Scott Hippensteel joins WBTV’s ‘On Your Side Tonight with Jamie Boll’
Scott Hippensteel, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, joined WBTV’s segment “On Your Side Tonight with Jamie Boll” to discuss how coastal erosion is claiming ocean-front homes in North Carolina.
Along the coast of the Outer Banks, crowds gathered to watch as recent rough currents from Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda swept nine abandoned houses into the ocean.
“With the erosion, it’s not really a natural disaster until somebody builds there. It’s going through a natural process,” said Hippensteel. “The shape of the topography of that portion of North Carolina is so flat that as we incur sea level rise from climate change, the shoreline is naturally going to retreat.”
According to AccuWeather, the Outer Banks are losing shoreline much quicker than other places in the U.S., losing 10-15 feet of coast per year compared to the average loss of 1.6 feet along the mid-Atlantic, Florida and New England coastlines.
“In Charlotte, we were smart enough to take all of the most dangerous places to build, those would be along our streams and on the floodplains, and we zoned those as greenways to prohibit people from building there,” said Hippensteel. “As a result, we have these wonderful, open, natural spaces that everyone can use… but along the coastline, we didn’t do that.”
Hippensteel emphasized that potential beach nourishment projects are not a sustainable solution, as Charlotte residents could end up contributing tax dollars to replenish private, inaccessible beaches to rebuild homes that the Atlantic ocean will continue to damage.