Florida Keys leaders consider plans to keep climate change impact at bay
Photo Credit: This Thursday, May 2, 2013 file photo shows flooding on Duval Street in Key West, Fla. after roughly five inches of rainfall. The Key West Citizen / Rob O'Neal
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The Keys, Maldives, Cuba, and others are now facing the very real impacts of global warming and unless effective changes are made quickly, rising sea levels could wipe out the destinations’ economic sustenance before buildings are underwater.
Hurricane storm surge can inundate the narrow, low-lying Florida Keys, but that is far from the only water worry for officials.
A tidal gauge operating since before the Civil War has documented a sea level rise of 9 inches in the last century, and officials expect that to double over the next 50 years. So when building a new Stock Island fire station, county authorities went ahead added a foot and a half over federal flood planning directives that the ground floor be built up 9 feet.
Seasonal tidal flooding that was once a rare inconvenience is now so predictable that some businesses at the end of Key West's famed Duval Street stock sandbags just inside their front doors, ready anytime.
"It's really easy to see during our spring high tides that the sea level is coming up — for whatever reason — and we have to accommodate for that," said Johnnie Yongue, the on-site technician at the fire station for Monroe County's project management department.
While New York City's may
