Gov. DeSantis touts post-Hurricane Ian beach renourishment funding – Florida Politics
Volusia County is set to receive $37.7M out of the $100M set aside for beach renourishment.
Volusia County and other areas that suffered beach erosion from Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole are set to receive $100 million for beach renourishment projects as part of legislation passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in December.
DeSantis highlighted the specific grant amounts to each community during an event Wednesday in Daytona Beach.
Although Hurricane Ian hit the state as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 28 and packed the biggest punch in Southwest Florida, where storm surge caused more than 100 deaths, it brought damaging beach erosion on the east coast as well, especially in Volusia County where dozens of homes and other structures were affected.
“The coastal erosion caused by these storms not only damaged upland structures and infrastructure but left them vulnerable to subsequent storms if not addressed,” DeSantis said. “I am pleased to announce another step to expedite recovery of our communities impacted by these historic storm events. This funding will support beach restoration needs, allowing us to rebuild and further enhance resilience…”
‘It’s reaching a crisis point’: Outer Banks leaders say they’re out of funding to save threatened beach communities – WRAL News
Dare County leaders said communities are at risk from coastal erosion, but state law is holding them back from finding potential solutions.
Dare County leaders said they can no longer afford to build back beaches in the Outer Banks that have been swallowed by the ocean, sending multiple houses collapsing in recent years…
Seeing Through Turbulence to Track Oil Spills in the Ocean – EOS Magazine
After oil and tar washed up on eastern Mediterranean beaches in 2021, scientists devised a way to trace the pollution back to its sources using satellite imagery and mathematics.
In mid-February 2021, heavy storms brought intense downpours to the eastern Mediterranean coast, keeping residents indoors. After the storms passed, residents returned to local beaches and noticed signs that something amiss had occurred offshore. In Israel, clumps of tarred sand appeared on beaches, along with oil-covered wildlife like turtles and fish. A dead 17-meter-long fin whale also washed ashore—an autopsy revealed oily liquid in its lungs, although the source of the oil was not identified definitively.
Experts estimated that more than a thousand metric tons of tar had landed along 180 kilometers of the Israeli and Lebanese shorelines in mid-February (Figure 1). Gaza also reported that similar arrivals of tar had reached its beaches. The findings forced Israeli authorities to announce the temporary closure of the country’s beaches on Sunday, 21 February, and prompted calls to identify the source (or sources) of the oil, which was not immediately clear…
On the Coast: Before and After the Parade of Atmospheric Rivers – Planet Snapshots issue 59 via Medium
California is left drenched, flooded, and perhaps a little hopeful after recurring atmospheric rivers pummeled the state for 2 weeks straight. The rains are a small reprieve for the area’s years-long drought. But the sheer volume of rainfall was much more than the parched landscape could handle. With a turn of the faucet, the state went from too dry to too wet in what’s called a “weather whiplash,” transforming the Golden State to shades of brown…
The Climate Impact of Your Neighborhood, Mapped – Interactive Feature – the New York Times
New data shared with The New York Times reveals stark disparities in how different U.S. households contribute to climate change. Looking at America’s cities, a pattern emerges.
Households in denser neighborhoods close to city centers tend to be responsible for fewer planet-warming greenhouse gases, on average, than households in the rest of the country. Residents in these areas typically drive less because jobs and stores are nearby and they can more easily walk, bike or take public transit. And they’re more likely to live in smaller homes or apartments that require less energy to heat and cool.
Moving further from city centers, average emissions per household typically increase as homes get bigger and residents tend to drive longer distances.
But density isn’t the only thing that matters. Wealth does, too…
‘Inside we are all struggling’: storm-bruised California begins recovery – the Guardian
From hillside towns like Felton to the picturesque coastal enclave of Capitola, the long road to recovery from disaster is only beginning. The county was declared a major disaster zone by Joe Biden, who visited Capitola on Thursday to survey the damage and said it would “take years to rebuild”…
Atmospheric rivers hitting California will become even more intense. Here’s how they work – the San Francisco Chronicle
The same weather that replenishes California water supplies could bring the next megaflood.
A procession of storms is drenching Northern California this week, with rainfall already topping 2 inches in San Francisco and surpassing 8 inches in the Santa Cruz Mountains. More precipitation is on tap through the weekend, prompting concerns of widespread urban flooding and potential landslides…
What Will ‘Weather Whiplash’ Mean for California? – the New York Times
California is built upon the great gamble of irrigation. Left alone, much of the land in the Western United States would be inhospitable to teeming cities. But we’re Americans — we couldn’t let the desert stand in our way.
More than a century ago, the United States Bureau of Land Reclamation began taming the water in the West…
Welcome to the era of weather whiplash – Vox
California’s floods reveal a likely climate change symptom: Quick shifts between opposing weather conditions. In less than a week, the story about California’s weather shifted dramatically. Just before New Year’s Eve, the state was running out of water following two decades of severe drought. Then, it started to rain and rain..California was battered by a series of atmospheric rivers…