New Maps Let You Watch Donald Trump Beachfront Developments Being Swallowed By The Ocean

[hatrack]

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Three to six feet of sea level rise may sound like a lot. But it’s within the range that local authorities in Florida are planning for over the coming decades. The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, which represents the four counties in the region, last October estimated that by 2100, the sea would rise by between 28 and 58 inches above today’s average. Our maps reveal a watery future. Here, for example, are the locations of two more Trump-branded properties at Sunny Isles Beach, about 5 miles south of Trump Hollywood.



Although these buildings may remain just above sea level, access will likely be a problem by the end of the century, as much of the surrounding area disappears beneath the waves. “Even though a certain property might be sort of dry, there’s going to be absolutely no way of getting to it,” Billy Brooks, a geospatial analyst at NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management in Charleston, South Carolina, told BuzzFeed News.

The properties at Hollywood and Sunny Isles Beach are not owned by Trump; he merely licenses his name to be used by the owners. But elsewhere in Florida, he has some major investments of his own. They include the Mar-a-Lago, a private club and spa in Palm Beach, about an hour’s drive north of Hollywood, valued at $40 million by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.



He also owns Trump National Doral, a luxury golf resort in the Miami suburbs, valued by Bloomberg at $130 million. Even though it lies more than 10 miles from the current coastline, 6 feet of sea level rise could turn golf at Doral into an amphibious activity.



Neither the Trump Organization nor his presidential campaign responded to requests for comment on the impact of sea level rise on his property portfolio. But given widespread skepticism about climate change among Republican primary voters, Trump has political reasons to reject the scientific consensus on climate. Last month, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked him directly: “Do you believe that sea levels are increasing dramatically, Donald Trump?” “No, no I don’t,” Trump replied.


Flooding in Miami Beach, September 2015 Joe Raedle / Getty Images / Via gettyimages.com

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http://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/trump-buildings-underwater

[truebluegreen]

1. Even if the buildings themselves

stay above sea level, the necessary infrastructure will not.

[hunter]

2. It seems such a gradual thing on the map, but storms could chew the places up much sooner than that.

Abandonment won't be a consequence of gradually rising waters or one severe storm, instead the land will be abandoned after a chain of misfortunes that will be attributed to bad luck, unforeseen changes in markets, and other nonsense.

[NickB79]

3. I figure the tipping point will be when insurers finally decide to no longer provide coverage

Or charge insanely high rates for coverage related to storm damage, flooding, storm surges, etc.

[hunter]

4. Perhaps the state government will make that kind of discrimination illegal...

... requiring insurers to charge people on higher ground the same rates as people on lower ground. Or some other similar sleight-of-hand, not speaking of global warming or rising seal levels at all. Being Florida, it probably won't be the honest thing to do, or favor less affluent people.

Whatever happens, we do need a much better social safety net in the U.S.A. and some rational means of relocating entire communities before disaster strikes and the rising ocean grinds everything they have to pieces.

Otherwise you get Katrina scale disasters again and again, where the wealthy are losing maybe a vacation house and the less affluent are losing everything, cast out as refugees, neighbors never to meet again, neighborhood businesses never to reopen.