Americans love to colonize their beaches. But when storms threaten,
high-ticket beachfront construction invariably takes precedence over
coastal environmental concerns--we rescue the buildings, not the
beaches. As Cornelia Dean explains in Against the Tide, this pattern
is leading to the rapid destruction of our coast. But her eloquent
account also offers sound advice for salvaging the stretches of pristine
American shore that remain.
The story begins with the tale of the devastating hurricane that struck
Galveston, Texas, in 1900--the deadliest natural disaster in American
history, which killed some six thousand people. Misguided residents
constructed a wall to prevent another tragedy, but the barrier ruined
the beach and ultimately destroyed the town's booming resort business.
From harrowing accounts of natural disasters to lucid ecological
explanations of natural coastal processes, from reports of human
interference and construction on the shore to clear-eyed elucidation of
public policy and conservation interests, this book illustrates in rich
detail the conflicting interests, short-term responses, and long-range
imperatives that have been the hallmarks of America's love affair with
her coast.
Intriguing observations about America's beaches, past and present,
include discussions of Hurricane Andrew's assault on the Gulf Coast, the
1962 northeaster that ravaged one thousand miles of the Atlantic shore,
the beleaguered beaches of New Jersey and North Carolina's rapidly
vanishing Outer Banks, and the sand-starved coast of southern
California. Dean provides dozens of examples of human attempts to tame
the ocean--as well as a wealth of lucid descriptions of the ocean's
counterattack. Readers will appreciate Against the Tide's painless
course in coastal processes and new perspective on the beach.
