I have been telling people this for years. I wrote about it in one of my early climate columns. Living in Bomb Time 03 - Because Normal doesn't Exist Anymore. I discussed someone my wife and I knew who lives in Norfolk VA.

"My wife and I have a friend in her mid-60's who lives in Norfolk Virginia. About 8 years ago she inherited a house and a big enough sum to gracefully retire there when her company "downsized" her. She managed a decent "crash landing" and she knows she was really lucky.

However, the house is right on the water (it even has a dock).

So, when she inherited it, I told her that the Norfolk area is sinking, sea level is rising, storms are intensifying, and she should sell while she could still get a good price for it. She disagreed and told me that the house had been built in the 60's, her father bought it for his retirement in the 80's, and he had lived out the last 20 years of his life there. The house had been there for over 50 years and she was sure she would be "just fine" there.

If the stability of the 20th century climate continued, she probably would have been fine. But we don't live in that world anymore, the old "normal" is gone.

After 50 years without a problem, in the last 8 years, two "unprecedented" storm\tide surges have flooded her basement. The water table on her property has also risen due to sea level rise and the last 4 years she has to run a sump pump 24\7 or the basement floods and becomes a mold factory.

As you might expect, she is not the only one with problems in her neighborhood. Seventy five percent of the houses on her street are now for sale. The value of her home has crashed almost 60% as people have realized that these homes have no future, and everyone is trying to sell.

She is trapped there now. Because selling the house (if she could even find a buyer) wouldn't generate enough income for her to live out her life without being in deep poverty.

Faced with this, she has decided that if she is lucky, she will die before the house gets washed away or becomes uninhabitable. If she isn't lucky, she will die with the house when the water takes it.

She is a climate change victim and I have no doubt, that if a bad enough storm hits Norfolk, she will die in that house."