With Sea Level Rise, The Fate of Hawaii's Most Vulnerable Roads Is Uncertain
As sea level rise gets worse, will all of Hawaii’s vulnerable coastal highways be worth saving?
It’s a tough question, but one that Hawaii policymakers will have to grapple with now if they’re to sufficiently prepare the nation’s lone island state for climate change in the coming decades, according to the state’s top roads director.
“I don’t want to scare people, but I want to put out there that we need to look long term,” Ed Sniffen, the state’s deputy director for highways, said in an interview Tuesday.
In some vulnerable shoreline areas, such as Kaaawa, abandoning the two-lane coastal Kamehameha Highway altogether might make the most sense later this century if the local community is eventually displaced by the encroaching ocean, Sniffen said.
Read more: https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/09/with-sea-level-rise-the-fate-of-hawaiis-most-vulnerable-roads-is-uncertain/