Can you imagine Miami without Miami beach?
South Florida is one of the world’s favorite beach-fun destinations. From College students going for the wildest spring break trips to grandparents looking for retirement homes, Miami is a prime-time destination. But the city has one glaring problem.
Extreme Weather in Miami Beach
Get your paddleboards ready, but not for fun and giggles.
Sea levels around Miami are rising approximately one inch every three years and may completely render parts of the city unlivable.
If the trend continues at the current pace, Miami Beach may soon sink entirely underwater, forcing some 80,000 residents to relocate to other parts of the city or country. Forced resettlement is not a problem for future generations in the year 3100. It may well happen in our lifetime.
If we don’t effectively stop the rising sea levels losing Miami Beach and others parts of Miami may happen during our lifetime. Little Haiti and Overtown may soon become waterfront neighborhoods.
Even Donald Trump’s famous Mar-a-Lago may soon need new floors.
Extreme weather in Miami is already an everyday event
If you have never seen some of the wealthiest Americans paddleboards down the streets of Miami Beach, then you’re in for a…well…treat? A weeping treat.
You can watch the videos here, here, or here.
UN climate scientists provide extensive evidence to support these claims, and the consensus among scientists is above 97%. More scientists agree on the effects of human-made climate debauchery than they agree about Earth’s shape of the earth or the effectiveness of vaccines. So yes, extreme Christain scientists are out there too.
How long before Miami Beach is Completely Underwater?
The coastal resort city now faces floods almost every other week. If you’re casually walking down the sunny 31st Street in September, don’t be surprised when the water starts rising from underneath the asphalt and flooding the roads around you. Residents call it the Sunny Day Flooding or King Tide.
Miami’s city government says these floodings are predictable and normal weather in Miami that usually happens between early September and late November. This is all typical weather in Miami, the officials assure, while stressing that people shouldn’t:
- Swim in floodwater
- Let children play in flooded areas
- Park your car in floodwaters
- Drive down flooded lanes
The Kind Tide usually goes away in a few hours, and everyone goes on their merry way. However, extreme flooding happens when the sea rises above the ground level, and water starts pouring from drain grills and drains.
If you drive around Miami Beach for one afternoon, you may see dozens of pumps actively working to keep the sea levels steady. The occurrence is so common that water pumps have become part of the city’s exterior. Residents report flooding on at least a monthly and sometimes bi-weekly basis.
Miami’s extreme weather is driving climate gentrification. Where to go from here?
Many would never admit to man’s mishandling of the planet’s climate in public but are keen to put the money where their mouth is not. Not everybody is the same, of course. However, Real Estate investors low-key (but not publically) agree on the repercussions of global climate change.
Mobile home prices in Miami's historically poorest neighborhoods are rising faster than most other investment properties. As a result, corporations buy out chunks of Overtown and Little Haiti and rapidly price out their citizens.
Miami’s trailer parks are located further away from the sea and current’s city’s luxury. The standard altitude of Silver Court Trailer Park is about 13ft, compared to Miami beach that sits barely 4ft above the water. However, altitude is not the only thing that’s high in mobile homes. The rent prices are also catching up. Residents usually own the house, but not the land underneath the mobile home.
$245. $300. $350. $450. $650. $745. Retired old ladies are now waking up to notices of 50% monthly rent increases. Mobile homes are not the first choice for many, and now they’re not the cheap choice either.
Wealthy investors are forcing poor people out of their homes to accommodate affluent residents in decades to come. Nobody has yet legally proven the grand conspiracy of pricing poor people out of Miami in this case, but the rent price for the mobile property shouldn’t match room prices in Los Angeles.
What can you do as a resident of Magic city?
You might think you can’t do anything about climate change as an individual or even as a resident of Miami, but there are many things we can do together to combat this global problem:
- Support initiatives like Miami Forever Resilient, which encourage resilient building practices and plans for long-term sustainability.
- Participate in community events where you learn more about how climate change affects your neighborhood.
- Vote locally on issues related to energy efficiency.
We can all contribute to building a healthy and sustainable future. If we don’t act together, we may lose whole parts of the country. Can you imagine Florida without Miami Beach?
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