It’s Not Nice to Fool (With) Mother Nature

Don’t you always envy the guy who has a house right on the water? You won’t envy him anymore. As a matter of fact, if I was the guy on the water, I’d be a little freaked out after reading a New York Times science section article that reported "a least a quarter of the houses within 500 feet of the United States coast may be lost to rising seas by 2060." Almost the entire East Coast is the most vulnerable, specifying Cape May, NJ ("…it will attenuate, change in composition and potentially disappear…"), and North Carolina’s Outer Banks as two areas of major concern. What’s curious is that people continue to build and develop along these risky areas.

Speaking of another water story, last week a lake in Lakeland, Fla., is doing just the opposite — it’s sinking, according to this article in The (Lakeland) Ledger (photo on the right is from The Ledger of a home along the south-end of the lake).  It’s speculated that a sinkhole has developed under Scott Lake and is creating havoc on the pricey homes along it, with walls cracking, windows breaking and even swimming pools cracking open and the water draining out.

So, add sinkholes to the list of concerns Floridians have to deal with, which includes hurricanes and alligators. I haven’t even mentioned the state’s rise in delinquent home loan payments as reported in the Miami Herald. (Apologies for this last non sequitur, but it deserved a mention.)