Sea rise threatens Florida coast, but no statewide plan
57 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;47700780]Dude there's nothing to figure out. There's no saving Florida no matter how much money we throw at it.
We have too many hurricanes for any sort of levee or dyke system to be effective, not to mention the ground just isn't stable enough for that sort of large scale construction (fine silt sand on top of limestone).
We'd have to surround the ENTIRE STATE with levees to stop it from flooding, and we'd have to make them at the very least 2m or more above current high tide sea level. Most likely we'd have to expand upon that in the future. [B]Do you have ANY IDEA how expensive that would be?[/B][/QUOTE]
Yes, but then again think about how much money will be being thrown away by letting major cities like Miami, Tampa and part of Jacksonville fall among others.
If our effect on the environment winds up being as bad as we think it will be, I wonder if in a century or two people will wonder how on Earth we ever let big business (from the shadows or otherwise) dictate courses of action that lead to such vast destruction on a global scale.
[QUOTE=Wii60;47699154]Well The florida officials banned all discussion of climate change from emails, reports, and gov communication so
[url]http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article12983720.html[/url]
kinda hard to tell people that when you can't say it[/QUOTE]
ah, good all Rick Scott.
i'm still betting he's some kind of alien from mars sent here to fuck our state in the ass
[QUOTE=Npc_Hydra3;47700810]Yes, but then again think about how much money will be being thrown away by letting major cities like Miami, Tampa and part of Jacksonville fall among others.[/QUOTE]
Much less than it would cost to even begin to attempt to flood-proof the entire state of Florida. We have 1,350 miles of coastline. The Dike would have to be built several miles off the coastline so that would increase that number by quite a lot.
Now you start running into a whole mess of problems, such as transit. In order to maintain the high level of sea based traffic Florida is home to, you'd need to build quite a few locks into the dike which means MORE dike walls in many areas, employees paid to run it, and even more expensive machinery to operate the locks. Otherwise, the dike would be useless and the rising sea would just flow around it and flood Florida anyway.
Currently the longest dike is in Texas City. It is 5 miles and was built in 1914. It cost $1,400,000 THEN which is around $32,800,000 NOW. This Dike is only a few feet above sea level and in a relatively shallow portion of water between the mainland and a key. We would need to build one much higher (between 2-5+ meters above sea level), most likely wider, stronger and more permanent with reinforcements. We would need to find a way to overcome the inherent instability of our coastline's natural geography.
We're not talking billions, here. We're talking potentially trillions of dollars. Do you understand how monumental this task is? To dike in the ENTIRE STATE of Florida? Because that is what it would take to prevent it from flooding.
And even then it would be potentially useless. Unless we brought the dike up and formed a wall on the mainland far enough inland to prevent spillage, the rising sea level would just raise up around the dike in the north-east and north-west at the border with Georgia and Alabama.
It CANNOT be done. Florida IS DOOMED. Accept that fact.
Building dykes is a rather short term solution. You can only hope to keep the sea at bay for a century at best, by which point it wouldn't be worth it, or probably even feasible any longer.
[QUOTE=Deng;47701232]Building dykes is a rather short term solution. You can only hope to keep the sea at bay for a century at best, by which point it wouldn't be worth it, or probably even feasible any longer.[/QUOTE]
Only further proves my point. Thank you.
If that screenshot is to be believed then they already have a plan. Just shoot cannons at the sea.
[QUOTE=Saber15;47699373]There isn't really a whole lot that can be done with rising sea levels beyond stopgap measures here. The coast is pounded by hurricanes on a fairly regular basis so going full Netherlands and building fuckloads of levees isn't very viable because they will inevitably flood when a hurricane whacks it. The ground at the coasts is largely made up of extremely fine sand layered on top of porous limestone.
Pretty much the entirety of Florida is sandbar with delusions of grandeur. Half the state and pretty much every major population center will be underwater if sea levels rise 5 meters in the next hundred or so years.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/7wZjwFn.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]
As someone who lives in Duval county... My house looks to be dry, but pretty sure I'm gonna have beachfront...
