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The Drowning South


WHERE THE SEA WALL ENDS


AT A TIME OF FAST-RISING SEAS, THE OCEAN IS EATING AWAY AT THIS BARRIER ISLAND
AND OTHERS LIKE IT. BUT HUMANS, WHO HAVE HELD THEIR GROUND HERE FOR OVER A
CENTURY, ARE PLANNING NEW CONDOS.

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These Galveston condos stand at the edge of the swiftly rising Gulf of Mexico.

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(Landsat/Copernicus; Airbus; TetraMetrics; Data SIO; NOAA; NGA; GEBCO/Google
Earth Studio)

Galveston Island has an extensive sea wall — but much of the island remains
beyond its protections.

Key indicating that the thick yellow line in the video represents the seawall.

Sea wall

Sea wall

That hasn’t dissuaded real estate sales or proposed development on its western
side.

Key indicating that the transparent white line in the video represents
unprotected coastline.

Beyond the sea wall

Beyond the sea wall

But at a time of worsening hurricanes and rapidly rising seas, to what lengths
will people go to defend a shrinking coastline?

By Chris Mooney, 
John Muyskens and 
Brady Dennis
Photos and videos by Ricky Carioti
Sept. 23, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.

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GALVESTON, Tex.

This roughly 30-mile-long barrier island, an hour’s drive from Houston, is a
powerful testament to humans staring down nature and refusing to yield.

Devastated by an extreme hurricane in 1900, Galvestonians built a 17-foot-high
sea wall and pumped in millions of cubic yards of sand to lift neighborhoods.

“Galveston has literally raised herself above sea level and today proudly
surveys the results of her achievements,” a 1930 Galveston Daily News article
noted.

Today, the island is booming. Galveston’s population has grown, home sale prices
have more than doubled since 2011 and developers see more potential — even
beyond the island’s existing fortifications.

The sea wall protects only about a third of the island. Where it ends, two
luxury condominium projects have been proposed along one of the fastest-eroding
stretches of beach.

At the same time, here as across much of the South, the threat from the sea is
intensifying.

The site in Galveston, Tex., where Tiara on the Beach condominiums are expected
to stand.

Since 2010, Galveston has experienced a burst of sea level rise, which has added
a staggering 8 inches to the ocean’s height here, according to federal data
analyzed by The Washington Post — one of the most rapid changes across the Gulf
of Mexico. The rise is being exacerbated by fast-sinking land, which is taking
the island and all that’s on it ever lower.

Chart showing sea level rise at Galveston Pier 21 in Texas. The chart shows the
rate of sea level rise from 1904 to 2009, which was 0.25 inches per year, and
the rate from 2010 to 2023, which was 0.6 inches per year. The chart also
compares these rates to the overall rates in the Gulf of Mexico, which has risen
comparatively slower.

Galveston, Tex.

8.4 inches

sea level rise since 2010

10 inches

0.60 inches per year

2010 to 2023

0

GULF OF

MEXICO RATE

Annual mean

-10

0.25 inches per year

1904 to 2009

-20

1900

1940

1980

2020

Tide gauge measurements are from Galveston Pier 21. Gulf of Mexico averages
start in 1925 due to lack of older data from multiple stations.

Galveston, Tex.

8.4 inches

sea level rise since 2010

10 inches

0.60 inches per year

2010 to 2023

0

GULF OF

MEXICO RATE

Annual mean

-10

0.25 inches per year

1904 to 2009

-20

1900

1940

1980

2020

Tide gauge measurements are from Galveston Pier 21. Gulf of Mexico averages
start in 1925 due to lack of older data from multiple stations.

The collision between the rising ocean and Americans’ desire to live near it is
playing out from Texas to Florida to the Carolinas. Coastal communities
throughout the American South have grown to accommodate an influx of residents,
even as the region grapples with some of the planet’s fastest-rising seas — as
well as the likelihood of stronger storms and more intense rains fueled by a
warming atmosphere.

The tensions over how to adapt to those changes, and where to build and rebuild,
may be entering a new, more fraught chapter.

As waters rise, experts say, developments along low-lying coastlines are likely
to require more frequent and costly protections. Without them, homes and other
buildings could be threatened as rising groundwater attacks foundations, as
erosion brings the sea closer and closer, and as persistent flooding complicates
daily life.

“All of these individual developments, they come with obligations and
commitments that are beyond that particular property and the people who own it,”
said Randall Parkinson, a Florida International University professor and coastal
geologist.

