Monday, September 17th, 2018
Stephan: I am from Tidewater Virginia, I grew up in Gloucester County, and have been following what is happening in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area because it is the largest naval harbor in the world and I have been using it as a benchmark to show what the federal government is doing, or not doing, about climate change in the largest metropolitan area in Virginia. Here are the facts under the present mafia administration and its congressional zombies and they are not happy. The reality is that for lack of foresight and planning about 30 percent of the area is going under the rising waters, displacing hundreds of thousands of families and destroying the area's economy.
The water was a foot and a half lower when the naval station was established at Norfolk. Today, parts of the base are close to sea level. Credit: U.S. Navy
NORFOLK, Virginia—The one-story brick firehouse at Naval Station Norfolk sits pinched between a tidal inlet and Willoughby Bay. The station houses the first responders to any emergency at the neighboring airfield. Yet when a big storm hits or the tides surge, the land surrounding it floods. Even on a sunny day this spring, with the tide out, the field beside the firehouse was filled with water.
“It’s not supposed to be a pond,” said Joe Bouchard, a retired captain and former base commander. “It is now.”
Naval Station Norfolk, home to the Atlantic Fleet, floods not just in heavy rains or during hurricanes. It floods when the sun is shining, too, if the tide is high or the winds are right. It floods all the time.
“It is an impediment to the base accomplishing its mission,” Bouchard […]
Government will have to pay even more for a new base (or a lot of new bases) in the future and they better plan on it, by getting out of the current wars and putting the money into protecting sea level bases and the cities surrounding them.