Patricia Kambach couldn’t bear to watch a crew demolish her longtime neighbor’s home this month, so she went inside her own house in Woodbridge, New Jersey, where she has lived since John F. Kennedy was president. “I lived here 56 years, and it’s hard,” said Kambach. Hard but not rare. The state has bought and torn down 145 homes since 2013 in Woodbridge, with eight homes demolished this month alone. Dozens more are slated to be torn down in the near future. It’s all part of an effort to get ahead of climate change. Some neighborhoods in this town of...