Taxpayers on hook to save home from falling into the sea
It’s a luxury on its own to have a vacation home on the South Shore, but what if you also got a $180,000 federal grant to rebuild that house?
That’s the situation for a Florida widow and her home in Scituate. The Atlantic-facing home was damaged at least 10 times by storms, according to the New England Center for Investigative Reportingand published in The Boston Globe, and the money is a frantic, tax-funded attempt to keep the building from succumbing to the rising seas.
Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations for Mass Audubon, told the Globe it’s a “repeated mistake’’ to continue to rebuild in vulnerable areas.
Rather than retreat back from the coastline, the house is being elevated into the air as a way to reduce flood risk. The structure was raised about 3 feet with a previous $40,000 federal grant, NECIR reports, and will be elevated another 5 feet.
This is actually common practice in the shore towns, but the federal flood-insurance program , which will pay for the work done to the Scituate home, has been in the red due to a series of punishing storms that started with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to the Globe.
Read the full NECIR and Globe story here.
See images of severe weather in New England:
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