26 floods a year or more that's what the
Jersey Shore's informed based on a
scientific study and won't be just
beachfront property values that suffer a
rising tide would carve out the tax base
that pays for schools and services
senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has
this report on peril and promised the
challenge of climate change a rising
tide lifts all boats but it increasingly
inundates neighborhoods flooding streets
and vulnerable areas like Bayview Avenue
in Seaside Park where the tide water
flows in and bubbles up from storm
drains people routinely park their cars
up the side streets we're getting more
tide here than we've ever had before
when I was guard up here we never had
tide Peter say is the third generation
to live in the house his grandfather
built whenever there's a high tide or a
big wind pushed tide the water comes in
through the pipe and up here and floods
the whole road because this is a low
area but those sewer drains don't work
we've known for a long time that sea
level rise will be impacting the New
Jersey coast it's kind of one of the
hardest hit states on the eastern
seaboard the Union of Concerned
Scientists compiled a new map showing
shore towns like Seaside Park will
occupy areas of highest risk for chronic
tidal flooding along the Jersey
shoreline by 2045 it will impact seventy
nine thousand people and thousands of
homes they occupy in the next 30 years
or so there are over 60,000 homes in New
Jersey that are at risk of what we call
chronic inundation which is flooding
that happens on average every other week
by the numbers that means more than
7,000 homes in Ocean City thirty-nine
percent of its current housing in
Atlantic City more than 4,000 homes
that's 40 percent 36 percent of homes in
Long Beach 29 percent in North Wildwood
more than 3600 homes in Toms River where
the mayor forecasts an eroded tax base
we experienced now some flooding high
tide the full moon
on streets that are low along a Bayside
and if you keep getting floods over
there
and higher water eventually people can't
live there because of the conditions and
that's a substantial tax base a combined
three hundred ninety million dollars in
local property taxes statewide funding
for schools and services wiped off the
books the report says twenty seven
billion dollars worth of problematic
real estate just look at the the plight
of the people who own property there if
they can't live there and want to sell
nobody's gonna buy we just don't put
stuff on the bottom shelves of things
and we assume if it happens it happens
Tom Joseph just bought a Bayside house
in Seaside Park people know about rising
sea levels and local flooding they're
still moving to the coast we're here on
the bay the view is beautiful a lot of
nice people here so it's going to take
quite a bit before we're gonna feel like
it's a problem certainly we want to let
people know what they are buying we want
to give them the information so that
they can make an informed decision
but since they since sandy they've
invested a lot in the infrastructure
since sandy billions in federal tax
dollars have funded the construction of
massive retaining walls and miles of
bulkheads widened beaches on barrier
islands and rebuilt and elevated homes
all along the coast they're buying time
in Seaside Park a little plaque marks
Sandy's high-water mark inside the
Wilson home where the family patriarchs
weathered a lifetime of storms he says
it's the ticking tide clock that will
tell his children when it's time to move
maybe in 50 years I know it's an awful
lot of dollars and cents and everything
else but in a real long future that
would be the only way you would wind up
abandoning a lot of this area
I mean it's so if do you hate to see for
now residents who live here say they
want to stay here and they know it'll
take taxpayer dollars to help beat the
rising tide waters in Seaside Park
I'm Brenda Flanagan NJTV news
[Music]
