In Norfolk, evidence of climate change is in the streets at high tide

[Divernan]

31. "Rising Sea Levels Torment Norfolk"

Here's a detailed article about the flooding/ocean level rise in Norfolk:
(a few excerpts)

Flooding has become so common in this city, where water is the lifeblood, that residents talk about it in the supermarket. Home to the world's largest naval base, Norfolk sits on flat land — much of it filled-in marsh that's now at sea level and sinking. Add to that the sea-level rise from global warming, and the city faces what it deems a $1 billion-plus problem.

Sea level has risen nearly 8 inches worldwide since 1880 but, unlike water in a bathtub, it doesn't rise evenly. In the past 100 years, it has climbed about a foot or more in some U.S. cities because of ocean currents and land subsidence — 11 inches in New York and Boston, 12 in Charleston, 16 in Atlantic City, 18 in Norfolk and 25 in Galveston, Texas, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 2012 tide gauge data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

ww.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/17/sea-level-rise-swamps-norfolk-us-coasts/3893825/

If you read the whole article, you will see that many people are desperate, but don't feel they can leave - either because they are underwater with their mortgages (the value of their homes are less than what they owe on their mortgages), or that potential purchasers are (rightly) being warned off from buying in these frequently flooded areas, and/or "But this is where I raised my kids. I love my house. I love my neighbors." Etc. Basically, many people who live in these areas are unable to face the realities of global climate change, take their losses and get out of Dodge before the next hurricane's storm surge destroys their low-lying homes and they can no longer get any property insurance. I can understand that - the reality is so horrifying, difficult to comprehend and accept, and they don't see anyway out other than writing off their homes and way of life.

What may help turn the tide, figuratively, is the coming surge in flood insurance costs, says Leonard Berry, director of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University. He says higher premiums might do more than hurricanes to change people's attitudes about living by the water.

Congress passed a 2012 law that, in October, began phasing out subsidies for the debt-ridden federal flood insurance program. More than a million homeowners could see sticker shock.

"There will be a slow exodus" from the coasts as property values gradually sink, predicts oceanographer John Englander, author of High Tide on Main Street. By century's end, he says, sea-level rise could dramatically transform U.S. coastlines, pushing them inland by hundreds of feet.