Governments are typically on the hook for maintaining roads, re-nourishing
beaches and keeping utilities up and running. “That comes from the coffers of
taxpayers,” he said. “That’s other people’s money.”

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THE DROWNING SOUTH

Carousel - $The Drowning South: use tab or arrows to navigate
ArrowLeft
ArrowRight
Seas are rising across the South faster than almost anywhere. The Post explores
what that means on the ground.
Part 1
The new face of flooding
Part 2
Where seas are rising at alarming speed
Part 3
A hidden threat
Part 4
Anatomy of a flood
Part 5
A rising fortress in sinking land
Part 6
Where the seawall ends
End of carousel

Still, here and in other coastal communities, people keep arriving.

Galveston’s population has swelled by nearly 12 percent since 2010, according to
figures from the Census Bureau. And U.S. coastal counties, already home to
almost 40 percent of the nation’s population, are expected to see millions more
arrive in coming years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.

“It really does, on the surface, seem like a paradox,” said Martin Smith, an
environmental economist at Duke University. But the allure of living near the
water remains strong, he said, and demand for coastal housing remains
“astronomically” high.

“This process is unfolding all throughout the Southeast and the Gulf Coast,”
Smith said.

Even so, this summer has underscored the risks.

In June, high seas caused by Tropical Storm Alberto surged through Galveston,
flooding streets and eating away at some dunes. In early July, Hurricane Beryl
raked the island with violent winds and storm surge. Some areas saw significant
flooding. Torrential rains later in the month left some roads temporarily
impassable.

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Unlike many flood-plagued communities, Galveston awaits a possible salvation —
the largest authorized project in the history of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, which currently is projected to cost $57 billion over time and take
two decades to construct.

Popularly known as the Ike Dike, its core purpose is to defend the broader
Houston region, but much of that strategy hinges on fortifying Galveston Island.
The project would raise the island’s sea wall and build a barrier of levees and
flood walls around its denser urban core. It would also construct 18 miles of
double dunes beyond where the sea wall ends, giving back much of what the ocean
has taken over the past century.

In the meantime, Galveston is taking steps to battle sea level rise. The city is
planning to install a half-dozen or more large pump stations to help ease
worsening tidal floods that can leave residents unable to access their homes or
businesses for hours at a time. The first is expected to cost about $60 million,
a significant chunk of which would come from federal grants.

“We’re in the crosshairs here,” Mayor Craig Brown said in an interview. He said
the pumps are one way the city is trying to be proactive.

“It’s part of our survival here in Galveston,” he said.


(The Washington Post)


A BATTERED BEACH, BIG AMBITIONS

Atop the 10-mile-long Galveston sea wall sits a road called Seawall Boulevard.
Decades ago, at its western end, motorists would sometimes keep going, driving
their cars right onto the beach. Today, the end of the sea wall gives way to
protective stone blocks and open water.

This spot is one of the most rapidly eroding places on Galveston Island — due to
factors including a lack of sand and wave effects caused by the sea wall, as
well as faster sea level rise.

The Seascape Condominiums, built in the mid-1980s, sit nearby. Ron Benotti has
owned a third-floor unit for 32 years.

The oceanfront view from Benotti’s balcony underscores the allure of Galveston.
After a few stormy days in June, calmer waves rolled up to a modest, but still
substantial, beach. Families had planted their canopies near the water’s edge.
More than a dozen people stood in the surf below.

But Benotti pointed out a curiosity — an elevated wooden footbridge seemingly
suspended in the air. It was built to traverse a 60-foot-wide dune installed a
decade ago to protect the shrinking beach.

An elevated wooden footbridge leads to the beach from Seascape Condominiums. It
used to traverse a 60-foot-wide dune.

The dune has washed away, and the bridge crosses over nothing.

“There’s another lot out there, underwater,” said Benotti, 79, a retired
metallurgical engineer. “It shows you how far out things used to be.”

The dune was part of a more than $4 million beach restoration project following
2008’s Hurricane Ike, which brought the ocean to the Seascape’s doorstep. It was
largely paid for by federal, state and local governments and a roughly $40,000
payment by the condos, which included the cost of the walkway.

Since then, developers have filed plans to build condo buildings on two lots
next to the Seascape — flash points in how far this city will go in allowing new
construction on a vulnerable stretch of land.

Tiara on the Beach, the name for one pending building, would be 10 stories high
and partially behind the sea wall, offering 63 units starting at $1.2 million
and “stunning views of the Gulf of Mexico,” according to its website. It would
mark the first such project since Ike devastated Galveston Island.

