Hello, Rapp Up! Readers. Focusing on the climate crisis' impact on Virginia's rural communities, this month’s articles are a MUST READ!! We recognize that the climate crisis is affecting rural areas around the state in very different ways. Today’s piece, therefore, takes us to the Eastern Shore of Virginia for a look at how sea level rise is threatening the very existence of rural communities there. Great writing and sobering research are brought together by New Rural Virginia’s newest member! Our summer intern Katharine comes to us from Cape Charles, Virginia, and is a Master of Public Policy Candidate at UVA.

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Virginia’s Eastern Shore—a 70-mile peninsula home to a rural population of roughly 46,000—is poised to produce some of the Commonwealth’s first climate migrants. The narrow strip of land separating the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean is the longest remaining stretch of coastal wilderness on the east coast. For generations, our connection to the land and water has defined the region’s culture and economy. Propped up by agriculture, aquaculture, and tourism, the Eastern Shore’s economic health is heavily impacted by the elements.

With rising sea levels and increasingly disastrous storms threatening residents’ homes and livelihoods, we face a painful reality in the coming decade. Survival may depend on a large-scale relocation.

Adaption and protection strategies, such as lifting homes and building flood barriers, do have the potential to protect communities from extreme weather events in the short-term. At some point, however, the cost of preventative measures and inescapable flood damages outweigh the cost of relocation. The Eastern Shore mainland is nearing that turning point. Tangier Island, a tiny community which lies 12 miles into the Chesapeake Bay, is already there. At just three feet above sea level, the island has lost nearly 62 percent of its habitable land since 1967. Employing additional protective measures against sea-level rise could come with a $350 million price tag, more than double the cost of relocating the entire community. As flooding becomes more severe, preventative and adaptive measures grow prohibitively expensive and impractical.

Accomack—the more northern of the Eastern Shore’s two counties—is in a particularly precarious situation with regards to sea-level rise. More than half of the county’s homes sit less than five feet above sea level, and officials estimate that nearly $900 million worth of businesses, schools, churches, and medical facilities could face inundation in the next decade. But 20 percent of Accomack residents live below the poverty line—a rate double the state average—so families can’t just pick up and leave on their own dime. A concrete plan and significant funding from federal and state legislatures are essential to help relocate these sinking communities.

In 2021, former Governor Ralph Northam released Virginia’s first Coastal Resilience Master Plan, a multiphase strategy to preserve coastal communities through mostly protective and adaptive measures. Though the Master Plan is a good first step toward fostering climate resilience, it does not specify what the state must do to prepare for intrastate climate migration. The 2021 report acknowledges that relocation is the long-term reality for many rural coastal areas and promised that an “Introduction to Strategic Coastal Relocation” would be released “in the near future.” Two years later, however, no progress on a coastal relocation agenda has been announced. Time is running out.

At this point, the Eastern Shore and other rural coastal communities can do nothing to prevent the inevitable. One day—well within my lifetime—our homes will be underwater. Sure, we can buy ourselves time with flood walls, renewable energy, and regenerative farming practices, but the time has come to develop a long-term solution.

Sea-level rise on the Eastern Shore will not wait for a relocation strategy from the Commonwealth. If we want to build a climate-resilient Virginia, we must develop a clear plan now that prioritizes rural coastal communities. Relocating tens of thousands of people will require new infrastructure, housing, jobs, and major cooperation across the legislative aisle. Further, how our state responds to sea level rise on the Eastern Shore could very well set a national precedent for climate-migration protocol. It is time to set the tone in our fight against climate disaster. Will we sink or swim?

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