(Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series exploring Rhode Island’s vulnerability to coastal flooding and what businesses, property owners and local communities can do to better prepare. Read part one here. Read part 3 here.) They call him “Dr. Doom.” It’s a moniker Grover J. Fugate has earned from his more than three
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WELL-PREPARED: Grover J. Fugate is executive director of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council, an arm of state government tasked with protecting coastal areas and mitigating risk from the growing threat of sea-level rise, among other responsibilities. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
People walk away after disasters. Businesses fail, homes are deserted and other disruptions surge through the economy. New Orleans lost more than half of its population after Hurricane Katrina. A decade later, in 2015, the city had only regained about 80 percent.
More recently, on Feb. 9, more than one-quarter of all households in Puerto Rico were still without electricity following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The storm hit the U.S. territory on Sept. 30.
“Puerto Rico is going to lose a large part of its population now because people aren’t going to live in those conditions,” Fugate said. “How long do you think it will take them to recover?”
But Rhode Island is far from Puerto Rico, and most people Fugate speaks with don’t take the Ocean State’s vulnerability as seriously as he does.
“We see these conditions changing, but nobody else seems to be looking at it, or thinking about it, and that concerns the hell out of us,” Fugate said.
RAISING THE ALARM
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Fugate spent most of his childhood growing up in Connecticut.
After a stint of related work in Canada, he was hired to his current job in 1986.
Fugate and the CRMC’s efforts to mitigate the impact of sea-level rise ramped up in 2008, before most state and federal agencies started thinking seriously about the impending threat.
During former Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee’s administration, Fugate convinced state leaders to allocate $300,000 toward developing a state-of-the-art mapping program to study coastal threats. Fugate – in conjunction with the University of Rhode Island – completed “Stormtools” in 2015. The online program is designed to better inform families, businesses, municipalities, and state and federal leaders about the risks they face as neighbors to the sea.
Fugate has since toured the state and country to meet with private- and public-sector stakeholders to shine a spotlight on the issue of sea-level rise and natural disasters.
He’s worked with URI scientists to improve Stormtools to include data showing how major storms would damage individual structures.
Arguably, no other state is better informed.
“[CRMC] has outdone the United States government in mapping for coastal-storm risk by a large measure,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
But Fugate’s unyielding push to raise the alarm is not a strategy shared by everyone in the state involved with storm management.
“You can’t cry wolf all day long because people won’t listen to you anymore,” said Peter Gaynor, director of the R.I. Emergency Management Agency, noting he wasn’t speaking specifically about Fugate or the CRMC.
Gaynor is the point person for any type of disaster in Rhode Island. He spoke with Providence Business News while preparing for a near-blizzard event in January.
His job is to be ready for a range of threats, from coastal storms to cybersecurity attacks. Gaynor acknowledged such ongoing challenges make it difficult to prioritize something such as sea-level rise, which doesn’t seem as imminent.
It’s also important from his position, he said, to not unnecessarily alarm people.
“Everything can’t be a crisis every day because people will stop listening,” he added.
But scientific research – going well beyond the work of CRMC – shows natural disasters are happening more frequently in the United States. Rising seas, meanwhile, are making them worse. Last year was the worst year on record for natural disaster-related damages, with 
SEEKING HIGHER GROUND: With the help of federal funding, Jeff Barris of Warwick raised his home, shown above at various stages of the process, 15.5 feet above sea level after it flooded multiple times. To date, he’s the only Warwick resident to do so using the federal help. / COURTESY WARWICK PLANNING DEPARTMENT[/caption]
Barris bought his home in 1992, a year after Hurricane Bob swept up the Eastern Seaboard. At the time, he considered the risks involved with buying a home so close to the shoreline. Ultimately, he rationalized the investment with the following thought: “How often could something like [Hurricane Bob] happen?”
He’s since filed four flood claims ranging between $10,000 and $60,000 in damages.
