Buzzards Bay most perilous for a hurricane surge

During the tidal surge that accompanied the Sept. 21, 1938 hurricane that ravaged Long Island and much of New England. The southeast to southwest winds on the east side of the storm pushed particularly high surges up Narragansett and Buzzards bays.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com:

We in southern New England have had some famous hurricanes, although they’re usually different from those Down South. (They tend to be less intense, wider and to move forward faster.) So what are the questions/lessons from Harvey’s assault on Houston?

The most difficult lesson is that far too much building has been happening in flood zones, which includes much of Houston. And assuming that climate scientists are right, the results of overbuilding will get worse. Houston and Texas in general has lax (in comparison to, for example, the Northeast and California) building codes and in some places, most notably Houston, little zoning.

This has led to massive paving and building over of flood-vulnerable land, which has worsened flooding as water has poured from pavement and other hard surfaces into overburdened bayous. Marshlands, woods and meadows absorb water and thus mitigate the effects of area flooding. In Greater Houston, much of these giant sponges have been destroyed to make way for parking lots, malls and subdivisionsin the nearly uncontrolled development that Texas is famous for.

Of course people like to live near water. Aided by the much-in-need-of reform Federal Flood Insurance Program, individuals and developers have built too close to the sea and rivers – with an irresponsibility partly subsidized by taxpayers. Seas continue to rise and rainfall events are becoming more extreme.  A lot of this indirect waterfront building subsidy turns out to be welfare for the rich, who can afford the high purchase price of waterfront property.

In some places, though, fear of flooding is leading even affluent folks to move to higher ground from homes right along the shore. This has even led to gentrification in, for example, previously unfashionable, higher parts of Miami. Let’s hope that this also happens more in inland jurisdictions open to massive freshwater flooding.

It’s unlikely that the Trump administration will take on developers (after all, Trump continues to be one, even in office) and push for gradual moves to keep new building away from flood zones. So the states will have to take the lead. Will Harvey lead even an anti-regulation paradise such as Texas to act?

Inevitably, people want to know if the Harvey flood was worsened by global warming. Well, there’s natural variability (part of “weather’’) and then there’s climate. Most very strong tropical cyclones lose some steam if they movevery slowly over the sea because the  turbulence brings up deeper, colder water. But the water in the Gulf over which Harvey slowly traveled has become very warm down very deep. That sounds very much like the effect of global warming. And the storm’s slow movement seems to be linked to a general slowdown in upper-level winds that’s been associated with a warming Arctic.

Finally, it should be said that Texas’s response to the Harvey disaster has been far better (orderly and calm) than Louisiana’s in Katrina. I think that’s mostly because Louisiana is such a corrupt and inefficient place. The leadership of the wheelchair-bound Lone Star State governor, Greg Abbott, has been impressive.

It will be entertaining to see and hear GOP members of Congress who opposed much of the federal funding for Hurricane Sandy recovery fall over themselves to get the maximum bucks from Washington to clean up after Harvey. They’ll get it, especially given the grim fact that most Houstonians don’t have flood insurance. But will they then back land-development and public-infrastructure changes to reduce damage in the next storm? Probably not because that would further enable “Big Government’’ (of which the Sunbelt gets a disproportionate share of the largesse.) Hypocrisy makes the world go round!

What won’t help is that the Trump administration has proposed cutting Federal Emergency Management Agency programs as well as funding for the National Weather Service (whose forecasts for Harvey were very accurate) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose services help coastal residents prepare for hurricane and other storm disasters.

By the way, the most prone places for hurricane-related damage in New England are Narragansett Bay and, even more, Buzzards Bay, the upper part of which is in danger of getting some of the biggest hurricane surges in the country. Watch out Wareham! Very vulnerable to fresh water flooding from these storms is the hilly terrain of inland Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

David Vallee, with the National Weather Service office in Taunton, Mass., warned The Cape Cod Times of a storm surge in Buzzards Bay where communities such as Bourne and Wareham could see 15 to 25 feet of tidal surge. “Buzzards Bay is the Miami of the Northeast,” Mr. Vallee told the paper.

When will there be a national taxpayer revolt against public money being used to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild structures on the same flood-prone land?