Don,
Really glad to see a post from you indicating you guys are safe and got off with only the inconvenience, as much of a nuisance as it is. Knowing where you live, its a good thing this wasn't a really powerful storm (big, yes bot not so powerful). Both winds and surge can get a lot worse than came with Sandy. Hope things get back to normal in Spring Lake as soon as possible.
Some comments on the other stuff
1) The NWS guys do superb, highly detailed local and extremely accurate work. AccuWesther and similar are pretty much a joke by comparison in you compare for accuracy over time. The NWS discussion page is my first and most important weather summary- from there its direct to real time satellite and radar info or NHS as needed. AccuWeather and its cute apps aren't even on my list...(Used to keep a printer set up to pull the marine fax from shortwave transmissions years ago when I fished offshore, don't need that any more- but still sometimes listen to the marine info on our local NOAA channel and look at the offshore buoy data being transmitted).
2) Yes there is a lot of really stupid building on the coast- driven by greed of locals, mostly, then reinforced by interest of folks foolish enough to buy there without wanting to take personal responsibility for a foolish choice. But one needs to remember that NYC infrastructure layout is very old and much of that poorly situated and low-built housing in NJ has been there 50 yrs or more so predates much of the ocean level changes and weather shifts that have tilted risks in the past years.
Perhaps this storm will serve as a wakeup but I doubt it. It is possible with big expense to protect small areas like cities, even NY, though it would cost probably $20 billion minimum to do anything useful. It is also possible to build on pilings in beach towns to minimize surge damage. But in the long run the only real answer for anything other than a few areas is to get off the beach..
Personally, I put subsidizing the insurance and perpetual rebuilding of beach places repetitively leveled offensive. Much of the recent waves have been funny money building Mc-mansions intended as investment and rental- I see no reason for those well inland to subsidize the mostly wealthy and well off folks doing this. In the old days and style, some families built to live at the beach as a main residence but that is not the prime driver of a lot of current development. An example of a location with both types of building is parts of Long Beach Island in NJ- a lot of it has been severely damaged in previous storms and rebuilt and it has small percent of year round residents with a huge summer influx of almost 10X that number- from Philly and other metro places nearby.
3) Ocean front changes have always happened and at present are happening at an accelerated rate. One could argue about how much of that is human caused but it is real and not a figment of imagination. There are islands in Cheasapeake Bay that are going under water slowly and the cost to artificially maintain barrier islands sand in place is getting so high even the feds are shucking it off to local govts that literally cannot afford it- so they're looking to state govts which won't want to waste huge resources on what will be a loosing effort over the long term. Satellite photos make clear the effects of warming- the breakup and loss of the worlds huge ice masses means that water has to go someplace and even the low end estimates show mean sea level up another 3 ft in the next 50 years. All of us might be dead of old age before being hit by the impacts of this but it is coming- for our kids and theirs. 3 ft doesn't sound like much but is close to half the height of Sandy's storm surge and would be the new baseline to which any surge height gets added- it is a huge change.
Really glad to see a post from you indicating you guys are safe and got off with only the inconvenience, as much of a nuisance as it is. Knowing where you live, its a good thing this wasn't a really powerful storm (big, yes bot not so powerful). Both winds and surge can get a lot worse than came with Sandy. Hope things get back to normal in Spring Lake as soon as possible.
Some comments on the other stuff
1) The NWS guys do superb, highly detailed local and extremely accurate work. AccuWesther and similar are pretty much a joke by comparison in you compare for accuracy over time. The NWS discussion page is my first and most important weather summary- from there its direct to real time satellite and radar info or NHS as needed. AccuWeather and its cute apps aren't even on my list...(Used to keep a printer set up to pull the marine fax from shortwave transmissions years ago when I fished offshore, don't need that any more- but still sometimes listen to the marine info on our local NOAA channel and look at the offshore buoy data being transmitted).
2) Yes there is a lot of really stupid building on the coast- driven by greed of locals, mostly, then reinforced by interest of folks foolish enough to buy there without wanting to take personal responsibility for a foolish choice. But one needs to remember that NYC infrastructure layout is very old and much of that poorly situated and low-built housing in NJ has been there 50 yrs or more so predates much of the ocean level changes and weather shifts that have tilted risks in the past years.
Perhaps this storm will serve as a wakeup but I doubt it. It is possible with big expense to protect small areas like cities, even NY, though it would cost probably $20 billion minimum to do anything useful. It is also possible to build on pilings in beach towns to minimize surge damage. But in the long run the only real answer for anything other than a few areas is to get off the beach..
Personally, I put subsidizing the insurance and perpetual rebuilding of beach places repetitively leveled offensive. Much of the recent waves have been funny money building Mc-mansions intended as investment and rental- I see no reason for those well inland to subsidize the mostly wealthy and well off folks doing this. In the old days and style, some families built to live at the beach as a main residence but that is not the prime driver of a lot of current development. An example of a location with both types of building is parts of Long Beach Island in NJ- a lot of it has been severely damaged in previous storms and rebuilt and it has small percent of year round residents with a huge summer influx of almost 10X that number- from Philly and other metro places nearby.
3) Ocean front changes have always happened and at present are happening at an accelerated rate. One could argue about how much of that is human caused but it is real and not a figment of imagination. There are islands in Cheasapeake Bay that are going under water slowly and the cost to artificially maintain barrier islands sand in place is getting so high even the feds are shucking it off to local govts that literally cannot afford it- so they're looking to state govts which won't want to waste huge resources on what will be a loosing effort over the long term. Satellite photos make clear the effects of warming- the breakup and loss of the worlds huge ice masses means that water has to go someplace and even the low end estimates show mean sea level up another 3 ft in the next 50 years. All of us might be dead of old age before being hit by the impacts of this but it is coming- for our kids and theirs. 3 ft doesn't sound like much but is close to half the height of Sandy's storm surge and would be the new baseline to which any surge height gets added- it is a huge change.