“Some of the flooding was fairly minor, about 6 inches,” he said. “In Hurricane Sandy, there was about 2 feet of water.”
Hurricane Sandy in 2012 reached Rhode Island as a tropical-extratropical storm dubbed a “superstorm.”
By the time it reached Warwick, it was a 10-year event, meaning there’s a 1-in-10 chance of such a storm happening each year.
As sea levels rise, the impact of such storms will increase, because elevated sea levels will intensify surge events. Stormtools shows these effects. The maps detail how 25-year, 50-year and 100-year storms could inundate Rhode Island’s coastal communities, which can be adjusted for sea-level rise.
The tools mean business leaders, homeowners and public officials don’t have to guess, or wait until after a natural disaster strikes, to see how their town, home or commercial property will be inundated.
“We are a model for the rest of the country,” said Whitehouse, a staunch supporter of Fugate and his work. “Other states are looking at what we’ve done … and trying to match us.”
Aquidneck Island – particularly Newport – along with South County, including Narragansett, South Kingstown, Charlestown and Westerly, face the greatest threat to sea-level rise. Add in a coastal storm, and the same towns, especially Westerly, are dangerously exposed to the crashing waves.
But ask Fugate which community faces the greatest exposure to coastal storms, and he replies quickly.
“Today? Warwick,” he said. “In the future? Barrington or Warren.”
The answer may seem counterintuitive, as the three municipalities are located within Narragansett Bay, several miles north from the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
The reality is that the bay’s geometric shape exacerbates surge.
“The bay is shaped like a triangle, so as the surge comes up, it actually comes up in height,” he said.
The occurrence is called “amplification” and it can result in surge at the northern part of Narragansett Bay being 40 percent higher than at the mouth. That means a 10-foot tall storm surge at Point Judith could increase to 14 feet by the time it reaches the Providence River. That poses a significant threat to densely populated and heavily built-out areas, such as Warwick.
WARWICK
Today, a Hurricane Carol-like storm would damage 2,636 homes in Warwick, representing 8.6 percent of all residential structures in the city.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects – with 83 percent confidence – Rhode Island could reach 3 feet of sea-level rise within the next 30 years.
At such levels, the damage of a Carol-like storm (or a 100-year event) increases nearly 50 percent to 3,895 homes. Barris’ home would be inundated with 13.8 feet of flooding, according to Stormtools.
His neighborhood, Warwick Neck, would essentially become an island, as the waterways alongside Route 117 would flood and connect Apponaug Cove to Warwick Cove.
The entire area would become temporarily disconnected from the rest of Warwick, creating a potentially dangerous situation in the event of an emergency.
[caption id="attachment_195829" align="alignright" width="300"]
SURGE PROTECTOR: Grover J. Fugate, executive director of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council, convinced state leaders to allocate $300,000 toward developing “Stormtools,” a state-of-the-art mapping program to study coastal threats that was completed in conjunction with the University of Rhode Island in 2015. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY[/caption]
“If we get a 100-year event, it’s going to blow up through Warwick Neck and [disconnect it] for the first hours of the storm,” Fugate said. “Unless you pre-position equipment out there, you won’t be able to get to it.”
Warwick has a contingency plan in place should such an event occur, according to city officials, which includes putting emergency vehicles and personnel out on the Neck ahead of time.
But other parts – such as Oakland Beach and Conimicut Point – would be almost entirely submerged. Flooding at the intersection of Oakland Beach Avenue and Suburban Parkway would exceed 10 feet. Flooding at the intersection of Ellery Street and Shawomet Avenue would exceed 15 feet.
Both neighborhoods are densely populated, with little open space. And most of the structures were built before there was much attention given to sea-level rise.
“It makes you want to run away, but you can’t,” said Bill DePasquale, Warwick planning director. “It’s taken us, as a community and country, 60 to 100 years to get here, so it might take that long” to learn to adapt to the threats.
The CRMC work has benefited Warwick planning in some regards, especially when it comes to emergency planning. But it’s also complicated other efforts.
