{"id":776072,"date":"2022-08-15T13:57:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T13:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=583968"},"modified":"2022-08-15T13:57:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T13:57:59","slug":"as-rising-seas-swamp-south-carolinas-shores-some-coastal-communities-are-left-unprotected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/08\/15\/as-rising-seas-swamp-south-carolinas-shores-some-coastal-communities-are-left-unprotected\/","title":{"rendered":"As rising seas swamp South Carolina\u2019s shores, some coastal communities are left unprotected"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bordered by a freeway and flanked by former industrial sites, the coastal community of Rosemont in Charleston, South Carolina, is home to generations of Black families. But as climate change<\/a> raises sea levels and surrounding natural protections from storms have been removed for infrastructure projects, flooding has become a regular problem for the community. <\/p>\n It\u2019s not surprising that flooding is on the rise here\u2014infrastructure in Rosemont has been neglected for decades. When storm drains and sidewalks were put in throughout the city of Charleston, Rosemont was bypassed. Decades of heavy industry left a legacy of pollution\u2014two superfund cleanup sites lie within roughly half a mile of the community. A hurricane in 1989 destroyed the long dock that gave Rosemont residents access to the marsh and the water beyond\u2014it still hasn\u2019t been replaced. And despite Rosemont\u2019s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, a proposed $1.1 billion<\/a> new Charleston seawall ends before the Rosemont community begins, leaving residents unprotected yet again.<\/p>\n Chris DeScherer, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center<\/a> (SELC), is concerned about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers\u2019 plans. \u201cThey are proposing to build this wall around the most affluent part of Charleston,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is where the tourists come, the area with the highest market value. But the wall stops before Rosemont, and the Corps has not proposed other protections that would sufficiently protect the Rosemont community.\u201d <\/p>\n Residents worry about their risk. Cora Connor has lived in Rosemont for 23 years, raising her three children here. She says that since an adjacent freeway and the surrounding trees were demolished, flood water has regularly inundated her yard, lapping at her lowest porch step. Her 90-year-old neighbor sometimes can\u2019t leave the house due to the flooding surrounding it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many issues here that need to be addressed,\u201d Connor says. \u201cBut no one wants to take responsibility. Rosemont is kind of the little neighborhood that\u2019s been forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosemont and the rest of the South Carolina coast have taken a climate-change-induced beating over the past decade. Beginning in 2015, the state\u2019s coast was hammered for five consecutive years by hurricanes, storm surges, and \u201crain bombs<\/a>\u201d that caused untold amounts of damage.<\/p>\nExpensive infrastructure, vulnerable communities<\/strong> <\/h2>\n