As sea levels rise, what steps should coastal communities take? We visit Pacifica, California where residents are divided over how to manage an eroding shoreline. --------- WATCH MORE: www.voanews.com/voa-connect
My home is on sand, six doors up from the shoreline. It's not the sand that is the issue in Pacifica. Wave action due to the increased strength of El Nino storms and higher tides is. Building on eroding bluffs - that seemed safe 50 years ago are now not safe due to the crumbling of the hills where the waves eat away at the base. Hopefully humans will learn from these stories and really look into the future and see what might be based on this history. Sadly, several care only about now and not the future.
That’s the problem right there. A thought Process of FIGHTING, going to “WAR”, “CONQUERING” instead of “WORKING WITH”, “GOING WITH THE FLOW👀⬅️😆 of the Earth’s “Processes”. We have an abundance of SEAWATER. Build and refine Desalination Plants. Coast flooding? Move-da-@#$%-back!!🤪
personally I think your an IDIOT TO SAY IN THE LEAST . It's not about who was there 1st but an engineering person who should have evaluating the grounds before giving the go ahead to allow people to build there and not ripping people off and taking their hard earned money. GOD SOME PEOPLE MAKE ME SO SICK WITH THEIR STUPID COMMENTS I COULD FUCKING SCREAM .
@@robertmedzai8163 And I will scream with you all the way from UK. We have a government over here allowing developers to build on known flood plains, where top water drains empty into the rivers at low levels only to back up in flood and make matters worse. Work against Nature and it will hit back a thousand fold.
@@robertmedzai8163 You're not so bright yourself The coast lines are constantly reshaping only an idiot would build on a ocean side cliff you don't need a degree to see that.
So you built your house on a pile of dirt on the leading edge of a continent that is slowly moving west and sub-ducting under the pacific plate. Makes perfect sense
No. Back in the 70s the beach down below sandy like sugar. You can have crusty feet 10 minutes smooth as a baby's butt. The ocean was wayyyyy out like 2-300 feet. Only time it hit the cliff was high tide just one day. You could I did lay on the cliff with your kids. Hang glide ppl flying by. My friend I went to her apt the ones you see now hanging on the cliff.. she had a big backyard along the the neighbors. Concrete slab for bbq and grass. it was beautiful. I can't believe what's happening!?!!!! Where's the cliff??? Why is the ocean splashing at the bottom of the cliff?!!! Just 40 years and it's all gone. Now the next streets next to the apts will be next! This is horrible!! It's too late to solve anything. The cliffs are saturated with sea water which makes the Sandy soil deteriorate much faster. I hate to see what's down the road at the zoo.
The seas has been rising for thousands of years.....its humans fault for building on the coast line. Don't blame earth.....blame humans.....just move back!!!!
Don't blame earth ... and don't blame climate change. Erosion is the purpose of the ocean. Blame land developer's and the urban planners they paid off.
@@michellemullins512 Um, you can go to Iowa, but have you ever looked into their drought and heat conditions? Not looking good for the corn. Then you should also read up on Derechos
I learned about beach erosion way back in the seventies while still in primary school. It is a natural process that shaped our earth for millions of years. Strange that the Californions only recently discovered it. Or did the greedy developers ignored it deliberately just to make more money?
@@Deontjie got to love that they always blame climate change. Like no cliffs in history eroded. While villages in Europe on the coast have disappeared hundreds of years ago due to coastal changes. It’s not climate change then nor is it now.
At 7:01. Build equity? Who is going to buy your property lady? No one in their right mind would touch it. By the time you die the cliff may be 20 feet from the front of you building. Is the sales pitch that no more of the cliff will fail? Only a fool would buy it now.
What they failed to mention is that the San Andres Fault moves into ocean where those apartment buildings are (now, were). That also attributes to the crumbling coastline and the unstable soil in addition to the rising sea levels.
Speaking in terms of geologic time, these house sites will eventually be undersea, right next to Alaska. The San Andreas fault is about tectonic plate movement. Pacifica is moving... north.
Also they build drains that go directly into the coast and that help to erode mounts of sand that used to be another protection barrier. Nevertheless "climate change" is the perfect boogie man to blame for this.
And even the most gentle of earthquake is going to finish the job along the coastline as that sandy soil will liquefy and collapse. Should never have been zoned residential.