Stormtools maps are different than federal flood-plain maps developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The CRMC tool is much more intricate, detailed and, many argue, more accurate. But FEMA maps are still the law of the land, in many instances, when it comes to setting minimum thresholds for building, zoning and other local ordinances.
The discrepancies make it difficult for city officials to effectively rationalize planning strategies to some developers and homeowners, who may disagree with Stormtools, especially if it makes a building project look worse or costlier than the FEMA maps.
“For the individual [who] doesn’t know the difference, it’s frustrating,” DePasquale said. “How can we say Stormtools accurately represents what happens when FEMA doesn’t recognize it?”
Fugate said he’s had a closed-door meeting with FEMA officials to discuss CRMC’s work, and how it’s much more involved than federal maps.
“We started going through some of our concerns with the map, and they said, ‘Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong. If you think you can do it better, go ahead,’ ” Fugate said.
Barris, for one, isn’t taking any more chances.
After Hurricane Sandy, he received a letter from the city saying he qualified for a federal grant to raise his home. He quickly applied and was accepted.
The project, funded by FEMA, took nearly two years to complete and cost about $125,000. Barris spent an additional $50,000 of his own money, and his home is now about 15.5 feet above sea level.
Elevating his home will protect him from future flooding and weather events. But there are other benefits, too. His home value will likely increase after the city completes its revaluations, and its new, elevated height helps cut down on future expenses, including costly flood insurance.
Other homeowners along the southern coast – especially in Westerly – have taken similar measures. But Barris is the anomaly in Warwick.
To date, no other city homeowner has participated in the program.
“I think people haven’t realized that they’re sitting on property that’s going to be difficult to unload if they don’t do anything,” Barris said.
Barris’ neighborhood is just one of dozens that can be found throughout the state where sea-level rise and future storms are projected to ravish communities.
[caption id="attachment_195835" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
coastal threat This chart shows the percentage of residential and commercial structures along Rhode Island’s coastal communities exposed to a 100-year storm surge. It measures how that exposure changes over time with sea-level rise (SLR). *The numbers for Providence assume the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier is not present. The barrier is designed to protect against storm surge, but not sea-level rise. University of Rhode Island researchers are looking into the effectiveness of the barrier over time. / Source: R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council[/caption]
‘WE’RE PRETTY VULNERABLE’
Across the bay from Warwick, in Barrington, a comparable number of homes – 2,619 – would be damaged in a Carol-like storm today, representing a much larger portion – 42.9 percent – of the town’s residential structures.
Add 3 feet of sea-level rise and such a storm would damage more than half – 56 percent – of all Barrington homes.
Barrington Fire Chief Gerald Bessette knows the impending threat firsthand. He was about 10 years old when Hurricane Carol destroyed his family’s summer cottage by the Palmer River in Barrington.
“We were actually in the cottage and my father said, ‘We have to get out of here,’ ” Bessette said. “Within a couple of hours, the whole building was gone.”
The memory lingers, and he’s concerned Rhode Islanders without such experience don’t fully appreciate what a storm like that means.
“If you don’t know history, you’re bound to repeat it,” he said.
Bessette doubles as Barrington’s emergency manager, a position he’s held for a few months. He says the town is prepared to react to a storm. The town is also creating a stormwater mitigation study, which could help map out ways to take more proactive steps.
Bessette is also aware of the CRMC maps and acknowledges his town’s overall susceptibility to storms and sea-level rise.
“For storms, it’s not just the water that flows up the bay. It’s also an issue of the water that comes downstream. … We’re pretty vulnerable.”
So are homes in coastal towns throughout the United States, and the mortgage industry isn’t taking it lightly.
“Rising sea levels and spreading flood plains … appear likely to destroy billions of dollars in property and to displace millions of people,” reports the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., known better as Freddie Mac. “The economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.”
The threat is similar for commercial properties, especially in some of the state’s largest commercial areas, including Providence.