[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;47701064]Dikes[/QUOTE]
I actually live on that dike in Texas. Its actually a seawall. They're making it bigger because it wasn't enough for Ike and entire cities were destroyed. It caused $37 billion dollars in damages, making it the 3rd costliest. Hurricane Katrina cost $125 billion.
They want to expand it to cover all of Houston and the Galveston Bay. It's going to cost $6 billion dollars, including gates, etc but it will be able to stop dozens of billions in damages. Dikes are an investment. A Miami underwater is a Miami that's not making money. It represents hundreds of destroyed businesses, the closure of a major port, the displacement of millions, etc. Any Florida dike system will pay for itself in a few decades of storms.
[editline]11th May 2015[/editline]
Also, the Galveston seawall cost $3,500,000, which included the raising of portions of the city to the height of the wall. Also the wall was 17 feet high, and 15 feet wide at its base, and it took 5,200 railway carloads of crushed granite, 1,800 carloads of sand, 1,000 carloads of cement, 1,200 carloads of round wooden pilings, 4,000 carloads of wooden sheet pilings, 3,700 carloads of stone riprap and five carloads of reinforcing steel. But it was built in response to a hurricane that literally destroyed the whole city and killed thousands of people. It's saved my region hundreds of millions in damages per storm. It's more than paid for itself on multiple occasions.
[QUOTE=Deng;47701232]Building dykes is a rather short term solution. You can only hope to keep the sea at bay for a century at best, by which point it wouldn't be worth it, or probably even feasible any longer.[/QUOTE]
Lies!
My price was off. when all was said and done, it cost around 16,000,000 for the whole project. About 10 miles of wall. If Florida has 1350 miles of coast, an equally ambitious plan for ALL of Florida would cost about $51,000,000,000. Or less than half of the cost of Hurricane Ike. (Adjusted for inflation with 1903 numbers(actually wall was completed in the 60s, so it's actually off a bit))
Florida has the highest flood risk in the country. It would likely pay for itself in a couple decades, to a century. It would also create thousands of jobs and create a boom in the construction economy in Florida. And this is for an overbuild, solid concrete wall 17 feet high around ALL of Florida. The state would become a literal fortress. No real proposal would be that drastic. Infant, the Ike Dike they're building here is mostly sand dunes.
[QUOTE=OvB;47702308]I actually live on that dike in Texas. Its actually a seawall. They're making it bigger because it wasn't enough for Ike and entire cities were destroyed. It caused $37 billion dollars in damages, making it the 3rd costliest. Hurricane Katrina cost $125 billion.
They want to expand it to cover all of Houston and the Galveston Bay. It's going to cost $6 billion dollars, including gates, etc but it will be able to stop dozens of billions in damages. Dikes are an investment. A Miami underwater is a Miami that's not making money. It represents hundreds of destroyed businesses, the closure of a major port, the displacement of millions, etc. Any Florida dike system will pay for itself in a few decades of storms.
[editline]11th May 2015[/editline]
Also, the Galveston seawall cost $3,500,000, which included the raising of portions of the city to the height of the wall. Also the wall was 17 feet high, and 15 feet wide at its base, and it took 5,200 railway carloads of crushed granite, 1,800 carloads of sand, 1,000 carloads of cement, 1,200 carloads of round wooden pilings, 4,000 carloads of wooden sheet pilings, 3,700 carloads of stone riprap and five carloads of reinforcing steel. But it was built in response to a hurricane that literally destroyed the whole city and killed thousands of people. It's saved my region hundreds of millions in damages per storm. It's more than paid for itself on multiple occasions.[/QUOTE]
Oh good more information.