Smart people wont buy property there, its just too risky and not safe, so the homeowners cant sell and have to choose between retreating and lose everything or staying and lose everything. a major earthquake could also cause a huge Tsunami too.
The sands in the bluffs there aren't susceptible to liquefaction, but earthquakes definitely don't help. The interesting thing I noticed when I lived there was that the old building codes required accounting for a safety buffer of at least 50 years of bluff retreat, and it seemed to me that the houses at risk of falling in always seemed to be about 50 years old. So yes, they got exactly what the planning and zoning anticipated would happen, but it always seems like a surprise because it happens slowly. Managed retreat seems like a good idea.
I live on the Pacific Coast South of San Francisco and the beaches have all disappeared..... The ocean is up to Highway #1 ! The good thing is that soon I will be able to fish from my front porch!
I have lived in one the houses shown and discussed in this video since 2001. We moved here with the knowledge that nothing lasts forever, either the house one lives in or ourselves. In the big scheme of things, we are all ephemeral. We wanted to live "closer to nature", and... mission is accomplished. We sleep to the sound of ocean waves, watch whales when they choose to come close, and get really energized when the Pacific winter storms hit the shore. Coming home from work is like going on vacation, and working from home nearly so. It's a photographer's paradise. We are so thankful for living where we do. ... I noticed many commenters mention that the houses along the coast in Pacifica are built on sand. Well, the last of those houses disappeared around the year 2000. Most of the cliffs shown in the video are made up of highly fractured and weathered granite, granodiorite and quartz diorite, known as the Salinian Block. It is much harder and more permanent than sand, but certainly not the foundation of longevity. -- Alan Greenberg, aka Alan Grinberg
We can all appreciate that kind of choice. But here's the problems: 1) it seems the cliffhouse owners don't want their houses designated as unsafe so that they can sell them (passing the problem to someone else); and 2) so that they can have bank loans and insurance coverage (again, that passes the problems onto others in the forms of higher interest, deductibles, and insurance premiums aka subsidies from others); 3) having the local tax base pay for their seawalls to protect their properties (also passing the problems onto others with their tax dollars funding/subsidizing the wealthy homeowners). So yah, every one is free to enjoy nature at their own risk. But it sounds like these homeowners are trying to get it all subsidized by others so they can have their cake and eat it, too.
I knew who you were in the video as soon as I read the first sentence of your comment. There are so many questions I have for you. How did you become such a humble person? There is no sound of negativity or regret in your tone. Just grateful and appreciative to live near nature. Truly blessed. 🙌
@@danawinsor1380 No - the houses along our part of the coast are all survivors at this point. The destroyed houses are further north where the cliffs are taller and steeper.
I've noticed over the years how realtors and developers champion regressive local governments to avoid regulation, fight land conservancy and engineer gentrification. Their motive is to maintain profits from real estate transactions, regardless of costs to the community. Their politics amounts to "citizens don't have rights to effect the place they live." They demand welfare in the form of publicly funded infrastructure and services, such as a seawall in Pacifica. The hypocrisy blows my mind.
It seems clear you have a bias. The area in question has been there for over 100 years. We are not talking about sand bluffs. I have no affiliation whatsoever with the Real Estate Ind., nor do I own property in the affected area. The poorly designed existing Seawall (2 different designs built in the 80's) is aged out as the ousted Mayor states in the video. This is no different than any type of infrastructure that is no longer adequate. BTW, virtually ALL infrastructure (sewer, road, water etc) is and has been publicly funded as the direct benefit is to the public at large.
@@chrisredfield4017 True but his point is that the local developers are insisting on continued infrastructure development and improvement when there is pretty much a guarantee the city is going to fall off of a cliff. This comes down to small knot of individuals afraid of losing mountains of investments.
You have a really good question there. Why should other people (the public) spend money to shore up their property values? When homeless or working class people need affordable housing these are the same people that will whine about cost and who will pay for it. But they just assume we should all pay for their sea wall. Why?
