Historic neighborhoods face rising seas

The very low-lying Point neighborhood, in Newport.

From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital  Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

Lots of communities, especially on the East and Gulf coasts, have been working to mitigate the effects of sea level rise. Planned projects include raising the first floors of flood-vulnerable buildings,  elevating roads and railbeds, building storm barriers in some places,  creating park-like green spaces and expanding marshy areas to minimize wave action and soak up flood waters.

But what do you do in a thickly settled  historic urban neighborhood, such as Newport’s glorious Point neighborhood, which has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of colonial era houses? Residents of the neighborhood have been dealing with ominously high tides in the past few years.  Newport and the state need to consider new measures to protect such neighborhoods, which might have to include special local taxes for local mitigation