After Hurricane Sandy caused devastation to the U.S. coastline over a decade ago, the Army Corps of Engineers initiated a series of projects to protect coastal communities from future storms.
Norfolk’s $2.6 billion floodwall project is the furthest along in this Coastal Storm Risk Management program. But Charleston, South Carolina isn’t too far behind.
That’s what drew Toby Cox, a reporter with Charleston’s Post & Courier newspaper, up to Norfolk recently. She reported on the city’s floodwall plans as a window into what her city can expect.
WHRO caught up with Cox to hear about what she learned.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
WHRO: So tell me about the issues Charleston has with rising waters, and what the city’s floodwall plans currently look like.
Toby Cox: A lot of the issues seem to be pretty similar. The land is sinking, an issue called subsidence. Sea levels are rising, and flooding is happening more frequently.
Charleston's project includes an eight-mile-long seawall structure that wraps around the Charleston Peninsula. It also includes things like tide gates, pumps, and nature-based features such as oyster reefs and marsh restoration.
Progress has kind of stalled, so it seems kind of up in the air right now of where it'll go. Currently, the city is still negotiating the design agreement with the Army Corps. Signing that agreement would represent a commitment to move on to the pre-construction engineering and design phase. But it seems like things are kind of up in the air right now.
WHRO: What made you want to come to Norfolk and what did your story end up looking like?
TC: Yeah, you know I’ve just been thinking sea level rise, strengthening storms, flooding — it's not an isolated issue. There are lots of cities up and down the East Coast who are dealing with similar challenges and concerns.
I knew Norfolk and New York City and Miami, Charleston, (are) all dealing with it. And I think it's important to learn how other cities are dealing with this existential threat.
And so I wanted to come to Norfolk to learn about Norfolk's project and how the community was reacting and because it seemed like it was the furthest along in the process.
So the story starts with anecdotes from a community member in (Norfolk’s) Southside, Kim Sudderth. Her community is already flooding. If it rains during high tide, they know to move their cars. She worries about future generations and (my story) kind of opens with this because these are all concerns that people in Charleston have too. Right off the bat, I wanted Charleston readers to connect, ‘Oh, we're not the only people who are worried about these things.’ Like hey, people are worrying about it all up and down the coast. To kind of give Charleston residents a peek into what the process might look like after, if the city of Charleston decides to sign the Corps’ design agreement, what might the next steps look like?
WHRO: What were the biggest similarities and differences between the projects in each city?
TC: The biggest things that stood out to me were the similarities. Both cities are dealing with these threats of sinking land, rising seas, making them especially vulnerable to storms. One of the main differences I saw was the geographies of these cities are very different. Norfolk is a lot more spread out. Charleston has a distinct peninsula that an eight-mile-long wall can wrap around, whereas Norfolk's approach seems to be more segmented with the four shorter segments.
Another thing is cost. Norfolk's project is more expensive than Charleston’s, which is right now estimated to be $1.3 billion, although that could change.
Another concern is environmental justice. In Charleston, all the communities outside of that eight-mile-long wall, they're worried, ‘Will the wall over there make our flooding worse over here?” And that is a concern that I also heard in Norfolk.
Another difference, though, is a lot more people in Charleston seem to be worried about the project's aesthetics. People are worried it will be ugly. I wasn't here in Norfolk very long, but I did not hear that concern as much, or as loudly.
WHRO: What’s the biggest message you think Charleston residents can take away from Norfolk, and vice versa?
TC: I think that it's important to emphasize that these issues aren't being experienced in isolation, that they really are big issues that communities are facing across the globe. And we can all learn from each other.