@@theoccasionalvideo I know this will trigger the MAGA set, but here goes: For decades Republicans claimed to be small government, fiscally conservative and all about self sufficiency and personal responsibility. Simultaneously, they delivered welfare to the rich in the form of tax cuts and loopholes and by subsidizing fossil fuels, defense contractors, Wall St., agriculture, etc. Between that and deregulation for the corporate establishment, they picked the winners, something they swear they abhor. Because there was a center-right accountability vacuum throughout the 20th century, the hypocrisy was seldom, if ever, called out by mainstream media, and never seeped into the consciousness of popular culture. The way the hypocrisy manifested at the local level reflected the national reality: Republicans used the powers of government to help "their" citizenry, namely people of property and affluence engaged in business, finance, real estate and the like. Nearly every city in America has an establishment private/public partnership delivering assistance to private enterprise. At the lower end, it's meant to facilitate small business and start-ups, the sector that suffers the highest risks. The high end seeks to remove as much risk as possible from enterprises that create the reliable investment income the wealthy live off, hence the subsidies I mentioned above. Think big pharma, tobacco (still,) big tech, chemicals, banks and the like. Without risk, investors reap regular, even predictable, incomes. That status quo is of peak importance to a lot of people, and they dedicate some of their income to maintaining influence over government at every level. The reason Republicans wigged out on that Democrat mayor was because he was prioritizing the well being of the city population as a whole. That meant no subsidizing risk-mitigation in the form of infrastructure for property owners, real estate companies, developers, banks and other secondary businesses in the sector. This Republican, and increasingly Democratic, brand of socialism for the investor class is entrenched, and standard operating procedure. So much so, people who practice it are unaware that's what they're doing. Until someone threatens it. Then they go apeshit.
This reminds me of a little place in Oregon called Bay Ocean. People have been building too close to the ocean for decades. This is nothing new . Heck they wrote about it in the Bible, he who builds his house up on the sand...
A planet of climate extremes, unseen in over 100 million years. Fun and challenging where it is hard to farm because the amount of water you can get in the year is unpredictable. The key is to grow plants in doors. Vertical farms is the way to go.
In Yorkshire uk, where i am from there are bits of coast were the sites of roman villages are now a mile out to sea. Like in the U. S we lose more houses every winter. In Norfolk (a county) there was a port called Dunwich which was one of Britain's biggest ports until the 1500's. It is now completely gone.
Interesting you say Dunwich as on a map showing populations of towns in the 11th Century it shows as one of the large towns of England with the similar population to Gloucester, Colchester and Exeter. I hadn't realised it was no more and just assumed it had shrunk. I always was intrigued how the US could build places on the seashore and of course recent events show you can't. We are lucky in some way that we have storms on a regular basis which means we do not get lulled in to complacency. With the opinion people have of Estate Agents here in the UK the thought of them determining local area planning policy is alarming with maximising their commission surely being a driver of their business and once the sale is done they are gone. A good idea would be a fixed claw back of commission or even compensation if the building does not last which would change their minds I am sure. A vulnerable area designation requiring fixed term guarantees from Realtors would seem rather a good idea. Especially if they are going to move in to the politics of the area.
If we don't have Managed Retreat, it should be up to the home owners to supply the costs to buttressing the coast... tax payers shouldn't have to pay for the bad decisions of homeowners and investors. This is a Location, Location, Location problem. Should have done your research...
You obviously have not researched this. Not only is the homeowner responsible but the California coastal commission won’t allow the homeowners to build walls to protect themselves.
True, and at what point is enough, enough? When do we stop funding, insuring or subsidizing people who build on known risk areas? What criteria/red line must be crossed before we say "OK, the time has arrived?" I'm reminded of people who have had their homes washed away by past storms only to rebuild them again in the same spot and be damaged again years later. That's insanity. If the insurance companies would put a moratorium on insuring places like these the problem would solve itself.
I've been watching a lot of Time Team episodes on youtube lately and the one thing I keep seeing is that the sea will eat whatever fancy house settlement you put on a hill. Fires and floods will destroy whole towns. Storms will make whoever is left give up and retreat inland, even if they've built a stone fortress on the coast (because nothing lasts forever). My sincere hope for the public conversation about all this is to think about this less as the effects of the boogeyman of 'climate change' and more about how the earth is always moving, changing, destroying, creating, and driving us all mad trying to find blame for the realities of how mother nature always wins in the long term. I believe maybe the best strategy for this conversation is to talk about what little things we can do today that will improve how we feel about each other, and how we feel about being stewards of the land on which we live and call home. edited to add: I also have another opinion about the risk of building on SAND and being so close to the ocean is a huge part of what made it such an attractive "location! location! location!" in the first place. You know, like those who can afford to live there, will. Those who can afford to rebuild will. And then there are some people who live beyond their means and will complain about when their nice house on the beach gets ruined. I believe it's arrogant to believe anthropogenic climate change is the issue here. It's just a waste of time to make people feel shame, because it ends up shaming the people who aren't the problem but want to feel connected to the larger sense of community. Rich people always gonna do rich things. So, like, save a beach or something. Honor people's property rights. Don't spend communal tax dollars fixing up the rich houses, while the poorer sort live up in the hills (where mudslides are also a thing). Just be kind to each other. Thank you for reading my mini-rant.