Map showing proposed condo developments in Galveston near the end of the sea
wall

Proposed

developments

Seascape

Tiara

Diamond Beach

Solarus

SEA WALL

Property lines

500 FEET

Note: The Solarus footprint is based on plans that were rejected.

Property lines via the city of Galveston, 2022 NAIP imagery via USDA

Proposed

developments

Tiara

Seascape

Diamond Beach

Solarus

SEA WALL

Property lines

500 FEET

Note: The Solarus footprint is based on plans that were rejected.

Property lines via the city of Galveston, 2022 NAIP imagery

via USDA

Proposed

developments

Seascape

Tiara

Solarus

Diamond Beach

SEA WALL

Property lines

500 FEET

Note: The Solarus footprint is based on plans that were rejected.

Property lines via the city of Galveston, 2022 NAIP imagery via USDA

“Beach-front development always has been controversial in Galveston, and should
be. We all have social, economic and environmental stakes in protecting the
island’s natural assets,” the editor of Galveston’s Daily News, Michael A.
Smith, wrote in June of last year. He added: “Can Galveston afford to spike a
project that would add $100 million or so in taxable value on a relatively small
footprint in an area where condo towers already exist?”

Jeffrey Hill, a former member of the Galveston Planning Commission who opposed
the Tiara development given erosion risks, argued that the allure of increased
tax revenue is a key reason why the city has supported the condo development.
“Somebody has to sound the alarm,” she said. “And it is a very unpopular stance
to take, but somebody has to do it.”

Representatives for Tiara and its developer could not be reached for comment.
However, during one public hearing in 2021, a coastal land-use expert noted that
a portion of the site does lie behind the sea wall’s protections. And that while
that stretch of beach is subject to erosion, it also is in an area eligible for
government-funded sand replenishments.

In addition, the project’s architect, Steven Biegel, told Galveston officials
the building’s footprint was placed “as far away from the beach as possible. We
did this for a number of reasons, but mostly it’s a restricted site.”

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City leaders ultimately approved the project in 2021 and last year voted to
extend the deadline for its developer to acquire various permits.

There hasn’t been blanket political support for development in the area. The
other proposed building, known as the Solarus, would not be behind the sea wall
at all — and so far plans for its construction have been stymied.

Developer Clearlake Asset Management initially sought numerous deviations from
city building regulations, mostly to give the structure additional size.

Protective dunes would be built in front of the building, part of a broader
effort to “build to better fit in with climate change,” Galen Kahlenberg,
Clearlake’s chief executive, said in an email. “I am convinced that proper care,
nourishment, and in the event of a major event, reconstruction, should keep this
site stable for years.”

The site of the future Tiara on the Beach condos, which will be partially behind
the sea wall.

Controversy over the proposal came to a head in March at a public meeting where
Benotti and other Seascape owners were among those who voiced opposition.

“Why would you put that kind of development in the highest erosion point in the
whole [part] of Galveston?” Benotti asked.

Kahlenberg pushed back on some of the criticisms as unfair and motivated by a
more self-interested opposition to new construction at the site.

“Change and growth is difficult,” Kahlenberg said at the meeting. “Buildings
will get made. I think Galveston is moving into a new area as we do that.”

A geotextile tube runs along the beachfront side of a condo complex.

The commission ultimately rejected the proposal.

Kahlenberg said he has since scaled back his design. The project he now
envisions would be five stories high and 48 units, nearly half the original
plan. It would be a “responsible beachfront construction project” that could
withstand hurricanes and storm surge, he said.

“Climate change is upon us, but can be handled through diligent planning and
responsible construction,” Kahlenberg said, adding that his development has
plans to maintain its dunes “with minimal dependence on public funds in case of
a disaster.”

Brown, the mayor, said current regulations include more stringent elevation
requirements than in the past, among other restrictions.

Galveston Mayor Craig Brown says changing conditions could prompt the city to
reconsider its building codes.

“We hold them to those rules. And then if they make a decision to build, so be
it,” he said.

Still, he said changing conditions could force the city to consider whether the
codes are adequate in the years ahead.

“Sometimes our land development regulations lag behind exactly what the
constraints of Mother Nature demand,” Brown said. “But that’s something that we
have to try to stay on top of as much as possible as we move forward.”

A great blue heron stands on the beach in Galveston across from waterfront homes
on San Luis Island.