FOX POINT BARRIER
The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier in Providence was completed in 1966.
The $16 million project was the first of its kind in the United States, and it was built after the capital city suffered multiple flooding events, including the Great Hurricane of 1938 and Hurricane Carol.
The two storms left the city’s downtown commercial district in shambles.
After it’s completion, the barrier was heralded at a dedication ceremony.
“The Fox Point Barrier will provide virtually complete protection against hurricane tidal flooding for the major portion of Providence,” according to a pamphlet from the ceremony. An original copy is kept at the Providence Public Library.
On Dec. 21, a group of URI ocean-engineering students debated that claim during a public presentation of their research on campus.
“Our concern is if this barrier will continue to provide its purpose of protecting the city with future storms and increases in sea-level rise,” said Emily Day, one of the URI students.
The group will conclude its research this spring, but initial reports show that a Carol-like storm plus 7 feet of sea-level rise could result in water overtopping the hurricane barrier. NOAA projects the sea could rise to such heights by about 2085. There are also concerns about the swelling of inland rivers when the barrier is closed, which could prevent water from exiting into the bay.
The research also shows the barrier may not currently stand as tall as its original design. If accurate, it likely means the barrier wasn’t built to its original design, or it’s sinking into the ocean floor – an occurrence known as “subsidence.” The latter would essentially expedite the impact of sea-level rise and shorten the barrier’s effective shelf life.
A Carol-like storm that overtops the barrier would damage 993 commercial structures. That’s nearly one-quarter of all commercial buildings in Providence.
Fugate said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently in discussion to form a working group to look at the issue of overtopping, especially in New England. He’s asked to take part in that group.
“It remains to be seen,” Fugate said, when asked about the long-term effectiveness of the Fox Point barrier. “The Providence barrier came out of modeling that was done in the 1950s when our assumptions and our ability to look at these things were much more limited.”
STATE EFFORTS
For other parts of the state, especially in poorer and heavily developed areas, inadequate resources limit mitigating opportunities.
Fugate says the most vulnerable cities and towns are starting to more actively work with the CRMC.
Other state agencies, too, are beginning to incorporate sea-level rise into the calculation of long-term planning.
“Many agencies are trying to play catch-up at this point,” Fugate said.
[caption id="attachment_195832" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
COLLABORATION: Shaun O’Rourke, left, is the director of stormwater and resilience at the R.I. Infrastructure Bank, and chief resiliency officer for Rhode Island. With O’Rourke is Alex Barba, consultant, working on her master’s degree at Brown University. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Gov. Gina M. Raimondo last year appointed Shaun O’Rourke to become the first-ever state chief resiliency officer. O’Rourke is responsible for coordinating efforts between state agencies to turn research into tangible actions. It’s a task Fugate says he doesn’t envy.
“The No. 1 priority is to identify and prioritize actions that the state can make to better prepare ourselves for a changing climate,” O’Rourke told PBN. “This is all going to require a different way of working than what we have done in the past.”
O’Rourke doubles as a member of the R.I. Infrastructure Bank, a quasi-governmental agency that helps fund infrastructure projects throughout the state. He sees RIIB as a potential funding source for future resiliency-related projects. But he acknowledges budget constraints are a challenge.
Public officials routinely struggle to balance annual budgets, and prioritizing short-term issues often wins over long-term planning.
But O’Rourke also sees reasons for optimism.
“There [are] myriad challenges that we need to systematically work through,” he said. “But … look around the state, everywhere from local organizations to many of the municipalities to what we’re doing at the state level, there’s a lot of reason to be hopeful.”
While perhaps not as optimistic as O’Rourke, Fugate does see Rhode Island as better off than most states.
“From a coastal perspective, we’re one of the top two programs in the nation,” he said.
But that only matters if others will listen to the warnings, which Dr. Doom has no plans to stop delivering.
“I’m more intrinsic in the way I look at this,” he said. “I’m trying to do something for my children and grandchildren.”
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at