophic meteorological event associated with them was their storm surges. Their magnitudes may have been exacerbated by factors out of our reach, such as weather patterns, tides, and celestial events, but our constant reshaping of the coast definitely played a role. Rather than let the motion of the water naturally carry sand and silt and form inlets, we have decided to build expensive development projects and extend the coastline to dangerous distances, and then wonder why the price tags of these storms is so expensive. Besides economic profit generated from tourism, this is also done because we believe that the pre-existing shape of the land will not shield us from flooding, but in reality, we are not helping.
Specifically regarding the West Hampton Dunes, McCully quotes Cornelia Dean, who states that, “When the groins made the problem even worse, they turned to federal, state, and local governments – that is, to the taxpayers. The taxpayers, in turn, find themselves committed to spending tens of millions of dollars to protect the property of people who, in many cases, had every reason to know that they were building or buying in an unsafe place” (McCully 154). In other words, we are just digging ourselves deeper into a seemingly never-ending cycle by continuing to construct condominiums, boardwalks, public areas, and the like by coastlines knowing full well that we are highly susceptible to nor’easters, hurricanes, and other powerful storms. It is undeniable that beaches and the bays and oceans that they are located on are beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. However, selfishness has led us to want to live right next to them instead of having to travel, and we are slowly but surely paying the price for disrupting the ebbs and flows of nature.