I'm a senior, so I can say with some conviction, life is a series of dance steps in a rather complicated cotillion. Nothing is forever, except change itself. In the end, even with our recording technology, all we have are memories. If we want to collect other things, like money or time or safety, we are fools to ourselves.
How to take a beautiful coastline and 'uglify' it. Everything human beings touch is in constant decay. It's interesting to look at the desperate (and futile) attempts to slow down the forces of nature. Ultimately, like our buildings, we are all dust.
What you guys have is not a seawall it is a bunch of concrete pavers reinforced by giant piles of boulders. A youtube video titled "Ocean Energy - Wave Power Station" shows an example of what should be built all along this area. The entire project could be paid for by the power you'll sell to the surrounding cities and states.
I use to visit my grandmother around 1972 her home was about 20 foot from the ocean. It was beautiful and we love going to the beach. In 1976 she moved to Anaheim and I never got to go back to Pacifica. Her old home is no longer there nor the apartments I remember... I always loved Pacifica and my prayers are with the others there.
I do feel bad for them but at the same time, they built on the edge of a cliff that is projected to actually fall apart eventually. So no, the sea wasn't enroaching on anyone. It was just doing its own thing
@@mrmustangmanwell, y'all needa understand that down here in the South when it's hot and humjd we sorta abbreviate everything.and sometimes in professional situations like making a comment on YT it slips out.
That's my hometown. I used to live in the apartments next to the ones that fell in. So many memories. We been dealing w this for so long. I grew up in Linda mar 1 block from beach. One year were under 6 ft water rowing boats at the shopping center n park n ride. The hang gliders would fly by almost every night. We could wave to each other. There's an underground pool that's been covered over with cement so it's protecting that one building. Hopefully for long time. Great place. Beautiful.
So they say this house is worth 2-3 million, that one is worth 4 million. And they gonna find a buyer willing to buy when those houses have numbered days in the near term. Since no bank is gonna take a mortgage back on those properties, any buyer will have to put in 100%.
A fool is he that build his house upon the sand, and not upon the rock. And the winds continued, the rains persisted and the house collapsed into the sea. Oh woe are those that don't heed from others mistakes.
Well i live in New Zealand and it's in the pacific and our shores are still the same level so don't say the sea is rising. Ersion is not sea level rising. Erosion is natural .
Subsidence. Years ago I was atop the San Jacinto monument and you could see the tops of fence post in fields that once were. Costal erosion. Storms that revealed tree trunks were exposed. I've watched 1/4 x1/2 mile slide into ocean. Yet all the volcanoes dumping and making new islands. Like Hawaii recently. Lots of things contribute to it
I'm 66 I grew up in Pacifica I miss it A lot. I live In Santa Rosa and Have been from 1994. I miss the Ocean The Most. They Need to Plan Better when it comes to the ocean. I will have to rent a car and Take a Visit, like a bucket list visit. Many Blessings To Everyone William Clark~~~
Yeah, if I lived anywhere near those apartments and the houses that fell in, I'd be spending 100% of my time arranging to move inland. Ole girl @ 7:13 is delusional beyond belief.
And worse she doesn't want to make it difficult to sell her property. In other words she will knowingly get the money of another person, make a profit, that is, after she has enjoyed the property, and leave that person to worry and lose. But oh no, not her now.
There’re consequences that we have to pay. Temperature will keep rising so as the ocean levels. However We’re not doing enough to protect our environment, but just talkings.
My family's friend Pete lived in one of the two homes removed at the South end of Pacifica. It was a beautiful little one level rancher. I always thought it was a gorgeous location when I would visit him with my Dad.
Non-deferred tax base... Translation: Overpriced homes owned by overpaid people who’ve overpaid for their homes who fail to see the reality of their privileged life... Like the lady said, by the time my house is worthless I’ll be dead. They bought it, they gotta live with it. Equity loss is part of the game. Guess pompousness negated common sense.