AN ISLAND OF ENDURANCE

That so many buildings stand today on Galveston Island — and that more are in
the pipeline, including a Margaritaville resort on the island’s less vulnerable
eastern end — reflects a remarkable act of persistence.

In the late 19th century, two hurricanes wiped out the major shipping port of
Indianola, about 115 miles southwest of Galveston. This cemented the dominance
of Galveston as Texas’s leading port city. Then, the island was hit by a massive
hurricane in 1900. It was the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history,
killing at least 6,000 people here.

Galvestonians refused to leave. Two years later, they began work on the sea
wall. They raised their buildings and pumped sand beneath them. Over time, as
protections grew, they also started building farther down the island.

“This city … stands as a monument in itself to the accomplishment and
achievement of engineers,” R.E. Fristoe, who served as the chief engineer of the
Galveston Wharves, said in a 1933 speech before the Texas Section of the
American Society of Civil Engineers.

Archival photo showing an intersection in Galveston






This photo, taken about 1903, shows a block being prepared for grade raising.
The street to the right had already been raised, while the block to the left
awaited the filling process.

The grade raising was part of a massive project to protect the city following
the hurricane destruction in 1900.

The same house was surrounded by debris after the 1900 hurricane. (Galveston &
Texas History Center)

Before the block was filled, homeowners had to raise their houses at their own
expense, sometimes as much as 8 to 12 feet.

The engineer marked the elevation to which the grade would be raised.

Elevated walkways were built so residents could maintain access to their raised
homes.

A series of pipes carried a mix of sand and seawater pumped from dredges to the
areas that needed to be filled.

Sand is discharged through a pipe as part of the grade raising. (Galveston &
Texas History Center)
Graphic comparing photos of the house at 28th and Ave P from before the grade
raising and after the grade raising.

Before raising

After raising

Before raising

After raising

Before raising

After raising

Before raising

After raising

This intersection was five blocks from the newly built sea wall. The impact of
the grade raising is still clear today, as shown in high-resolution elevation
data.

Key explaining that the colors on the map represent elevation above the average
highest daily tide

Elevation

above average daily highest tide

Elevation

above average daily highest tide

0

0

10

10

20 feet

20 feet

The initial grade raising took about a decade and 10 million cubic yards of sand
to complete.

But most of the island’s area remains unaltered and low-lying.

The grade raising did not lift every corner of today’s Galveston. Part of the
area along 59th Street, a neighborhood now full of residents and homes, remains
low-lying — and some of the worst flooding occurs there at high tide.

The sea wall was extended westward several times, ending in its current spot in
the early 1960s.

Despite all that adaptation, the entire island remains vulnerable, due to a
century’s worth of rising seas and sinking land.

John Anderson, a retired Rice University marine geologist, owns a home on
Galveston Island that he built high on stilts 25 years ago, when seas were at
least a half-foot lower.

In a recent study, Anderson and fellow researchers documented how rates of
erosion along the Gulf Coast have increased since about 1850. While sea level
rise was extremely slow when Galveston Island formed and grew — a tiny fraction
of an inch per year — it has since accelerated. As a result, the island is
eroding at 3 to 4 feet per year, at least in locations without human structures,
such as jetties, that artificially trap sand and help keep beaches intact or
even growing, Anderson said.

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Changing sea levels have transformed this location before. The Texas coast
extended many miles farther into the Gulf of Mexico 11,000 years ago, according
to Anderson and other researchers, but retreated when the end of a great ice age
raised the seas by hundreds of feet.

As sea level rise slowed, barrier islands like Galveston accumulated sand. But
now it’s accelerating and expected to worsen in the coming decades due to
climate change.

Anderson and other scientists do not know for certain why the region is
experiencing rates of sea level rise so far beyond the global average. And they
don’t know if that will persist, and for how long or how quickly it could eat
away places that are already seeing high rates of erosion.

“The real question is, how the acceleration of sea level rise will accelerate
shoreline erosion,” says John Anderson, a retired Rice University marine
geologist who owns a home on Galveston Island. “And really, nobody knows the
answer to that.”

At the same time, the number of high-tide floods, which can happen even on sunny
days, has surged — the island has experienced more than 150 over the past
decade.

This type of flooding is forecast to become rapidly worse as seas continue to
rise. Projections from NASA and the University of Hawaii’s Sea Level Center
suggest that, by the 2050s, the island could see over 250 days with minor
flooding each year.

