Pricey seawall

This is the third letter I’ve written regarding Norfolk’s seawall project. Sadly, the prediction I made in my previous letter is already coming true: that government decisions will begin to take into account the existence of an impervious wall, and reckless development decisions will follow that treat flooding as a solved problem.

Moving the Military Circle arena to downtown makes no sense in a future with rising seas and no wall — but with a wall coming to the rescue to solve all our problems (he says sarcastically), we can blithely build anything we want directly in the path of destruction.

But allow me to get to the point of my third letter: Too many pet projects championed by our supposed leaders already rely on the wall getting built. Financing is lined up, plans have been made, studies conducted. In City Council member Andria McClellan’s case, her personal residence is near a notoriously flood-prone area.

It’s not an accident that her house happened to wind up near the river and not far above sea level — it was her choice, and hers alone, to purchase that property in that location, which has been known for decades to the Federal Emergency Management Agency as near a high-risk area.

Why, then, is McClellan posting politically opportune photos near her block underwater and claiming it as some unprecedented emergency? Is it partially because she and her cadre of Hague elites stand to benefit the most from spending $1.8 billion of other people’s money on a giant seawall?

— Travis Webb, Norfolk