Ellicott City has a location problem

Click here for a Baltimore Sun video of Ellicott City flooding.

It's quite the scene.  And I've spent a number of posts here discussing the floods and their aftermath--specifically the actions being taken to prevent future inundation and damage.

Maryland's two US senators dropped by Ellicott City yesterday with the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss plans and funding needed to address the problem.  According to a Baltimore Sun Article (also the source of the photo above), "officials estimate the area needs 18 structural and non-structural projects that would total $80 million to mitigate future flooding."  (The former are the streambed diversions, dikes and pipes discussed in the plans, while the latter are things like waterproofing and notification systems.) 

The article goes on to say that "long-term, structural solutions that have been proposed include widening the Patapsco River and Hudson/Tiber Watershed tributaries to hold more water during heavy rainstorms."  Local community leaders have spent time and energy "focused on preserving the historic neighborhood and investing in mechanisms to divert massive amounts of rainwater away from Main Street, instead of through it."

And yet Mark DeLuca, the County's Deputy Director of Public Works, said “$80 million could fall out of the sky and we would still have a problem with flooding."

In my opinion, the problem with Ellicott City is far more complicated. First, the climate is such that floods are becoming more frequent and more severe.  The senators at the public meeting yesterday mentioned that too.  Furthermore, there are issues related to the general terrain and geography of the area that limit both what can be done and how well water can be managed via engineered solutions. Add to this the simple fact that so many homes and businesses are built literally in the convex of the two mountainsides (i.e., directly in the water's pathway) and you have a real problem.

Simply put, Ellicott City has a location problem.

The US government recently announced the funding for relocation of the entire town of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana (albeit only 99 citizens) to higher ground.  The culprit? Sea level rise.  The town is already almost entirely underwater.  Granted, as this article admits, given the high cost of the move it's not a replicable model for other projects.  Even worse, scientists predict 13 million similar "climate refugees" will have to be relocated from coastal areas by the end of the century.  Villages in Alaska are already in the process of relocating.  Add to this towns along rivers and in vulnerable topographies like Ellicott City, and the need expands exponentially across the country.

The article goes on to describe the process in Lousiana:

During the summer of 2014, the Obama administration announced the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC).  The competition, administered by HUD, had an ambitious purpose: to shift the way the U.S. manages natural disasters, from simply responding to and recovering from them, to planning and preparing for their inevitability. The competition would award $1 billion in funding to resilience projects across the nation.

The Louisiana Office of Community Development, Disaster Recovery Unit (OCD-DRU) worked with Isle de Jean Charles community leaders, NGOs, and development companies to draft an application for four resiliency projects, one of which was the Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement Project.  The application didn’t blunt the truth about the difficulty of the task at hand. It called the resettlement process “excessively complex.” It noted that failing to adhere to the preset timeline “could lead to potentially catastrophic outcomes.” It warned that a lack of prior examples to work from made the whole project uncertain. And it recalled that every government-backed relocation effort in the U.S. so far has been at least a partial failure.

Rather than balking at the hurdles, the OCD-DRU decided that Louisiana had an obligation to “improve upon our nation’s track record.” They would do this, the application said, by focusing not only on environmental resiliency, but “cultural resiliency” as well.  It was exactly what the competition was looking for, and the project was awarded the full $48.3 million it requested.

The project's managers admit the project is already behind schedule and complicated by a host of political, demographic and historical issues.  The most pressing problem now seems to be the answer to a simple question:  Where will the new town be constructed?  That, according the article, is the most complicated, contentious and financially demanding aspect of this resettlement effort.

Regardless, the lesson for Ellicott City is that, despite the sentiment attached to the historic nature of the town, perhaps only solutions involving the partial relocation of town's structures themselves will render a more resilient and successful outcome for everyone.  As with Isle de Jean Charles, however, that desired long-term safety and security for Elicott City's residents and business owners won't come without a complicated and, yes, contentious discussion of the realities they face.

UPDATE

A recent article provides an update on the relocation of the community of Isle de Jean Charles:  "Following a two year search and negotiation some 500 acres of former sugarcane land was purchased for nearly $12 million near Schriever in southern Louisiana. Development is slated for 2019."