Will Flood Insurance Bills Clear the Islands?

I reread the front page story Feb. 13, as well as others in previous weeks, about changes recommended by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, (FEMA) for coastal towns building elevations and higher flood insurance premiums. Those stories made me revisit the notion of wealth.
Any “good American” at this late stage of our democratic republic, knows well that wealth is increasingly a filthy word. Thought police will soon scour “wealth” from the collective politically correct vocabulary. “The rich” are targets of hatred, because they possess what most do not: money. That is sad but true.
Regardless of loathing by the unwashed masses, “the rich” are what many of us lowly folks aspire to become some fine day. Unless a pile of cash crashes to earth on an asteroid, or we win a lottery, it will never come to be.
Assuredly, President Obama’s call for a $9-per-hour minimum wage will make no man or woman rich. His utterance interjected a dollar sign into his State of the Union speech that I read instead of heard. I thought I heard legions shouting “Yeah! Yeah! Raise the minimum to $9.” And then, after a stillness, I heard a whispered, “Yes, but who is going to pay for the minimum wage?” How foolish of me to think that the employer is going to pay the worker out of his or her own back pocket.
Unless that employer has a little printing press in the back room that the Secret Service won’t know about, I have a sneaking suspicion I will be one who forks over more to pay the $9 freight. Shivering wallet, get ready! If I’m wrong, please let me know. I never took economics, so it is quite possible that a hike in that wage will not affect any price I pay for anything, soup to nuts. Why must we (I) foot the bill for every whim or notion that seems good?
Back to flood insurance for a fleeting moment.
Some of the figures I have seen bandied about to pay the piper to live at the shore (insurance wise, that is) have made my tired middle-class mind (yes, I declare myself one of them, and we are indeed an endangered species!) spin like a whirlpool. Although my homestead is far inland, and won’t require flood insurance, I feel the collective pain of my brethren.
Without nailing a specific figure, let’s say flood insurance bills will eat up the better portion (perhaps just the driver’s seat and steering wheel) of a new Mercedes Benz annually.
While that may be so, there also reside in our seaside towns those who might not be well banked or well-heeled as their neighbors. I suspect they will open their flood insurance bill, take a few aspirin, sit down a few minutes before placing a call to their friendly Realtor to hammer a “for sale” sign into the front lawn, and hope for a quick sale.
Will they be able to unload the dwelling on that flood-prone ground? Good question. That’s where “the rich” again enter the equation.
Despised though they may be by the masses, there will remain among us those who were left fortunes by their high-born kinsmen. Perhaps they never had the pleasure of working a day in their lives, yet they possess more money that most can imagine. Even if they were well schooled and contributed much to society over the decades, and reaped the just rewards of their labors, they may want to own a seaside parcel.
Those are the folks who might be among those who can afford to write a flood insurance check, and simply charge it against petty cash. Will they want to assume the land with the outside chance it may be flooded, damaged or simply obliterated by the sea? Time will surely tell.
If they are, good for them! I hold no grudge against anyone of means. I have yet to think ill of those with fortunes. Spat upon though they might be for having what most do not, keep in mind they are footing the bill for a lot of what, in former days, would have been called charity or welfare. They are what we hope to be.
Imagine what Cape May County’s barrier islands and possibly even bayshore communities will be in the future, thanks to astronomical flood insurance rates. Those towns may become solely enclaves of the well to do. Perhaps gates will be erected to keep out the unwashed masses who hate them so much, yet who will grudgingly work for them at a $9 an hour minimum wage.
Will the face of Cape May County be forever changed, thanks to unfathomable flood insurance premiums? Or will we simply see a policy of abandonment along the seashore? I doubt that seriously, since our Garden State relies heavily upon cash generated between Memorial Day and Labor Day especially in this county.
Change is surely in the wind, and I don’t foresee any of those unwashed masses migrating to the seashore to buy a second home, or even a first home for that matter.
The city of Galveston, Texas was forever changed by the hurricane of Sept. 8, 1900. Will it be said that Superstorm Sandy did the same for the Jersey shoreline? In The New York Times Feb. 4, a front-page story by Thomas Kaplan reported a proposal by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to simply buy out owners of storm-stricken homes, and return the land to its natural state. A figure was published of $400 million to accomplish the deed. Stay tuned for the outcome. If it happens there, could it happen here?
For an example of what abandonment would look like, consider Assateague Island that stretches from Ocean City, Md. to Chincoteague, Va. The outer barrier island is simply sand and vegetation a buffer, further inland are the towns. Between the islands and mainland is, like here, marshland. Storms come and go, and dollar signs are not a consideration on the island.
In parting, with due respect to our well-heeled readers, may we consider words from the pen of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s in his short story “The Rich Boy.”
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”