Rising home prices and growing threats from extreme weather also have
contributed to soaring home insurance costs for many Texans. Average rates
jumped by double digits each of the past two years, including by more than 20
percent in 2023 — more than in any other state, according to an S&P analysis.

On the whole, Galveston residents don’t appear to spend much time fretting over
such concerns. It is a place where perseverance has been passed down for
generations, where obituaries still refer to residents as “BOI” — born on the
island — as a mark of pride.

Tom Schwenk, who owns a local real estate agency and has been in Galveston since
the mid-1980s, said there is a mentality ingrained in many residents that
refuses to surrender to the threats of wind and water.

Schwenk said people are not naive about the risks, but rather willing to accept
them. He said the city does more than many other coastal communities to address
flooding, and the stricter elevation standards put in place after Hurricane Ike
have created a sense that development is happening more responsibly.

“It’s not like other places I’ve been, where people worry about it all the
time,” he said. “We get to live in a place where people come to go on vacation.
So you take the good with the bad.”

Avenue Q at 59th Street in Galveston is flooded after water from a high tide
backed into the drainage system.


AT THE WATER’S EDGE, BEAUTY AND PERIL

At the March public hearing over the Solarus, city council member Marie Robb
argued that the predicament of several decades-old buildings just a few miles
down the road should give officials pause as they considered the proposed
oceanfront development.

“Where it’s positioned at the end of the sea wall, it probably is one of the
most erosive spots that there is,” Robb said in opposing the Solarus.

“We have three buildings currently on the island that are in jeopardy because
they sit too close [to the ocean] … and we don’t need another situation like
that,” she added.

These three condo buildings in Galveston — from left, the Riviera I and II and
the West Beach Grand — seen during a high tide in June.

Kahlenberg said when it comes to safety and the design of his building, “I have
hired the best team of architects, engineers, environmentally experienced dunes
specialists and legal support team members well versed in building a beachfront
construction project of this proportion.”

Still, some locals see the three condo buildings Robb referenced — the Riviera I
and II and the West Beach Grand — as a cautionary tale in the risks of building
along a changing coastline.

Aerial image showing the Riviera I, Riviera II and West Beach Grand condo
buildings in 2008.

West Beach Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via Houston-Galveston Area Council)

West Beach

Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via Houston-Galveston Area Council)

West Beach Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via Houston-Galveston Area Council)

Aerial image showing the Riviera I, Riviera II and West Beach Grand condo
buildings in 2008 after Hurricane Ike..

West Beach Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via NOAA)

West Beach

Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via NOAA)

West Beach Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via NOAA)

Aerial image showing the Riviera I, Riviera II and West Beach Grand condo
buildings in 2009.

West Beach Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via Texas Geographic Information Office)

West Beach

Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via Texas Geographic Information Office)

West Beach Grand

Riviera II

Riviera I

(Imagery via Texas Geographic Information Office)

Here’s how the condos, which originally featured beachside pools, appeared from
above in 2008.

Later that year, Hurricane Ike battered the Galveston coast and damaged the pool
decks in front of the condos.

The damage from Ike was largely repaired by the following year, but the pools
were removed.

The beach continues to erode, as seen earlier this year, but barriers to protect
against waves, called geotextile tubes, have been added to the condo buildings.

In recent years, city officials have worked with homeowners at the condos to
undertake engineering reports for the buildings, according to residents and to
Galveston’s development services director, Tim Tietjens.

It’s a process the city initiates “when there’s a structure that has concerns or
possible structural issues,” he said.

Kim Van Camp, who headed a joint group of property owners from the condominiums,
told Galveston’s Daily News in 2022 that residents had commissioned the
assessments in the wake of the tragic condo collapse in Surfside, Fla., the
previous year.

“We wanted to get experts involved,” Van Camp, who could not be reached for
comment, told the paper. “When it comes to public health and safety, ignorance
is not a good state to be in.”

One report from June 2022 found that the buildings “appear to have been well
engineered, well constructed, and properly maintained,” despite the need for
some repairs and reinforcements. It also found that the condos would be likely
to face more stress during storm events than “these buildings were designed to
withstand” in the 1980s.

Another engineer who visually inspected the Riviera II building wrote in July
2022 that severe erosion had left four feet of foundation exposed, and the
high-tide line was “partially under the building.”

“In its current condition this building should be evacuated if a flooding storm
is approaching,” the engineer, Luke Pronker, wrote. “From my observations, in
its current condition this building is at significant risk of collapse during a
design storm event due to the beach erosion’s increased flood forces and may
lack the necessary support of the ground.”

