`End of Plum Island'

Boston Herald ^ | March 9, 2013 | Joe Dwinell

[GQuagmire]

I do feel somewhat bad for these people. Saw on the news this AM they want to build seawalls and other preventative measures (without govt assistance) but have been running into red tape for years.

[Mr. Jeeves]

...the 11-mile-long barrier island shared by Newburyport, Rowley and Ipswich on the North Shore.

Uh oh. Cue creepy music, and watch out for hordes of humanoid fish-frogs wading ashore toward Innsmouth. / H.P Lovecraft reference, for the unread. ;)

[Gay State Conservative]

Sorry..no sympathy at all.If you choose to live on,or near,the ocean you must acknowledge that there are potential drawbacks,even serious ones.I don’t care if we’re talking Hawaii,California,Florida,New Jersey or Massachusetts.You chose to live there...deal with it!

[JW1949]

The answer is very simple...Build back away from the shoreline.....

[JW1949]

Exactly right....Use common sense when you build....

[Paladin2]

Or build and live on a boat.

[Pikachu_Dad]

What a pesemistic asshole... But why are they building homes on a barrier island in the first place?

[GQuagmire]

Like I said, I feel somewhat bad for them. If they want to throw their own money at a losing proposition they can knock themselves out trying to postpone the inevitable.

If they ask for any help from the govt forget it. They’re on their own

[JW1949]

How can you feel “bad” for ignorant, and/or egotistical people such as these???

[JW1949]

It’s all about man thinking he can control nature....

[SamAdams76]

Well it's like this...we have these tectonic "plates" under the earth's surface which are constantly shifting around, like a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Entire continents continue to pull apart and drift about.

Look at a globe and see how the continents sort of fit into each other if you smoosh them together. At one point, we used to be all one continent. But not anymore.

Over the next millions, billions of years even, our continents will be bumping into each other again, causing all sorts of annoyances for those still living on land masses. You might be able to step off the Aleutians and onto Hawaii - but Hawaii won't be warm anymore. If you own vacation property on Hawaii, you will eventually be screwed - about 2.3 billion years from now. I advise you to sell now.

[Pikachu_Dad]

They seemed to have a good fix for Grand Ise in Louisiana.

[JW1949]

I like what Larry, the Cable Guy said....
Look how smart the republicans are....They built a city below sea level and surrounded it with dikes that were built by the lowest bidder and inhabited the city with democrats who can’t swim....(New Orleans)

[GQuagmire]

From post #8...


Like I said, I feel somewhat bad for them. If they want to throw their own money at a losing proposition they can knock themselves out trying to postpone the inevitable.

If they ask for any help from the govt forget it. They’re on their own

[Hardraade]

Plum Island.

Sure hope they’ve cleaned up all the level4 containments before running away.

[sodpoodle]

****Sorry..no sympathy at all.If you choose to live on,or near,the ocean you must acknowledge that there are potential drawbacks,even serious ones.****

I would be interested in knowing what kind of property taxes they have been paying over their lifetimes - and why that money was not used to build sea-walls and protective dunes.

[9YearLurker]

Actually, we don’t let just anybody build whatever they want in the ocean along the shore.

[upchuck]

Agreed. If you build within five miles of the shoreline you deserve what ever you get.

Mother Nature is not to be messed with. She ALWAYS wins. She has lots of time on her side. We are puny to her.

[Fair Paul]

When I saw the title of the article, I thought of the other Plum Island, the one off Long Island. You definitely don’t want what’s on that Plum Island washing out to sea. Great book by Nelson DeMille.

[KarlInOhio]

Well it's like this...we have these tectonic "plates" under the earth's surface which are constantly shifting around, like a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

I want to build my house on the San Andreas Fault. No, not near... I want it on the fault with the living room and kitchen on the North American plate and the bedrooms on the Pacific plate. And I expect the federal government will pay to rebuild my house if anything goes wrong.