We have some obese acquaintances. They all have one thing in common. They eat a lot more than we do. Food is at the center of their lives. And it's all junk food, highly processed crap. All that talk of genetic predeliction is bologna. What is really funny is that our whole family is slender, and what we have in common is that we don't eat junk food, ever. Soda and commercial snack food is unkinown to us and our daughters. It's like a lot of things, you have to be obsessive about it. When we see a container of soda we have pictures of dead people in our heads. We do not avoid fat. We put a large dollop of whipping cream in our coffee every morning. We eat lots of real butter. Since we buy hormone and antibiotic free meat we feel free to eat as much meat fat as possible. But if it's derived from corn or soybeans we avoid it like the plague, which it is. No farm-raised salmon, the stuff is pure poison. And no omega-6 fats are permitted in our house. Etc, etc, etc....

New England got hit with a few big ones back then. In the mid-'50's I was at MIT and all the bridges from Boston to New York were out for a week, until the Corps of Engineers put up temporary ones.

Why should we funnel money through the Feds, who take their percent off the top, when the problems are local. If the residents of flood-prone areas are fearful of losing their million dollar coastal houses, let them get together and do something about it.

In the 19th century no one with any wealth at all would live on the coast. Only the poor would live in such a dangerous area.

Uhhh, highways are accepted as a federal responsibility because of interstate commerce. The Corps of Engineers did an emergency repair on federal highways. The bridges were replaced by the state agencies, with gas tax money. Fancy beach houses have very little to do with interstate commerce, even with a big stretch. However, they are oocupied by the politically astute. Yes, a few damn fools started to move to the shore in the 19th century, but the hordes did not start moving there until recently. Even in the '60's, when I flew my plane down the East coast, there was very little development along the beaches. Why do the Feds have so much capital? Why, they get it from taxpayers. Again, the politically astute and intelligent dwellers on the coast should be able to organize more local solutions, but it is easier to bilk the faraway taxpayer into covering risks that he does not share.

I think I detect a coastal dweller. One who, since he can't really afford the real cost of insurance, wants the rest of us to subsidize his chosen lifestyle. Depending on the area, no one should be able to live close to harms way. In some places that will be five miles inland, or more. There is a very limited amount of land on the coasts for recreation. It should not be hogged by the well-to-do and politically astute who demand to be subsidized by the rest of us. I lived in Oregon for a while. In the early 20th century the highway commissioner decided that the coast was to beautiful to be hogged by the few. He had the entire coast for a mile inland declared a highway right of way. Existing towns were grandfathered.

I have a life, I just don't want to waste my precious resources subsidizing the selfish and well to do-like you appear to be.

My, what resentments I can stir up with simple suggestions. Things (shit) happen. Cities and civilizations collapse. Humans adapt. If the coast is getting too hazardous for whatever reason, adapt and move on. Those what can do, those who can't complain.

I was out on my sailboat a week ago on Yellowstone Lake. A storm came up and we got dismasted. No one responded to my calls on the marine radio, so we struggled on at one knot with the outboard. Finally reached the marina, hypothermic and exhausted. Boy was it fun.

If you are a wuss you will die when the tough times come. As the article pointed out, they will come. Are you ready? Can you walk 25 miles with enough survival gear to make it? If you insist on coastal living, you better be ready to do that. I suspect you will be one of the ones who expect the Feds or some other incompetent organization to bail you out. But they won't. If they couldn't help the paltry number of people in NO, how will they save millions in other areas. You will have to rely on yourself, which I suspect is a foreign concept to you.

My children are thin because they are fully physically ready to survive whatever catastrophe might come. How far can you walk with 40lbs on your back?