In an email, Pronker declined to speak about specific projects without
permission from the building’s owners.

That same month, Galveston’s chief building official wrote to the leaders at the
Riviera II building, saying that all owners and visitors must immediately be
notified of the those risks, and that the condo must outline the “expedited
procedures” it planned to take to repair and protect the structure.

“The steps outlined above are to deal with the immediate danger that flooding
events pose to the structure,” Todd Sukup, the city official, wrote.

“We at the city are not unsympathetic to the fact that you and your owners have
been confronted with a serious situation that we expect [will] require
considerable money and effort to remedy, if it can be remedied at all. But we
would be remiss were we not to take steps to remove our citizenry from danger.”

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Stephen C. Hale, a board member at the Riviera II who has owned there since
1995, said the building has always taken measures to evacuate ahead of
significant storms. He said after the city’s letter, property owners also
undertook further engineering reports to address any concerns and show that the
structure is sound.

“Over time, we proved that the building hasn’t moved an iota,” Hale said. “The
foundations are very stable.”

An official at Rapp Management, which previously managed the three properties,
said the company no longer oversees them. Officials at the current property
management firm did not respond to requests for comment.

Bill Kroynovich, who until earlier this year served as president of the
homeowners association at the West Beach Grand, said residents had sought out
the various studies “to err on the side of caution and to protect our owners.”

Last year, he said, all three condo buildings installed geotextile tubes in
front to fend off storm surges and crashing waves, after finally gaining
approval from government officials. He said his building also put in place
additional sand to help shore up its foundation and fend off erosion.

The geotextile tubes are essentially meant “to protect the pilings,” Van Camp
said at a public hearing last spring, in which he said property owners had
consulted regularly with city officials about potential options. “We’ve got
something that we think is big enough, but not something intended to be there
forever and a day.”

Tietjens called the geotextile tubes “a temporary corrective measure.” And
Kroynovich said a major storm could still cause massive damage given that the
condos have such little protection, at least until a long-awaited beach
replenishment happens.

In an email, a spokeswoman for the Texas General Land Office said the agency is
working with the Army Corps and the city “to conduct two large-scale beach
nourishments” in the area in 2025 and 2026.

“Once they do that, it’s going to be a huge influx of sand,” Hale said.

Even so, the threat of storms and erosion will remain.

“I think it’s a concern to everybody in Galveston,” Kroynovich said. “It’s
beautiful to live by the water, but there are also consequences of living by the
water. You assume the responsibility of those risks.”

This spring, Kroynovich and his wife sold the one-bedroom unit they had owned at
the West Beach Grand since 2009. Still, he said, they cherished their time by
the water.

Cyrus Varshochi feels the same.

He bought his unit in the Riviera I building a decade ago. Ike had already swept
away the building’s ocean-facing pool. But Varshochi remembers there being about
200 feet of beach at low tide.

Cyrus Varshochi and his wife, Alie, enjoy lunch on the beach outside Riviera I,
where they own a condo.

In the past four to five years, he said, the once-crowded stretch of beach has
lost ground dramatically. “Obviously, the biggest concern is, one of these days,
the water is going to wash things away,” he said.

For now, though, even as the buildings recently did more work to shore up the
existing protections after Alberto and Beryl, he and his wife still look forward
to their time here.

“Ultimately, what’s going to happen in 10 years, who knows?” he said. “But for
now, we’re enjoying it. It’s rare, to find this type of life.”

They have no plans of selling.

Waves wash up toward the Galveston sea wall.


DEFENDING THE COAST

Just because a coastal city is low-lying, or sits on a barrier island, doesn’t
mean it can’t be sustained for decades or more, even amid rising seas and
worsening hurricanes. It’s more a matter of what it takes to protect it.

In the wake of Hurricane Ike, Bill Merrell, a professor at Texas A&M at
Galveston, helped conceive of the idea of a massive coastal barrier. That effort
eventually grew into what has become known as the Ike Dike — the sprawling
combination of walls, enormous gates and dunes that the Army Corps is expected
to take decades to construct.

The plan would not only protect Galveston. It would fortify the entrance to the
Houston Ship Channel — and the massive oil and gas infrastructure that lies
behind it — from a catastrophic storm surge.

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“The world has got itself in a fix. We didn’t mitigate” planet-warming
emissions, Merrell said in an interview. “We are going to have to adapt to it.
We don’t have a choice anymore. If we want to maintain our economy, our way of
life, our social systems … we are going to have to defend the coast.”