So your 5 mile seawall took a total of:
$6,082,000,000
5,200 carloads of crushed granite
1,800 carloads of sand
1,000 carloads of cement
1,200 carloads of wooden pilings (which would probably be changed for cement pilings)
4,000 carloads of wooden sheet pilings (again probably changed for cement pilings)
3,700 carloads of stone riprap
5 carloads of reinforcing steel
Assuming a seawall around the entire state of Florida would be 1,500 miles long (very rough estimate. Our coastline is 1,350 miles but that length would expand if we build the seawall further out. The coastline length is literally the coastline and would not be a good place for a seawall). Also assuming cost and required materials per 5 mile segments would be exactly the same as your seawall (it wouldn't, it would probably be more expensive and require more materials because of what base we have to build on)
It would require:
$1,824,600,000,000
1,560,000 carloads of crushed granite
540,000 carloads of sand
300,000 carloads of cement
360,000 carloads of wooden or cement pilings
1,200,000 carloads of wooden or cement sheet pilings
1,110,000 carloads of stone riprap
1,500 carloads of reinforcing steel
I used CSX's railway car specifications sheets to find out carrying capacities for various cars, listed here: [url]http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/customers/equipment/railroad-equipment/[/url]
171,600,000 tons of crushed granite, carried in a 65' gondola 'open top hopper' (maximum payload of 110 tons)
59,400,000 tons of sand, carried in a 65' gondola 'open top hopper' (maximum payload of 110 tons)
330,000 tons of cement, carried in a 'jumbo' 'covered hopper' (maximum payload of 110 tons)
35,100,000 tons of cement or wooden round pilings, carried in a 73' centerbeam flatcar (maximum payload of 97.5 tons)
117,000,000 tons of cement or wooden sheet pilings, carried in a 73' centerbeam flatcar (maximum payload of 97.5 tons)
122,100,000 tons of stone riprap, carried in a 65' gondola "open top" copper (maximum payload of 110 tons)
105,000 - 150,000 tons of reinforcing steel, carried in either a 61' High Roof Boxcar or 86' Boxcar (86' boxcar maximum payload 70 tons, 61' high roof boxcar maximum payload 100 tons)
This is an absolutely MONUMENTAL amount of material.
[QUOTE=Wii60;47699140]Floridians don't really give a shit and i never seen anyone nearby talk about it besides that and this news article.[/QUOTE]
I don't care [I]too[/I] much. However, I live in the The Keys and if the sea levels rise, welp, I'm out of a home.
[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;47704460]
This is an absolutely MONUMENTAL amount of material.[/QUOTE]
Time to invest in rock digging
Why wouldn't a Seawall be built on the coastline? That's literally the only place it would be of any use. Besides, in reality you wouldn't need to put it around the coastline. There would be certain unpopulated areas around the coast where flooding would be acceptable. The idea of a seawall is to divert the surge away from population centers.
Also, your pricing is flat out wrong. The [I]entire[/I] Galveston Seawall took 16,000,000 to build in a time span from 1903~1960's. (it was finished, but later expanded on in the 60s) At it's completion it covered 10 miles. Let's inflate liberally and use the 1906 numbers for all of it:
[quote]What cost $16,000,000 in 1906 would cost $415,161,373.60 in 2014. [/quote]
[B]Scenario 1[/B]
So $416,000,000 (rounded up) buys you 10 miles of concrete walls, and protection from 17 feet of water.
That looks like this:
[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/lStyEyM.jpg[/img_thumb]
1,350 miles of coastline /10 = 135 unit's of seawall. (10 mile segments)
135*$416,000,000 = [B]$56,160,000,000[/B]
[I]To build a concrete wall around the entirety of Florida[/I] (and it still would only be a fraction of the length of the Great Wall of China)
A few large hurricanes and it's paid for itself in flood damage saved. But you would never build a wall around an entire state anyway, and it would be a system of smaller levees and dikes, mostly made of earth. So you could probably cut that figure in half. Also, wall building techniques have changed since 1906. I'm sure we could cut back on most of those materials by just using modern concrete and steel methods.
[B]Scenario 2[/B]
The Japanese are building a seawall that will be much bigger than Galveston's, in length and height, and it only costs $6.8 billion dollars for 250 miles.
[url]http://phys.org/news/2015-03-japan-opts-massive-costly-sea.html[/url]
1350/250 = 5.4 segments of Japanese-megawalls.
5.4* 6,800,000,000 = [B]$367,200,000,000[/B] (Or about 2.9 Hurricane Katrina's worth)
That would buy Florida a [I]12 meter high[/I] wall.
[B]Scenario 3 - earthen dike[/B]
The proposed Ike Dike estimated costs highball 6 billion dollars.
You get 46 miles of dike for that.
