<div class="header">
<div class="left">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif" alt="The New York Times" align="left" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a>
</div>
<div class="right">
</div>
</div>
<br clear="all"><hr align="left" size="1">
<div class="timestamp">November 18, 2012</div>
<h1>As Coasts Rebuild and U.S. Pays, Repeatedly, the Critics Ask Why</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/justin_gillis/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by JUSTIN GILLIS"><span>JUSTIN GILLIS</span></a></span> and <span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/felicity_barringer/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by FELICITY BARRINGER"><span>FELICITY BARRINGER</span></a></span></h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. — Even in the off season, the pastel beach houses
lining a skinny strip of sand here are a testament to the good life.
</p>
<p>
They are also a monument to the generosity of the federal government. </p>
<p>
The western end of this Gulf Coast island has proved to be one of the
most hazardous places in the country for waterfront property. Since
1979, nearly a dozen hurricanes and large storms have rolled in and
knocked down houses, chewed up sewers and water pipes and hurled sand
onto the roads. </p>
<p>
Yet time and again, checks from Washington have allowed the town to put itself back together. </p>
<p>
Across the nation, tens of billions of tax dollars have been spent on
subsidizing coastal reconstruction in the aftermath of storms, usually
with little consideration of whether it actually makes sense to keep
rebuilding in disaster-prone areas. If history is any guide, a large
fraction of the federal money allotted to New York, New Jersey and other
states recovering from <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about Hurricane Sandy." class="meta-classifier">Hurricane Sandy</a> — an amount that could exceed $30 billion — will be used the same way. </p>
<p>
Tax money will go toward putting things back as they were, essentially
duplicating the vulnerability that existed before the hurricane. </p>
<p>
“We’re Americans, damn it,” said Robert S. Young, a North Carolina
geologist who has studied the way communities like Dauphin Island
respond to storms. “Retreat is a dirty word.” </p>
<p>
This island community of roughly 1,300 year-round residents has become a symbol of that reflexive policy. </p>
<p>
Like many other beachfront towns, Dauphin Island has benefited from the
Stafford Act, a federal law that taps the United States Treasury for 75
percent or more of the cost of fixing storm-damaged infrastructure, like
roads and utilities. </p>
<p>
At least $80 million, adjusted for inflation, has gone into patching up
this one island since 1979 — more than $60,000 for every permanent
resident. That does not include payments of $72 million to homeowners
from the highly subsidized federal flood insurance program. </p>
<p>
Lately, scientists, budget-conscious lawmakers and advocacy groups
across the political spectrum have argued that these subsidies waste
money, put lives at risk and make no sense in an era of changing climate
and rising seas. </p>
<p>
Some of them contend that reconstruction money should be tightly coupled
with requirements that coastal communities begin reducing their
vulnerability in the short run and that towns along shorelines facing
the largest risks make plans for withdrawal over the long term. </p>
<p>
“The best thing that could possibly come out of Sandy is if the
political establishment was willing to say, ‘Let’s have a conversation
about how we do this differently the next time,’ ” said Dr. Young, a
coastal geologist who directs the <a href="http://www.wcu.edu/1037.asp">Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines</a>
at Western Carolina University. “We need to identify those areas — in
advance — that it no longer makes sense to rebuild.” </p>
<p>
A coalition in Washington called <a href="http://www.smartersafer.org/">SmarterSafer.org</a>,
made up of environmentalists, libertarians and budget watchdogs,
contends that the subsidies have essentially become a destructive,
unaffordable entitlement. </p>
<p>
“We simply can’t go on subsidizing enormous numbers of people to live in areas that are prone to huge natural disasters,” said <a href="http://rstreet.org/about/staff/eli-lehrer/">Eli Lehrer</a>, the president of the conservative <a href="http://rstreet.org/">R Street Institute</a>, part of the coalition. </p>
<p>
This argument might be gaining some traction. Earlier this year,
Congress passed changes to the federal flood insurance program that are
supposed to raise historically low premiums and reduce homeowner
incentives for rebuilding in the most hazardous areas. </p>
<p>
Less widely known about than flood insurance are the subsidies from the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?fromSearch=fromsearch&id=3564">Stafford Act</a>,
the federal law governing the response to emergencies like hurricanes,
wildfires and tornadoes. It kicks in when the president declares a
federal disaster that exceeds the response capacity of state and local
governments. </p>
<p>
Experts say the law is at least as important as the flood program in
motivating reconstruction after storms. In the same way flood insurance
shields families from the financial consequences of rebuilding in risky
areas, the Stafford Act shields local and state governments from the
full implications of their decisions on land use. </p>
<p>
Under the law, the federal government committed more than $80 billion to disaster recovery from 2004 to 2011, according to a <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/648162.pdf">report</a>
from the Government Accountability Office. While billions of dollars
went to relieve immediate suffering, including cash payments to families
left homeless by storms, nearly half of the money was spent helping
state and local governments clean and restore damaged areas and rebuild
infrastructure. </p>
<p>
At times, local governments have tried to use the money to reduce their
vulnerability to future disasters, but they complain that they often run
into bureaucratic roadblocks with the <a href="http://www.fema.gov/">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>. </p>
<p>
For instance, after flooding from Hurricane Irene washed out many
culverts in Vermont last year, many towns built bigger culverts to
handle future floods. But they are still <a href="http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/96363/fema-turns-down-states-request-for-larger-culverts/">fighting</a> with the agency over reimbursement. </p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.fema.gov/leadership/william-craig-fugate">W. Craig Fugate</a>,
the agency’s administrator, acknowledged in an interview that “as a
nation, we have not yet figured out” how to use federal incentives to
improve resiliency and discourage excessive risks. </p>
<p>
If private property owners want to assume the risks, “that’s one thing,”
he said. “But if we find that we as taxpayers are assuming that risk
without benefit, then we need to rethink that.” </p>
<p>
Dauphin Island is a case study in the way the federal subsidies have enabled repetitive risk taking. <a href="http://fds.duke.edu/db/Nicholas/eos/faculty/opilkey">Orrin H. Pilkey</a>,
an emeritus professor at Duke University who is renowned for his
research in costal zones, described the situation here as a “scandal.”