As he stood at the end of the sea wall in early June, Brian Harper, the planning
chief for the Army Corps’ Southwestern Division, acknowledged the challenge
ahead. At this crux of the proposed project, a hardened sea wall would gradually
transition into an 18-mile expanse of double dunes.

The maintenance for the dunes, Harper noted, would be considerable, as storms
and rising seas would constantly assail them in the decades to come.

Watermarks for Hurricanes Ike and Harvey are painted on the pillar of a tire
shop in Galveston.

Merrell and his colleagues have argued that the agency’s plans are too weak, and
that the proposed dunes aren’t big enough to stop a major hurricane.

Compared with Florida and other sand-rich locations, the Texas coast also
doesn’t have as much natural supply to continually replenish dunes.

“We’ve already got a beach that’s eroding rapidly, and the Corps of Engineers
can’t even find the sand we need to maintain the current beach,” said Anderson,
the retired Rice geologist.

The Army Corps says it has begun to investigate how to best obtain the estimated
17 million cubic yards needed to complete the initial construction of double
dunes along Galveston Island.

“We’ll mostly be mining from offshore sources in the Gulf,” Harper said. In an
email, the agency said that so far its cost figures are based on sediment
sources from the Sabine and Heald banks, but it would continue to investigate
“alternative sources that provide equivalent quality and amounts of sand.”

But Harper acknowledged that no matter what, the process of adapting here will
require perpetual vigilance. “We would expect that at least every 10 years,” he
said, “we’ll have to re-nourish the beaches.”


(TWP)


‘IT IS COMING FAST’

Barely three miles from the end of the sea wall, Dario Romero and his wife,
Aurora, live in a particularly low-lying part of Galveston.

Their battle against rising water is different from the one facing residents
farther west, but no less maddening.

In recent years, floodwaters have filled their street during high tides or
rainstorms — or both. “It’s something we deal with every day,” said Dario
Romero, a 69-year-old semiretired longshoreman.

Dario Romero, left, and Charles Addison, both residents of the 59th Street
neighborhood, flip through photos of flooding compiled by Addison.

Sometimes, people plow through the water in their vehicles, potentially damaging
them with saltwater and sending wakes that lap against garages and houses.
Residents said water comes up through the drains about 50 times per year, even
on sunny days.

“We are where it all accumulates,” Romero said. “People can’t leave their house
for work. People can’t leave their house for anything.”

The city plans to put one of the pump stations to help mitigate flooding in this
neighborhood. Romero is skeptical — the only solution, he believes, might be to
raise part of the island again.

A key for the following map

Can pumps spare this low-lying neighborhood from flooding?

Galveston plans to build a pumping station in a neighborhood that wasn’t raised
and faces frequent flooding.

Elevation above average daily highest tide

SEA WALL

Profile along 59th Street

15 ft.

0

Gulf of

Mexico

English

Bayou

Can pumps spare this low-lying

neighborhood from flooding?

Galveston plans to build a pumping station in a neighborhood that wasn’t raised
and faces

frequent flooding.

Elevation above average daily highest tide

SEA WALL

Profile along 59th Street

15 ft.

0

Gulf of

Mexico

English

Bayou

Elevation above average

daily highest tide

Can pumps spare this low-lying neighborhood from flooding?

SEA WALL

Galveston plans to build a pumping station in a neighborhood that wasn’t raised
and faces frequent flooding.

20 ft.

Profile along 59th Street

10

0

Gulf of

Mexico

English

Bayou

Can pumps spare this low-lying neighborhood from flooding?

Elevation above average

daily highest tide

SEA WALL

Galveston plans to build a pumping station in a neighborhood that wasn’t raised
and faces frequent flooding.

20 ft.

Profile along 59th Street

10

0

Gulf of

Mexico

English

Bayou

Map showing elevation in the 59th street neighborhood and where the city plans
to build a pump station.

