Houses for Sale in Emerald Isle, NC 5

Why would anyone want to live on a coastal island? After all, no less an authority than Orrin H. Pilkey, Jr., deemed "America’s foremost philosopher of the beaches," by the New York Times, and James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University writes: “We strongly recommend against barrier island property purchase. Better to choose a high elevation inland site.”

Over the next few weeks, I am focusing my blogs on drilling down into Pilkey's recommendation for several reasons. First, I live on a barrier island and I own two ocean front properties on that barrier island, Bogue Banks, in Emerald Isle, NC. And, I've owned these two properties for well over 20 years. Second, I am a real estate agent who sells real estate in Emerald Isle, NC and elsewhere on the Crystal Coast. Third, I know Dr. Pilkey's research intimately. Fourth, I know Dr. Pilkey, personally.

In my previous blog #4, I reported that many people over the decades left the Dust Bowl and the weather ravaged Midwest to seek a better life in California. These folks listened to people who waxed enthusiastically about California’s warm Mediterranean climate and raved about the State’s diverse geography ranges. And these people would be correct. These ranges span from the Pacific Coast in the west to the snowy Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east. They stretch from the redwood-Douglas fir rainforests in the northwest to the arid Mojave Desert in the southeast. And, then there is the Central Valley, a major agricultural area that dominates the State’s center.

So what’s not to like about California’s weather? For starters, California, like the Midwest, has its share of droughts, massive droughts. The end game of all droughts is massive rain. And, in southern California, massive rains result in massive mudslides. Much of this massive rain falls in January and the first month of 1969 was no exception. More than 50 inches fell in the nine-day period beginning January 18next that resulted in a series of landslides in the hills of Southern California. In Glendora, 1 million cubic meters of rock and mud slid down a hillside, destroying 200 homes and killing dozens of people. On Mandeville Canyon Road, north of Sunset Boulevard in L.A.’s Brentwood section, waves of water three feet high ran through homes, sweeping away residents’ possessions. Overall, 91 people died in the flooding and mudslides. It was the worst storm to hit Southern California in 30 years. In February of the same year, yet another big storm hit killed 18 people over several days.

Six different storms hit Southern California in just over a week, beginning in February, 1980. In the floods and mudslides that followed, 30 people were killed and hundreds of homes were either destroyed or damaged. From 1981 to 2004, approximately 100 people died from floods and landslides in Southern California. Then, on January 10, 2005, a major landslide occurred resulting in 400,000 tons of mud inundating the community of La Conchita and killing 10 people, and destroying or damaged dozens of houses.

According to historical accounts and geologic evidence, landslides of this magnitude and scale have been occurring in Southern California for many thousands of years, and on a relatively frequent basis. There is no reason to believe this pattern of landslides will stop. Indeed, in January, 2018, at least 20 people were killed and dozens were injured as a vast area northwest of Los Angeles, as a driving rainstorm, the heaviest in nearly a year, triggered floods and mudslides.

I could go on but I think it is abundantly clear that moving to the west coast and California inland does not mitigate weather events from threatening your home. But there is more than simply mudslides in California. Return to this blog to learn what over weather dangers residents of California face on a daily basis. That being said, to learn more about life in Emerald Isle, NC, go to my website, www.EIHomesforSale.com and request my free Guide to Living Were You Vacation or text your email address to: 919-308-2292.