“if South Beach suffers very heavy damage the economic hit to the Miami area could last for a decade or more as the Miami Beach area is slowly rebuilt—if at all.”
Welp, considering there will be onshore winds followed by offshore winds there shouldn’t be much erosion. Nothing dredging operations this fall can’t remedy.
The big issue is most of those Art Deco buildings were built between 1923 and 1943 and nobody knows how well they can stay together in a Category 4 hurricane, let alone a Category 5, from a combination of very high wind, very heavy rain and especially the expected storm surge. Yikes.