</p>
<p>
The island, four miles off the Alabama coast, was for centuries the site
of a small fishing and farming village reachable only by boat. But in
the 1950s, the Chamber of Commerce in nearby Mobile decided to link it
to the mainland by bridge and sell lots for vacation homes. </p>
<p>
Then Hurricane Frederic struck in 1979, ravaging the island and destroying the bridge. </p>
<p>
President Jimmy Carter flew over to inspect the damage. Rex Rainer, the
Alabama highway director at the time, recalled several years later that
the president “told us to build everything back just like it was and
send him the bill.” </p>
<p>
The era of taxpayer largess toward Dauphin Island had begun. With $33
million of federal money, local leaders built a fancier, higher bridge
that encouraged more development in the 1980s. Much of that construction
occurred on the island’s western end, a long, narrow sand bar sitting
only a few feet above the Gulf of Mexico. </p>
<p>
“You can always look back and say, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have done
that,’ ” said Mayor Jeff Collier, who noted that many of the decisions
were made before he took office over a decade ago. “But we can’t turn
the clock back.” </p>
<p>
In the 1990s, big storms started hitting the island roughly every three
years. Two back-to-back hurricanes, Ivan in 2004 and Katrina in 2005,
destroyed more than 300 homes. Most have not been rebuilt, but scores
have been. Some beachfront building lots are now inundated by the Gulf
of Mexico. </p>
<p>
The bulk of the town’s reconstruction money has been spent on the
western end. That means many of the prime beneficiaries have not been
permanent residents, but rather vacation homeowners from places like New
Orleans and Atlanta. </p>
<p>
Since 1988, federal figures show, Dauphin Island property owners have
paid only $9.3 million in premiums to the national flood insurance
program, but they have received $72.2 million in payments for their
damaged homes. Figures from a federal contractor show that the average
island resident pays less than $700 a year for flood insurance, though a
few do pay as much as $3,000. </p>
<p>
On Dauphin Island and in many other beachfront communities, the federal
subsidies have helped people replace small beach shacks with larger,
more valuable homes. That is a main reason the nation’s costs of storm
recovery are roughly doubling every decade, even after adjusting for
inflation. </p>
<p>
Dauphin Island has tried to limit its risk, imposing stricter building
codes that go beyond federal requirements. New houses now must be built
high on pilings to survive storm surges. </p>
<p>
Local residents argue that federal help is warranted because their
erosion problems have been worsened by government dredging in the nearby
Mobile Ship Channel, which some scientists agree has helped starve the
Dauphin Island beaches of sand. And residents say that simply letting
the island’s western end wash away would leave the mainland and its
marshes, rich with seafood, more exposed to storms. </p>
<p>
People here have formed strong emotional attachments to their island.
“There’s a lot of wildlife and a lot of bird life, and it’s just a great
place to relax,” said Jay Minus, a lawyer in Mobile who owns two homes
on the western end. “You can sit on the porch and watch the dolphins
swim past your house.” </p>
<p>
Just this summer, Hurricane Isaac dealt the island a moderate blow,
leaving most homes unscathed but managing to do $3 million worth of
damage to public infrastructure. On a recent day, bulldozers crawled
around the island, scooping up tons of sand to replenish the beach. As
in the past, the town will most likely pay only 15 percent of the repair
costs. </p>
<p>
Coastal geologists describe western Dauphin Island as a textbook example
of a place that should never have been developed. Scientists say that
climate change will most likely speed up the rise of sea levels in the
coming decades and that many more coastal communities will face
repetitive risks. </p>
<p>
With little pressure coming from Washington or state governments, only a
handful of communities have started thinking seriously about a new
approach. </p>
<p>
“We need a plan,” Dr. Young said. </p>
<p>
Given the political realities, however, it is by no means clear how to
move forward. In some flood plains, public money has been used to buy
out vulnerable property owners. Entire towns were moved out of the
Mississippi River flood plain in the 1990s, for instance, saving money
over the long haul. </p>
<p>
Several oceanfront communities have resisted such proposals, though one,
in Texas, consented to a buyout plan after being badly damaged by
Hurricane Ike in 2008. The federal government, despite its willingness
to spend tens of billions of dollars repairing communities after storms,
has not put up the kind of buyout money that might convince more owners
to walk away. </p>
<p>
Because buyout proposals often take years to put together, several
experts suggested that they be drawn up in advance with maps of
properties targeted for acquisition. Then, if those homes are damaged,
state or local leaders could move swiftly after a storm, offering the
owners voluntary buyouts before they make up their minds to rebuild.
</p>
<p>
Mr. Collier, the mayor, has long heard the argument that a rising sea
will ultimately force a retreat from Dauphin Island and similar places.
</p>
<p>
“I’m not going to say that’s wrong,” he said. “But somebody needs to tell me, how are we going to get there?” </p>
<div class="articleCorrection">
</div>
</div>
<br>
<center>
</center>
<div id="upNextWrapper"><div style id="upNext"><div class="wrapper opposingFloatControl"><br style="clear:both"></div></div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>
<br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br><br>