floods and FLOODS

an Annapolis warning

Many of you may wonder why I write fairly often about extreme weather which I find a more appropriate term than the non-descriptive “climate change”. My husband and I live in a place where your tax dollars, if you pay them, are at work to address the threat daily so I see the effects every time I look out the window.

Today is pretty average on Spa Creek where the docks stand well above the flow. Tides often bring water to the bottom of the docks but the full submersions are less common.

This scene above at about 0600 this morning belies what this first capital of the United States of America, between 1783 and 1784, confronted yesterday with Hurricane Debby’s prolonged visit. The view above is Spa Creek, a small waterway extending about two miles inland before it joins the Severn River at the Naval Academy grounds (most of which are landfill, by the way) before the waters flow southeasterly towards the Chesapeake Bay south of Greenbury Point. In short, the reason the world’s sailing capital, as the town fancies itself, has all those sailboats is we have all that water.

The heart of the town of 40,000 is City Dock, a boardwalk that surrounds Ego Alley, a finger of water where wealthy boat owners ostentatiously bring their boats to moor. Along the eastern side of Alley are a number of births along with a launching area for the Watermark boats one can take to tour the environs or sail to St. Michael’s, a quaint town on the Eastern Shore; across the parking lot on the east side are half a dozen restuarants, bars, and tourista shops. Moving to the narrow end of this finger is a wee bricked area where a statue in honor of a hometown lad, Arthur Haley who penned Roots decades ago, brings in children and visitors. Finally the western edge of the Alley contains a couple of restaurants, asphalt parking lots, John McCain’s supposedly favorite restaurant and bar (Pusser’s which is sadly closing later this year to make way for a steak house), and a hotel. In short, it’s a compact area where the water manages to make itself known but is surrounded by man made creations. The water in Ego Alley is deep enough for sailboats and powerboats but certainly not anything huge. The streets and sidewalks surrounding this area are less than ten feet from Ego Alley’s water on a normal day but far too many days are no longer average.

Nine years ago the Union of Concerned Scientists did an article on encroaching waters are affecting the East Coast, highlighting Annapolis’s increase in flooding from roughly 50 floods yearly to perhaps “360 flood events” annually twenty years from now. That averages, of course, one daily; we may as well shut down the town center at that rate, undermining the commercial center of this tourist-dependent town.

Flooding reached 13 inches of water yesterday as a result of the storm. This is the second time since the turn of the year that this area, generally known as City Dock for historic reasons, suffered the dramatic effects of rising sea water overwhelming everything. The flood in January was the third worst in recorded history with a flood 5.1 feet above normal levels while yesterday’s floodwaters were slightly lower at 4.9 feet above average, ranking this disaster as ninth worst. Put another way by a spokesman in the Office of Emergency Management for Annapolis, this little town has now suffered two top ten flooding events in the same calendar year. I would add, of course, that today is the 10th of August rather than the 31st of December to allow for further damage if we had further storms.

Flooding in January resulted in one of the town’s iconic storefronts, formerly a hardware store that closed following an earlier water event, yet again shuttered as the barbecue restaurant located there for the past few years threw in the towel. Other stores underwent severe flooding with the local ice cream shop closed for clean up and repairs for roughly two months—time when the Storm family were deprived of their livelihood. Yesterday’s 13 inches were a bit more manageable but Mr. Storm noted he had sandbags and five pumps operating to protect his property, hardly an easy chore to coordinate.

The thing is the affected area of Annapolis received less than two inches of rain over the days prior to the flooding; we are not in Charleston, Savannah, or Wilmington, North Carolina where copious amounts fell. Our problems are more fundamental—and challenging—than hurricanes: rising sea levels often spill over into the streets of City Dock forcing a truly massive job if we are to protect the area against the all-too-frequent new trend, much less the truly life-threatening cases.

In an Actions newsletter several months ago, I discussed the massive, extended project the Academy, on behalf of all of us in the United States, must assume to save the grounds from the encroaching water. Why on our behalf? Because the Service academies have one role: to graduate a portion of the officer corps for this nation’s military branches into the future. Yes, Navy ROTC units at some prestigious institutions can certainly pick up the numbers, if the Academy stopped functioning, but your Navy is one long on tradition, much of it linked to graduates back to 1845 across town from me right now.

But, the work involved! It will take sharing up the grounds, the defenses against sub-basement leakages, and the seemingly never ending flooding eroding the stability. Creating the enhanced protection will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, money that could otherwise go elsewhere but is unequivocably required. It will have to be, because of the cost and the threatened area, a federally-funded project in conjunction with anyone and everyone else who can toss in a few sheckels.

The project to protect City Dock alone, much less the Academy grounds two blocks away, will cost $88 billion with experts already dubious this will make much of a long-term difference to the rising waters. Passive flood walls simply aren’t, in the eyes of specialists, likely to save the town’s center known to visitors and residents since 1649. And Annapolis is one small place inland from the Atlantic.

Here is video of the town’s streets yesterday. https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1498759.amp

Holland has had success against floods but I have to wonder how extreme weather affects that country’s defenses? Must check that out, I guess.

This is an exceptionally clear example of where a natural phenomenon spurred by human actions is creating incredibly expensive and evolving consequences. Wishing a different outcome won’t do much good, either of course. As some propose cutting government expenditures, it is impossible to see anything other than a sharp increase in public sector assistance to flooded areas overwhelmed by water and/or unable to get flood insurance. Extreme climate, it turns out, is expensively extreme climate.

At a time when so many in our country are trying to return to a simpler time with old rules, we in the Chesapeake are seeing a town truly steeped in history overwhelmed by the present at a frightening rate with no indication nature cares about our preferences, only our long term actions. Quite a case of actions creating unmitigated consequences, at least so far.

Thank you for taking time to consider this topic today—or any other. Thank you as a sporadic or daily reader, especially those who are subscribers. Please feel free to circulate this newsletter if you find it valuable.

Hurricane season in the hold days lasted until 31 October so we have a ways to go. Be well, be dry, and be safe. FIN

Jacob Baumgart, “Homes, Businesses Flood as Hurricane Debby Remnants Soak MD: See Photos”, annapolispatch.com, 9 August 2024, retrieved at https://patch.com/maryland/annapolis/tornado-watch-issued-flooding-underway-debby-rolls-md?user_email=1a56adafe15206994f3e0594d2467a0c705ed9d7492881e7ff850723f2ad46ad&user_email_md5=a9998aef516fcb8723731b43c4e618d8&lctg=61d1d8925b338e628e7f235c

Fox 5 DC, “People boat through streets of Annapolis“, fox5dc.com, 9 August 2024, retrieved at https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1498759.amp

Megan Loock, “Debby brings serious flooding to City Dock”, Capital Gazette, 10 August 2024

Cecilia Schilling, “As flood plans come to fruition, climate experts say they’ll quickly be inadequate“, Capital News Service, 10 November 2023, retrieved at https://cnsmaryland.org/2023/11/10/as-flood-plans-come-to-fruition-climate-experts-say-theyll-quickly-be-inadequate/

Union of Concerned Scientists, “Sea Level Rise and Tidal Flodding in Annapolis, Maryland”, Ucsusa.org, 6 October 2015, retrieved at https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/sea-level-and-tidal-flooding-in-annapolis-maryland