The thing is I could try and sell the house like that woman was saying but any good solicitor would do a survey and say to the client no no She's just trying to blame someone for her mistake and management retreat are in the firing line that's all that is
I remember a Sunday school lesson back in the mid 70's about building a house on the sand or a rock then our teacher demonstrated with some water what can happen . I don't remember the entire lesson or the moral of the story but I can put 2 and 2 together IF ANYONE REMEMBERS THE STORY PLEASE TELL ME
i built the home at 45 clarendon and beach for my mother in 97. i put 44 friction piers down to 16 feet under that house. that house will be the last one standing i am sure. maybe an island.
@@kelliepatrick519 i've seen waves come over the seawall there when i was building. some came up the the sliding glass doors on the lower floor!. its not perfect but there are 200 yards of 7 sac concrete mix and 5/8 schedule 60 rebar holding that home up. at least, it will be the last one standing on beach blvd.
@@mrmustangman like I said -7 sack mix plus schedule 60. At least it has a better chance of survival than all the other homes in the area built on slabs. It's the only house built on piers on beach blvd.
Also keep in mind the ground in which those houses are put is also the ground the ocean put there millions of years ago and so of course the ocean is going to take it back. People didn't put thought into that before they started putting luxury homes on the mountain
The question up and down both coasts is, why should the taxpayer shell out huge amounts of money to protect homes that should not have been built where they are. These homes usually are built by the rich. Their bad decisions should not be sudscidised by the public!
An eye opening program. There will always be people who only care about loosing money or the ones who’ll be unable to retouch the scenery in their mind. ** ps. I’m wondering if grapefruit and tennis ball size rocks were added into the sea-wall mix it’d have stopped sand from washing back to the sea...from under the boulders, to help avoid reducing the wall height.
y'all realize that coastal erosion won't stop at the next house next street that it won't stop at all? The entire town is doomed. It would be simple for town / state to determine rate of erosion. I'd bet 20 yrs next street gone, 50 yrs and next street is gone along w houses fronting it. 75 yrs the next street inland. Sounds like a long time. Well as at the end of the story, the sign, what are we leaving our grand children? Do we abandon every coastal region for what 5 milies, 10 miles. Can't afford to leave the land vacant, so we'll farm it? If not done perfectly that'll erode the land from the top down as well as bottom up from the sea. Oddly built env is the way to stabilize shorelines. To stabilize the shoreline with the least ecologically destructive means, rip rap, is simple, as long lasting as you can keep rock from washing out to sea and some landscaping atop as much of it as possible. You need a foot or two inland for every foot in elevation you are trying to protect. 100 foot cliff, you need to 'bevel' back 100 to 200 feet and cover it all with 5 foot and bigger rip rap filled in with smaller gradated stone right down to gravel a good 10 feet deep, preferably driving piles 100 feet down in 10 foot grid to help prevent rock washout even if sand is washed out. You need a bigger toe at beach 20 feet and bigger boulders be it cliff base or a tide line. Ideally you take the rip rap out until wave action has little effect on ocean floor under rocks. Anything washed by waves is going to pretty much be bare rock. From there inland they'll need to be human mantained plantings w dense ground cover and wind breaking shrubs and enough rock sticking up to keep general erosion under control so it dosn'et just gully out to ocean. You can use sea walls sheet piles etc to shorten length of mitagation area / land area to condemn but lifetime can be measured in as little as decades esp if badly done. Who pays, the community to the max, figure out what tax base can handle and use it for fund 50 yr tax free bonds as rip rap will essentially last that long and more. More money would be needed from state. Why should state tax others elsewhere to support seaside communities, for same reason we tax people for hospitals roads etc. It's only abusive if it's wasted, as it is, in endless minimal rip rap and walls that just fail. Having said that it's apparent since 2017 or so it's sort of stabilitzed by the constant work. That is another way to do it but it's unfair to toss other peoples money at a problem forever. It must be locally funded. It's also possible to just up the level of yearly work with the work to become part of larger long term solution, ie adding to rip rap year after year until above wave line (and in some places that would put the base of it 100 feet out to sea, good bye beach. It wouldn't however need any occupied land to be taken, though it would take a truly astronomical amount of rock. But, it's just rock, about as cheap to get move place as anything and lasts forever. You do need to move to a sea based construction system using jack up barges and say 'LST' that can land on beach at high tide unload rock at low tide and float back to sea next high tide. Then cranes on adjacent jack up barge can distribute the pile of rocks. Repeat about 10,000 times. They built islands in Mid East a lot bigger than anything y'all need to do. Now, could any economic benefit be derived from rip rapped area. Try bamboo grove and use for any no of things, via local or remote factory, and you can always just dry it burn it as a bio mass to make electricity. Actully the part of pacifica really hard to help is the part low down where waves break over perfectly good operating sea walls and flood homes streets etc. routinely. There is nothing that can be done except build out rip rap until the breakers / waves fall and flow back without running into city streets / homes. Which would be like 100 feet. However, you also need to find out where all the eroded material is going, as it might be filling in keeping another community from washing out. Stabilizing Pacifica might destabilize a community on the receiving end of the sand transfer. What to do then, well talk to other community and reach a compromise, you give them revenue from bamboo operations? Think hard find something, 1/2 price rip rap after you've perfected how to do it.
