Beach rebuilding efforts won't stave off climate change impacts forever
Supplemental sand may have saved a North Carolina beach from Hurricane Florence, but some say the projects aren’t worth it
Thu 20 Sep 2018 05.00 EDT
When the coastal town of Wrightsville Beach, which buffers nearby Wilmington from the open ocean, began to come back to life on Wednesday after Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina, many people returning home were surprisingly relieved.
Despite Florence roaring ashore in this exact spot last Friday and now causing catastrophic flooding inland, the hurricane had not destroyed the beach, as many had expected.
That could be because the US army corps of engineers and the state and local government this winter spent more than $9m dumping sand onto the beach to build it up, in a precarious and controversial effort to hold back nature. The corps has done this every four years for more than 30 years – and is now approaching a spending cap for the project.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/20/beach-rebuilding-hurricane-florence-climate-change?CMP=share_btn_tw
