JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Rising sea levels mean a rising risk of flooding in Jacksonville.
A new analysis shows dozens of critical infrastructure sites such as hospitals, schools, and police and fire stations will be exposed to disruptive flooding in the coming years.
The impacted areas range from along the coastline to St. Johns River and inland.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, climate change is rapidly worsening tidal flooding and leaders need to prepare now.
In a report titled “Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience,” the group analysis of sea level rise finds by 2050, under a medium sea level rise scenario, dozens of critical infrastructure assets in the First Coast area will be at risk of flooding twice a year.
Among them are Atlantic Beach’s City Hall and Police Department, Pablo Hamlet affordable senior housing in Jacksonville Beach, and three sites housing chemicals near JaxPort.
One of them is a Superfund site. According to the EPA, fertilizer and pesticides were produced for more than 80 years in the area resulting in contaminated soil and groundwater.
“When we look at the years between now and 2050, the amount of sea level rise is relatively certain. We can see this coming, and we need to be planning for it,” said Kristina Dahl, Principal Climate Scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Dahl is the lead author of the study. She said sea level rise in the second half of the century is less certain because it will depend on our emissions now and in the coming decades.
But the report shows by 2100, the risk of twice-a-year flooding expands to additional sites, even under a scenario of relatively low sea level rise. Those sites include Ascension St. Vincent’s Riverside hospital, the JEA Northside generating station on Heckscher Drive, Jacksonville Beach Fire and Rescue and Atlantic Beach Elementary.
As a coastal city, Jacksonville is already bracing for climate change’s impact.
Jacksonville Chief Resilience Officer Anne Coglianese is examining how environmental shocks and hazards could affect the city’s infrastructure and systems and said the City of Jacksonville’s vulnerability assessment mirrored the findings of the new report.
“The Union of Concerned Scientists report is a more narrow view looking exclusively at sea level rise. And we know that’s just one of five types of flooding that we can experience. Sea level rise makes tidal flooding more chronic. But we also get flooding from storm surges and heavy rainfall events,” Coglianese said.
News4JAX asked if that means that flooding could be worse than the report found.
“It’s more that it’s more geographically broad. So there are more assets that we had to evaluate,” she said.
Coglianese said the good news is there is time to prepare, putting leaders in a position to use available information to plan to retrofit vulnerable buildings or decide to relocate infrastructure when it comes time to replace it.
“It’s not something that residents need to worry about, you know, in the next year, but we want to make sure residents feel confident that the city is tracking these long-term changes, and that we’re prepared to make decisions that are in the best interest of our residents, and that provide continuity of the services they rely on,” she said.