I'm going to call my insurance company and urge them not to ensure anyone too close to any water because in turn if they do that's only going to make my rates go up so hell no
No sea wall will prevent the collapse of coastal communities. If they had paid attention to the climate warnings back in the 60s and not built on unstable coastlines. Same in the uk, where we have lost miles of coastline to rising sea levels, where communities tried to build big sea walls...it just pushed the damaged a few miles along the coast and only slowed the erosion for a couple of years. These houses in your film have less than 20 years, if they're lucky. As long as billions of tons of artic ice melts every year, sea levels will keep rising. Building hugely expensive sea walls will slow it down a little but the sea and the storms will win.
There have to be building restrictions by law for preventing building on the edge of cliff like beach fronts especially if the soil is sandy with no rock beds for ground stability.
For the no managed retreat folks, they are being quite selfish. At some point, there will be an inflection point where the property values will go down (seawall or not) because of the risk. At that point, they may try to sell, but all that does is put the next owners in an even more risky situation. The rulings should be that no new housing or construction can occur within XX feet (dynamic) of the cliff face. As the sea erodes back, that line moves with it. That would be reasonable. The thing is that humans are not a species that thinks long-term but acts now and with short-term thinking. The video even said - seawalls were meant to last 75 years. Well, that means in 75 years you're screwed. So rather than make a plan now to eliminate the risk at that 75-year point, they did nothing and will do nothing until the house is condemned. All you have to do is look at those near the cliff now - that's exactly what they're doing. Waiting until the last minute and losing it all. All of us want to think the best, but denying the inevitable only makes things worse.
13:59 "Everyone loves the beach... but people are more important." sounds like "i am not here to be on the earth, the earth is here to be under me." self importance is the one human flaw that accelerates climate change through over consumption of resources to satisfy one's short existence. i highly doubt that those declaring a threat to their property value were the original owners of their property. life is not permanent, and nature will eventually take back what was given.
Haha, you can take comfort in the fact that the one video leads to the other so through the RU-vid algorithm, FlyinCameras, Vox and Pacifica are inextricably combined.
A sea wall built properly will work. Galveston Texas built theirs in 1903 and extended it in 1963. Today the Galveston seawall is as strong as ever, even after several Hurricanes. It is 17 feet high and very strong. No reason it wouldn't work in California. The Government funded it too. They also built a seawall around Pt. Arthur Texas with giant granite stones, several tons each that still stands today about 60 to 70 years old. These also face many hurricanes and severe weather along the coast. All the jetties are built of stones like this water never stops washing up on them with no problems.
Great video. I really believe like the soft-spoken mayor who was not reelected. The encroachment of the ocean is a natural thing. Buildings should not have been built there. The new mayor (the one with dollar signs of your money in her eyes) wants everyone else to pay for their poor judgment. We have the same issue here in Florida. Would I like to live on a barrier island - what a great view this would be. My husband and I could afford it) There is just the little fact that the land is ephemeral! Why should we keep paying over and over ad nauseum for the rebuilding after a hurricane. The coast in my mind can have infrastructure of them. Road, parks, beaches services for the people visiting the beaches, but no one should be living living on them. If the commons of the county are destroyed by a hurricane, then the county should decide if they will rebuild. If they want the income from people visiting the beaches, then they will rebuild. If not, let it go to nature
