Using the following website, answer the questions listed below: https://www.fema

Question

Using the following website, answer the questions listed below:

https://www.fema.gov/coastal-frequently-asked-questions

http://climatetechwiki.org/content/coastal-setbacks

http://foresternetwork.com/daily/soil/erosion-control/defending-the-coast-from-attack-part-1/

1) What percentage of beachfront homes may be lost to erosion in the next 60 years?

2) What is a setback requirement, and why are they controversial?

3) How are insurance companies and zoning boards involved in beach erosion issues?

4) What is beach stabilization? What is the current preferred method? What are its drawbacks?

5) What is the controversy surrounding property which has previously suffered storm damage?

Explanation / Answer

1, Over the next 60 years, erosion may claim one of every four houses within 500 feet of the U.S. shoreline. (According to a study by th H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment; see “Resources”)

2.Setbacks provide protection to properties against coastal flooding and erosion by ensuring that buildings are not located in an area susceptible to these hazards.  

3. Other findings indicate that owners of property located within the first few feet of the nation’s coastlines are exposed to a risk from erosion equivalent to that from flooding. Of the total of 338,000 structures situated within 500 feet of the U.S. shoreline, about half are located on the Atlantic coast and 20 percent are on the Pacific coast, while the remaining 17 percent and 13 percent are located on the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes coastlines, respectively

4.An alternative is soft stabilization, which is the addition of vegetation or sand to stabilize the shoreline. A type of soft stabilization is beach nourishment, which is the process of replenishing sand and sediment lost during erosion. Hard stabilization method is used for the beach stabilization.

5.

When the National Hurricane Center declared Sandy a “post-tropical storm” just before it made landfall, a lot of homeowners across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Maryland may have saved a lot of money. The governors of these states have told insurance companies that because the storm was not classified as a hurricane, the insurers can’t enforce costly hurricane deductibles on storm-related claims.

In recent years, many insurers have added hurricane and wind deductibles that can run as high as 5 percent of the covered value of the homes. So a person who owns a home worth $500,000 suffering hurricane damage would be responsible for as much as $25,000 before the insurance company would pay anything.

Catastrophe modeling estimates of damages from Sandy range from $5 billion to $15 billion. The midpoint of that range would make Sandy the sixth-most expensive “hurricane” in U.S. history, said Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute.

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