Seaside

Friday afternoon, I joined throngs of beach goers exiting Mobile, and later, Pensacola, as I worked by way east into the Florida panhandle. It's nice that some stretches of beach are preserved within the Gulf Islands National Seashore, since it provides a contrast to the high rises and surf shops of Gulf Shores and Pensacola Beach. The afternoon light, lack of haze, and perfect weather made the beaches all look like advertisements (some miscellaneous pictures at hshipman).

I reached the eastern terminus of my whirlwind tour early last Saturday morning in Seaside, Florida. This was the first of several planned communities built along the coastline between Destin and Panama City in the last couple decades and is often cited as a prime example of new urbanist principles. Or at least some of them. Seaside did convey a wonderful sense of place. It was pleasant to walk around, it was a neighborhood with a nice central business and civic core, and it was environmentally attractive (more pictures). It has suffered from its success (NY Times article) and from some realities of nature - which is what intrigued me.

The town has just finished rebuilding its dunes which have been eroded significantly since the town was created. People speak of building environmentally sustainable communities - often focusing on public transportation, stormwater, and energy conservation. In Seaside, much has been made of its being set back from the beach and the preservation of the native dune landscape. But this is an eroding shoreline - the beach and the dunes are moving north and the town will be in the way. Seaside, just like New Orleans, is geologically unsustainable - on a scale of decades, not millenia - even if sea level doesn't start rising faster. We know the talk - build green, use less energy, create walkable neighborhoods - but we sometimes lose the big picture. We need to step a bit farther back (figuratively, in time, and literally, from the beach).

Passe-a-Grille

I liked Pass-a-Grille, maybe because I enjoy these older beach communities where condos and t-shirt shots don't dominate the landscape. I also like beach towns where there there is continuous public access to the beach; not isolated parks and narrow corridors between hotel towers.

I suppose the presence of intact, early 20th century buildings, is an indication that this area has been spared a direct hit for close to a century. I can't help but wonder if someday I'll be looking at news footage of this barrier wiped clean of structures. I wonder how you rebuild to FEMA standards while maintaining the requirements for historic landmarks?

Clearwater Beach

Clearwater looked to me just like a Florida Beach should look like, with sunshine, crowds, colorful umbrellas, and lots of the large multi-story hurricane deflectors built in the dunes.

Florida Panhandle

It's been thirty years since I've been in Florida, and now two trips in less than six weeks! Our time at the beach has been limited by our family's general abhorrence of hot, muggy weather, but we've managed some short excursions (for the rest of the story, go to hshipman blog).

The flight from DFW to Tampa bypassed a large storm over New Orleans, so I didn't get good views of the coast until we got to Mobile - I was hoping for a good overview of post-Katrina Pass Christian and Biloxi. We flew a few miles north of the coastline from Mobile to Appalachicola area before cutting across the Gulf toward Tampa Bay. The photo may be Destin, though these resort beaches tend to all look the same from 35,000' (or maybe even from sea level?).

The hurricane deflectors (very small in this picture) remind me of lightning rods on the ridges of Pennsylvania barns or the wire spikes that keep seagulls off of waterfront restaurants and pigeons off of public monuments. They have been constructed up and down the southeast coast. Since hurricanes aren't very frequent, authorities let people live in them when they aren't actually being used to protect the nation from tropical storms.

Indian Rocks

Our approach to beach nourishment on Puget Sound is really pretty lame. Down here folks know how to do it right. Dredge it, barge it 20 miles, pump it to the beach, repeat. Do it for 9 miles of beach and then a few years later do it again. The project we got to visit is on Sand Key in St. Petersburg, from Clearwater down to Redlington. They weren't pumping today on account of possible bad weather coming in, but we got to see lots of big yellow equipment on the beach and lots of 24" pipe. Just like on Puget Sound, if you build the beach too high or too steep, a scarp develops. Bluff erosion, Florida style. Must be a pain if you're a sea turtle trying to crawl up the beach in the middle of the night with 120 eggs to lay.

More Florida beach photos at my other site (hshipman) - as usual, sometimes it's tough to separate business from personal.

Florida Keys

Now we're really not in Puget Sound anymore!

Florida

The Flagler whom Fort Flagler (previous post) was named is NOT the same one who built the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach and the railroad out to Key West. But that's where we are now. This is definitely not Puget Sound. Everything here is made out of calcium carbonate or some derivative of it. The rocks, the beaches, and the buildings.

Just like I suppose I should visit Glacier Bay (fast forward two years - Glacier Bay) while there is still a glacier in the bay, I thought I better visit South Florida while there's still a South Florida. For two days, the only time I was more than a few feet above sea level was on highway overpasses, hotel rooms, and observation towers. I wonder what it will look like 100 years from now?

Note the use of 20-story hurricane deflectors along the backshore of many of these beaches.