NORTH

English

Bayou

Offatts

Bayou

Planned pump

station

HEARDS LN

LOW-

LYING

AREA

Area of planned

drainage

improvements

61ST ST

STEWART RD

59TH ST

RAISED

AREA

53RD ST

57TH ST

SEA WALL

Detail

Gulf of

Mexico

0.5 MILES

NORTH

English

Bayou

Offatts

Bayou

Planned pump

station

HEARDS LN

LOW-

LYING

AREA

Area of planned

drainage

improvements

61ST ST

STEWART RD

59TH ST

RAISED

AREA

53RD ST

57TH ST

SEA WALL

Detail

Gulf of

Mexico

0.5 MILES

Offatts

Bayou

English

Bayou

AVE P

Planned pump station

HEARDS LN

61ST ST

Area of planned

drainage improvements

LOW-LYING

AREA

STEWART RD

RAISED

AREA

59TH ST

53RD ST

AVE U

57TH ST

SEA WALL

NORTH

SEA WALL

Detail

Gulf of Mexico

0.5 MILES

Offatts

Bayou

English

Bayou

AVE P

Planned pump station

HEARDS LN

Area of planned

drainage improvements

LOW-LYING

AREA

45TH ST

STEWART RD

RAISED

AREA

59TH ST

53RD ST

AVE U

SEA WALL

57TH ST

NORTH

Detail

SEA WALL

0.5 MILES

Gulf of Mexico

When Hurricane Beryl was predicted to bear down on the Texas coast in early
July, the Romeros evacuated. They returned to town on July 8 to find their
neighborhood flooded for blocks. The couple had to park on higher ground and
wade through the murky water to their home, which they elevated after Hurricane
Ike.

“This is more than any normal high tide,” Dario Romero said as he surveyed his
neighborhood, which looked more like a lake.

Later, he kayaked back to the couple’s vehicle to collect their things.

Several miles away, at the end of the sea wall, the storm had left a different
kind of mark.

Before Hurricane Beryl
After Beryl
Aerial image from before Hurricane Beryl showing a protective dune in front of
the site where the Tiara condos are planned to be built.

Future site of Tiara condos

200 FEET

SEA WALL

Future site of Tiara condos

200 FEET

SEA WALL

Future site of Tiara condos

200 FEET

SEA WALL

Aerial image from after Hurricane Beryl showing damage to the dune

Future site of Tiara condos

200 FEET

SEA WALL

Future site of Tiara condos

200 FEET

SEA WALL

Future site of Tiara condos

200 FEET

SEA WALL

(Pre-Beryl imagery: City of Galveston; post-Beryl imagery: Houston-Galveston
Area Council/Nearmap)

The wind and water had torn down a fence outside the Seascape Condominiums and
left the pool and parking lot full of sand. The churning sea, even from a
Category 1 storm that did not make direct landfall, had clawed away at a sand
dune near the proposed condo developments.

Despite power outages and other damage, the area had avoided widespread
catastrophe. But the storm offered the latest reminder of the challenges that
lie ahead, here and around much of the South, particularly as storms strengthen
and seas rise.

A woman walks along the western end of the Galveston sea wall.

“I don’t think people really understand what’s coming,” Parkinson, the Florida
International University researcher, said of the sea level rise projected over
coming decades.

“It’s nothing anybody has ever experienced,” he said. “It’s taken a long time to
get to where things are now, but now it is coming fast.”

ABOUT THIS STORY

Archival images provided by the Galveston and Texas History Center at the
Rosenberg Library. Elevation data is from Texas Water Development Board, Fugro
Geospatial, Inc. via National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Office for Coastal Management and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental
Information.

Kevin Crowe, Ricky Carioti and Monika Mathur contributed to this report. Design
and development by Emily Wright. Photo editing by Sandra M. Stevenson. Video
editing by John Farrell. Design editing by Joseph Moore. Editing by Katie
Zezima, Monica Ulmanu, Juliet Eilperin and Zachary A. Goldfarb. Project editing
by KC Schaper. Copy editing by Frances Moody. Additional support from Jordan
Melendrez, Erica Snow, Kathleen Floyd and Victoria Rossi.

Share
1400 Comments
Chris MooneyChris Mooney is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter covering climate
change, energy, and the environment. He has reported from the 2015 Paris climate
negotiations, the Northwest Passage, and the Greenland ice sheet, among other
locations, and has written four books about science, politics and climate
change. @chriscmooney
John MuyskensJohn Muyskens is a graphics reporter who focuses on climate change
and environmental justice. @JohnMuyskens
Brady DennisBrady Dennis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national reporter for The
Washington Post, focusing on environmental and climate stories, primarily around
the Southeast. He previously has covered the Environmental Protection Agency,
international climate policy, the Food and Drug Administration and the nation’s
economy. @brady_dennis
Ricky CariotiRicky Carioti is an award-winning photographer and has worked for
The Washington Post since 2002.


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