Fanceenan said:
I agree with ShallowsNole and Sarawind! I am a gulf front owner at Blue Mtn Beach. We bought our place 20 years ago and did not dream it could fall into the ocean! We had probably 40 feet or so of sanddunes in front of us. I am a retired teacher and my husband is a state employee. We are not rich. I am pleased they have increased quality of the sand at BMB and elsewhere, but you folks really do offend me with your " they got what they deserved attitude". We followed the rules at the time. We did not build illegally; we have worked hard to keep our place. All the other hurricanes, including Opal, did not affect us like this one has! Remember, not all gulf front owners are millionaires! I want a beautiful beach too. Isn't there some way to improve the beaches and NOT have us fall into the ocean! I really enjoy reading and keeping up with the news on this site! This time is difficult enough for us, without having people gloating and saying we got what we deserved! We did not deserve this!!!
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I don't think anyone is gloating over what you are going through. I am sure this is a difficult and stressful time and I feel for you, as do the vast majority of us here.
The issue here is planning. If anyone is pooh-poohed or disregarded it is coastal experts, who as noted in other threads are generally academics and often not listened to because they are too negative. Well, the truth hurts. I'm not saying I have all the answers, and who knows what my opinion would have been 10 years ago, but structures that were approved and followed the county rules precisely still may not really belong there in the first place. The problem is it is so, so hard to take "the long view" when nobody can really project what will happen 10 or 50 years in the future. There is easy money to be made, by both developers and county and state governments, and there is a market for the product. Who wouldn't want to look out their back windows and see beautiful emerald waters and sugar white sand? So the development itself was inevitable. But as someone posted earlier in this thread, Mother Nature doesn't even know your house is there. (Great line, btw.)
Interesting -- I read a study online at the DEP's site about coastal erosion in Walton County. It was dated 2000, well before the development was rampant and the density increased dramatically. There was nothing in it to suggest that dramatic erosion was expected, unless a major storm came in (a la Opal) and ate away at the dunes. Which is obviously what has happened.
My question is, how will the increased density affect Mother Nature's natural ability to eventually restore the beaches? Has it gotten so we have no choice but to keep scraping and dredging? Beyond the need to help the homeowners who have gotten into this predicament, where do we go from here? Time to call in the academics...
