It's actually Miami Beach which is a different municipality than City of Miami or even Miami-Dade County.
The County and other regional organizations have done a ton of committees, studies and reports but none of them are actually taking concrete action except for Miami Beach
If you want the broad strokes, this Huffpo piece isn't bad. |http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/miami-beach-king-tide_n_5925950.html ]
If you want to go deeper, this 3.5 minute youtube video by the city is very informative.
And this one isn't bad
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article2541332.html#/tabPane=tabs-b0710947-1-1
If you are interested in the technical side. In a nut shell, they are designing all new drainage systems as if the water were already 2' higher than current. Based on the current elevations, that basically eliminates all options for gravity drainage such as outfalls, wells or exfiltration trenches. Everything gets pumped. It is expensive but is fairly straightforward for areas adjacent to the Bay. It gets more complicatd the farther you go towards the interior of the island.
The more complicated part is that they are trying to raise the roads, which is massively complicated in an existing situation. Imagine trying to raise the roads several feet when you have historic Art Deco Buildings with floor elevations at the old street level. In the residential neighborhoods, there are multi-million dollar homes that are barely above current high tide and will end up being below the level of road when it is raised.
I give them credit for taking on this task but it is a huge uphill battle. the challenge is that making any long term preparations instills short term pain in the way of costs and inconvenience that makes it a tough sell.
They have budgeted around $500 million over the course of the next five years and they are already coming to the conclusion that it won't get them nearly as far as they wanted to go.
In the end, it is an impossible battle so it remains to see how long they can hold out.
Feel free to ask any other questions.
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