Brought up living on water, Buddy struggled with the notion that homes need to be lifted above it.
Here’s another scene we’ll be seeing of people adapting to the effects of climate change. As rainstorms, snowmelt, and sea level rise inundate waterside properties more frequently, many owners are jacking up their buildings to let the floodwaters flow underneath. In Newport, where Buddy lived most of his life on land, the threat was real.
Raising a house protects the building, but doesn’t necessarily look good. Its streets lined with historic homes still show Newport as it was over 200 years ago. But for anyone who appreciates historic architecture, raising those old homes spoils the whole look of the area.
And, hey, maybe buildings won’t flood, but what about the streets? Do residents come and go in boats during the flood season? Where do we park?
There’s another way to do this.
You may have heard about the town that lifted its streets, not its buildings. Port Angeles, WA raised several downtown streets by 6 to 15 feet, installing walls topped with sidewalks at the second-story level in front of the St. Francis Hotel and dozens of adjacent buildings. A new life began one story higher. The townspeople completed the whole project in six months!
The town may have raised the streets, but what about the buildings? That decision was left to each property owner. Their choices? Rebuild it or leave it on its original foundations with the ground floor abandoned. Anyone curious about how that worked can take a guided tour underground on the original sidewalks and stroll among the 1914 ground floors, still intact after 110 years.
Covered with boards, the Port Angeles streets were usable right away, but it took six years for the mud to dry enough for actual paving!
More and more hometowns are raising buildings
For most towns the Port Angeles method is impractical. But a whole lot of towns face the need for one solution or another. Sixteen percent of properties in Newport will be severely affected by flooding in the next 30 years. The same danger level faces other cities. Best known are Miami, New Orleans, and Charleston, but inland cities face increased climate-driven flooding too. Davenport and Cedar Rapids in Iowa, St. Louis in Missouri, Fargo in North Dakota, and Alton in Illinois all show examples of buildings being lifted - and sometimes moved - to escape the flooding.
And of course, the place we’ll see the most jacked-up homes is at the beach. Just about any ocean-level residential area has one or more homes that have already been put up on stilts.
Costs
Homeowners can spend anywhere from $10,000 to over $100,000 to permanently lift their home — and that doesn’t include constructing a new foundation and raising the basement utilities and septic system. The payback: their homeowner’s insurance becomes cheaper (or available), damage or destruction is avoided, and they’re less likely than their neighbors to get their feet wet.
Raising or moving floodable homes is a growing business, maybe even a boom in some places.
Merry Christmass