| inbluevt | Date: Thursday, 2013/07/11, 12:49 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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When the water receded after Hurricane Milo of 2030, there was a foot of
sand covering the famous bow-tie floor in the lobby of the
Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach. A dead manatee floated in the pool
where Elvis had once swum. Most of the damage occurred not from the
hurricane's 175-mph winds, but from the 24-foot storm surge that
overwhelmed the low-lying city. In South Beach, the old art-deco
buildings were swept off their foundations. Mansions on Star Island were
flooded up to their cut-glass doorknobs. A 17-mile stretch of Highway
A1A that ran along the famous beaches up to Fort Lauderdale disappeared
into the Atlantic. The storm knocked out the wastewater-treatment plant
on Virginia Key, forcing the city to dump hundreds of millions of
gallons of raw sewage into Biscayne Bay. Tampons and condoms littered
the beaches, and the stench of human excrement stoked fears of cholera.
More than 800 people died, many of them swept away by the surging waters
that submerged much of Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale; 13 people were
killed in traffic accidents as they scrambled to escape the city after
the news spread – falsely, it turned out – that one of the nuclear
reactors at Turkey Point, an aging power plant 24 miles south of Miami,
had been destroyed by the surge and sent a radioactive cloud over the
city.
Rising Seas: A City-by-City Forecast
The president, of course, said Miami would be back, that the hurricane did not kill the city, and that Americans did not give up. But
it was clear to those not fooling themselves that this storm was the
beginning of the end. With sea levels more than a foot higher than
they'd been at the dawn of the century, South Florida was wet,
vulnerable and bankrupt. Attempts had been made to armor the coastline,
to build sea walls and elevate buildings, but it was a futile
undertaking. The coastline from Miami Beach up to Jupiter had been a
little more than a series of rugged limestone crags since the mid-2020s,
when the state, unable to lay out $100 million every few years to pump
in fresh sand, had given up trying to save South Florida's world-famous
beaches. In that past decade, tourist visits had plummeted by 40
percent, even after the Florida legislature agreed to allow casino
gambling in a desperate attempt to raise revenue for storm protection.
The city of Homestead, in southern Miami-Dade County, which had been
flattened by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, had to be completely abandoned.
Thousands of tract homes were bulldozed because they were a public
health hazard. In the parts of the county that were still inhabitable,
only the wealthiest could afford to insure their homes. Mortgages were
nearly impossible to get, mostly because banks didn't believe the homes
would be there in 30 years. At high tide, many roads were impassable,
even for the most modern semiaquatic vehicles.
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Message edited by inbluevt - Thursday, 2013/07/11, 12:50 PM |
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