Hurricane Sandy Teaches Us About Sandbars.

Urban planning has a lot to do with anthropology and anthropology has a lot to do with where we live.  Some of us chose to live on large sandbars often called barrier islands and Hurricane Sandy showed us how stupid it can be to do that.

There are two reasons to live on a barrier island or low lying coastal property. The first and original reason is it was close to work. You were a fisherman, factory or dock worker; commerce was centered around shipping and ports.  Most often these were not where you found wealthy people nobody wants to live in marshes or near the docks; you caught yellow fever and had your house washed away, these were the poor the workers. The captains lived up the shore on the hills with the view not in a place to be washed out of the view.  The Second reason is the newer reason which started in the late 1800s and that is for pleasure.  To play on the beach to "own" the beach the view and the "cleansing" sea air.  This new reason has taken over much of the waterfront building trend.

So a Barrier Island is just that an object in the path of the oncoming force of storms.  Just like the sand bars they are they shift and move with the tides.  Man has thought they could tame this by driving piles and moving sand and sticking jetties every so often.  Sandy showed us that these are mere temporal devices and that mother nature can easily overcome these obstacles.  The best way to fight nature is with nature, by building on these island we have destroyed most of the natural dunes, these are the best ways to keep the sand from moving as the plants slow the wind and water swept sand.  To do this it means we need more natural space and less built environment on the barrier island.

Sandy should teach us it is better to have a view of the barrier island than to live on it.  As we rebuild we should rebuild with the idea that nature cannot be tamed and nobody who puts a house up on a pile of sand should expect it to stand forever.