FYI:
Texas has 350 miles of barrier beaches. Padre Island is 114 miles long with a population of about 13,000. Galveston Island is 27 miles long and has a population of 58,175. Mustang Island is 18 miles long with 3,480 residents. I believe St. Joseph’s (San Jose) and Matagora Islands are unpopulated.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina is 200-miles long, with a population of 57,755.
Between the two states there are 550 miles of barrier beaches with a population of approximately the same as New York’s Rockaway Peninsula which is 11 miles long and has a population of 130,000.
I really wish I had more time to devote to giving a better answer (backed up by stats, etc.) this evening, but my time is short.
Although the total coastline miles and population of Texas and North Carolina are different than the Rockaways, the population centers in both states are concentrated in localized areas...not scattered thru out the many miles of coastlines.
When hurricanes hit these areas they are as devasting as Sandy was. Heck, there was a hurricane in the early 1900’s on Galveston Island that killed about 8,000 people. Corpus Christie has a population of about 308,000. Houston, although 30 miles or so inland, often bears the brunt of hurricanes.
I never meant to minimalize the effects of Sandy on the Rockaways. It was (and is) a horrible thing. But I look at what Floridians and others have endured. Is it so different?