Selection 11 Summary

In the article article Will Hurricane Katrina Impact Shoreline Management? Orrin H. Pikey and Robert S. Young describes why trying to fight the water and protect the coast may do more harm then good. Protecting infrastructure on coasts is not economically or environmentally sound. Disasters such as the one in New Orleans caused by hurricane Katrina have happened before. hurricane Camille caused a similar destruction in 1969 ,so did hurricane Frederick, Danny, Georges and Ivan. This has not stopped more development to go up after recovery. After Hurricane Katrina people are calling for two actions. One is to retreat development from the coast. The other is to replenish the beaches. the replenishment option has many faults. It encourages more coastline development putting more people in danger. It doesn't protect from large storms such as Katrina. It has high environmental impact on coastal ecosystems and it usually payed for by taxpayers who wont benefit from it. Federal government should not be the one paying to keep rebuilding the coast. Those who chose to live in these vulnerable areas should face the consequences. But because of America strong ideals to stand in the face of danger and to help victims of disasters it will be hard to abandon these high risk areas. A policy must be created for coastal areas to dictate what communities should be abandoned when destroyed because its not worth rebuilding . Another plan was to restore the wetlands to protect the coast but again this would do little to protect from large storms. the U.S. Needs to completely re haul the national coastal policy.