1350/46 = ~30 dike units (rounded up)
30*6,000,000,000 = [B]$180,000,000,000[/B] (or 1.44 Hurricane Katrina's)
Given that the Galveston Seawall was built over 100 years ago, the pricing may be skewed so it should be considered approximate. It would likely be much higher. An epic Florida Seawall would likely cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars, but it wouldn't be built all at once so that price would be spread over decades. Given the alternative is literally abandoning the state, I'd say it's a price they could foot up. There's no stopping sea level rise but we can fight it as best we can. Or else you better start looking for land elsewhere. The destruction of Florida would cost much more than any wall proposal here.
My solution? Promise big campaign donations as a mass if the science denier s as the governor will live in the flood zone in exchange?
[QUOTE=OvB;47704854]Why wouldn't a Seawall be built on the coastline? That's literally the only place it would be of any use. Besides, in reality you wouldn't need to put it around the coastline. There would be certain unpopulated areas around the coast where flooding would be acceptable. The idea of a seawall is to divert the surge away from population centers.
[highlight]Look at the map, dude. If the sea levels rise, and you allow flooding in most of these areas, it will spread around the dikes/walls and flood the entire state like it would anyway. In this scenario the only option is to wall off the entire state.[/highlight]
Also, your pricing is flat out wrong. The [I]entire[/I] Galveston Seawall took 16,000,000 to build in a time span from 1903~1960's. (it was finished, but later expanded on in the 60s) At it's completion it covered 10 miles. Let's inflate liberally and use the 1906 numbers for all of it:
[highlight]My pricing was worked out using your first post. It is correct based upon you saying it's going to cost $6,000,000,000 for the upgrades/expansion[/highlight]
[B]Scenario 1[/B]
So $416,000,000 (rounded up) buys you 10 miles of concrete walls, and protection from 17 feet of water.
That looks like this:
[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/lStyEyM.jpg[/img_thumb]
1,350 miles of coastline /10 = 135 unit's of seawall. (10 mile segments)
135*$416,000,000 = [B]$56,160,000,000[/B]
[I]To build a concrete wall around the entirety of Florida[/I] (and it still would only be a fraction of the length of the Great Wall of China)
A few large hurricanes and it's paid for itself in flood damage saved. But you would never build a wall around an entire state anyway, and it would be a system of smaller levees and dikes, mostly made of earth. So you could probably cut that figure in half. Also, wall building techniques have changed since 1906. I'm sure we could cut back on most of those materials by just using modern concrete and steel methods.
[B]Scenario 2[/B]
The Japanese are building a seawall that will be much bigger than Galveston's, in length and height, and it only costs $6.8 billion dollars for 250 miles.
[url]http://phys.org/news/2015-03-japan-opts-massive-costly-sea.html[/url]
1350/250 = 5.4 segments of Japanese-megawalls.
5.4* 6,800,000,000 = [B]$367,200,000,000[/B] (Or about 2.9 Hurricane Katrina's worth)
That would buy Florida a [I]12 meter high[/I] wall.
[B]Scenario 3 - earthen dike[/B]
The proposed Ike Dike estimated costs highball 6 billion dollars.
You get 46 miles of dike for that.
1350/46 = ~30 dike units (rounded up)
30*6,000,000,000 = [B]$180,000,000,000[/B] (or 1.44 Hurricane Katrina's)
Given that the Galveston Seawall was built over 100 years ago, the pricing may be skewed so it should be considered approximate. It would likely be much higher. An epic Florida Seawall would likely cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars, but it wouldn't be built all at once so that price would be spread over decades. Given the alternative is literally abandoning the state, I'd say it's a price they could foot up. There's no stopping sea level rise but we can fight it as best we can. Or else you better start looking for land elsewhere. The destruction of Florida would cost much more than any wall proposal here.[/QUOTE]
All of my calculations were based off of what YOU said. If you're saying my #s are wrong you're saying your #s are wrong.
I cannot believe a dike or wall around the entire state of Florida would cost less than a trillion dollars. It is an absolutely MASSIVE requirement to fend off the rising seas. The entire state would absolutely HAVE to be walled off, otherwise water would just flow around the walls at the low spots, get behind the walls, and render them completely useless.
