Florida Keys to raise roads before climate change puts them underwater. It won’t be cheap
In a small Key Largo neighborhood, the tide came in — and didn’t go out for almost a month.
Residents sloshed through more than a foot of saltwater that lapped at their front yards, knocked over their trash cans, created a mosquito breeding ground and made their roads nearly impassable. Some residents rented SUVs to protect their own cars. Others were homebound.
One started a Facebook page to document the flooding: Key Largo Community Swamp.
That was the fall of 2015, courtesy of freak weather and high tides. Neighbors have clamored for solutions since, and Monroe County has finally pitched a potential fix. Officials want to elevate the lowest, most flood-prone road in the Twin Lakes Community of Key Largo and in the low-lying Sands neighborhood of Big Pine Key, 70 miles south — and 2018 might be the year it happens. The county will start accepting design proposals in the coming weeks, and money for construction could be available in October.
photo credit: Thomas James Caldwell