A reckoning with the beach

This sad yet beautifully reported story in the Washington Post really touched me. It has had me thinking recently about the complex and troubled relationship that we have with the beach, which made me want to write out my thoughts.

Like millions of Americans, I have enjoyed going to the ocean since I was a child. I grew up on the east coast of the US, which is blessed with thousands of miles of wide sandy beaches, many of them with rough surf that makes them a natural playground. The beach was never more than an hour or two away by car, though traveling a bit further could take you to unique experiences, treasured places, or distant reunions. For the last decade, I have lived in China, where the more common intersection of sea and land is a mud flat, which can hardly compare. My return visits to the US often involve at least one quick trip to a sandy beach, to rekindle the feeling of ease and comfort brought on by an ocean breeze, a barbecue, and good company.

In the 1980’s, my family started visiting the Outer Banks of North Carolina- these barrier islands parallel the coastline as it juts out into the Atlantic gulf stream, further than anywhere else along the eastern seaboard. It was a long trip from New York, but we fell in love with the place and returned many times. With much of the islands protected as a National Seashore park, there were fewer people than at the beaches up north. You could get a rental home that was separated from the beachfront by a single row of dunes, and at times it felt like you had the ocean to yourself. The water was warmer; the waves were bigger; the fishing was better.?

And of course, the storms were more violent, and the damage was greater. Now, it seems that the economics of the existing tourism industry there may no longer be viable, and I am left with very mixed emotions. I still cherish the place, and yet I find it unsustainable.

A?lot of my?feelings?about this were informed by the book "The Beaches are Moving", which I bought 30 years ago at the Hatteras Lighthouse gift shop. Ironically, this was only a few years before the lighthouse itself had to be moved, due to the encroaching shoreline.?

The authors?described how these?barrier islands?are a natural and variable protection for the coastline, preventing more extensive erosion from the mainland and its coastal habitats.?Their?main theme was that it’s folly to?build on barrier islands, and even crazier to keep insuring them for re-construction.?

This ambivalence?I felt?was reiterated after New York’s?Rockaway?Beach?was decimated by Hurricane Sandy?in 2012.?Rockaway is the only barrier island within the boroughs of New York City, and it forms the west-most end of a string of similar formations that parallel the southern coast of Long Island. Most of it feels like just another NY neighborhood, with no signs of natural sand dunes. They were long ago pounded out of existence to create regular city roads, sewers, and utilities, all protected by engineered seawalls and jetties to keep the island in place.

In my family, Rockaway holds a special place- my?grandmother moved there at age 65 after being widowed, to live in a retirement home near her sister.?She?loved her “second life” there,?and she spent as much time as possible at the beach. Two of my closest college friends grew up in Rockaway, and I cherish the summer visits there in the years that followed. It was painful to watch their families suffer through clean-up?and?re-building from the hurricane, especially as?some?grew increasingly angry at the?government’s response.?

Unlike the expensive vacation homes of tourist destinations, Rockaway is largely a working-class community, with its residents including many teachers and firemen. It was shocking to them to find that after decades of living modestly, their insurance premiums needed to skyrocket- not only did previous policies not reflect the true risk of disaster, but they were also now misaligned with the actual elevated value of the homes (~ $1M for 3BR cottage). I understood the residents' anger, but couldn’t help thinking to myself: it may be a beautiful place to live, but over the timeline of a century, it’s an obviously bad?place to build a bedroom community.?

I find myself?now?imagining a Cape Hatteras that?is?closer to its “wild” origins, if the re-building stops. Without the engineering heroics, the ocean will reclaim its mutable border and consume the structures that seemed so permanent. Would we still go if there were no more homes to rent? What if we could only campout in tents? What if the state stopped repairing the bridge and reverted to ferries as the only access? Tourism revenue and property values would collapse, but it would become more sustainable. I’d like to think that I would still go, but it wouldn’t be the same.?

As I grow older, it becomes easier to hold multiple ideals that seem to be in opposition: nature - convenience , comfort - simplicity , stability - change. I can't deny that I still love being at the beach, and that few places make me happier. I know that building near the water's edge is foolish, and yet I still want to stay there- for a little while, at least.