We've got 15 seaports that would need access to, which means 15 sets of locks. The seawall would HAVE to be built out to sea, otherwise all of our ports, beaches, docks, etc would be swallowed up by the sea. If the seawall was built ON the coastline we'd lose every single dock and port structure to the rising sea levels, we'd lose every single beach in the state (good bye most of Florida's tourism factor, hello crippling economic debt), and unless we capped off river tributaries, sea water would just flow up into the rivers and, once again, around the dikes.
Has to be out to sea.
6,000,000,000 for 46 miles of the [I]new, not built yet[/I] expansion. Which isn't a concrete wall anyway.
The existing 10 mile seawall is 16,000,000. Which with inflation is like 150,000,000 ~ $416,000,000.
[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/IzUvTrs.png[/img_thumb]
Blue was totaled around 16,000,000 by its completion. Red is the $6B dollar expansion.
Go read Scenario 1 & 3 again.
[editline]11th May 2015[/editline]
Seawall for the most part would have to be earthen dunes behind the beaches. For cities and heavy population centers like Miami, You would need a concrete wall behind the beaches, and complex system of gates and locks for the harbor. Low level parts of cities where there just cannot be a wall will have to be accepted as loss. Or destroyed and rebuilt on a higher grade. (like all those little islands with houses in Miami.) The key thing to remember is sea level rise is slow. We have centuries before it sinks entire cities, so we have plenty of time to build up a dike system that can hold it up for awhile. Beaches are commonly rebuilt with time anyway as they erode away. We'd have to continue that into the future.
Again, the alternative is complete evacuation.
Alternatively, you could wall off the cities individually and let them become giant islands. Or you could evacuate the entire state overtime into others.
Then there's also the fact that we're basing this all of a map that's showing 6 meter rise. Which won't happen for many, many centuries. For reference, if [B]Greenland[/B] melted, it would raise the level by 7 meters.
[url]https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/ice_sheets.html[/url]
The last map posted was 5m not 6m.
Anyway I don't really care what Florida does. Although a bunch of giant island cities sounds awesome. I'm gonna move north as soon as I can.
Time to desalinate ocean water to keep the sea level from rising. Can even create lakes in deserts with all the new freshwater.
[QUOTE=momoiro;47708109]Time to desalinate ocean water to keep the sea level from rising. Can even create lakes in deserts with all the new freshwater.[/QUOTE]
Are you insane
[editline]13th May 2015[/editline]
Wait nevermind I didn't see your flagdog.
To hell with this place. Let it sink.
There is no use fighting nature on a scale this big. It's best just to evacuate everyone and let it happen.
not only are rising sea levels going to completely fuck over floridan residents and businesses, but it's going to completely wipe out my favorite animal which is already an endangered species because people keep hitting them with their cars.
[t]http://i.imgur.com/xK5mHGG.jpg[/t]
this is a florida key deer, full grown and adult.
they are friendly and not as easily scared like other species. less than 800 are alive today.
As someone who lives on the edge of st augustine i must say it's been hot but i'm too far from the beach, and i'm happy it's decided to come to me.
It's kinda ironic really, an hour away from Saint augustine you have all the lake towns like Keystone heights, starke,melrose etc which are suffering because all the lakes are drying up due to Jacksonville Electric authority pumping it into Jacksonville and then on the other side there is the problem of too much water. Us Floridians just can't be satisfied.
[QUOTE=Obama Yo Momma;47717400]It's kinda ironic really, an hour away from Saint augustine you have all the lake towns like Keystone heights, starke,melrose etc which are suffering because all the lakes are drying up due to Jacksonville Electric authority pumping it into Jacksonville and then on the other side there is the problem of too much water. Us Floridians just can't be satisfied.[/QUOTE]
Every time I pass through Keystone I see the lakes get lower and lower. Didn't know JEA pumped the water though, I had heard it was going towards the Tampa area.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;47699556]Still, that's a lot of land of other states literally going down the drain
[t]http://maps.risingsea.net/CCSP/1.1_Regional_index_Titus_and_Wang_2008.jpg[/t]
Large chunks of New Jersey, including it's major beach-tourist industry, will be going away, and Maryland will be severed in two.
Not to mention what will happen to Long Island.[/QUOTE]
Feet and meters in the same diagram.
What idiot made this?
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.