Shelter from the storm

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https://www.science.org/content/article/shelter-storm-can-giant-flood-barrier-protect-texas-cities-hurricanes

By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine. 

Excerpt: A plan to wall off Houston and nearby industry from flooding caused by hurricanes will cost tens of billions of dollars. Will it be enough? ...In September 2008, Bill Merrell, an oceanographer at Texas A&M University, Galveston, ...trapped with his wife, daughter, grandson, ...by Hurricane Ike ...sat in his office and sketched plans for a project he hoped would put an end to the storm-driven flooding that had repeatedly devastated this part of Texas. It was an ambitious vision: Seventy kilometers of seawalls rising 5 meters above sea level would stretch the length of Galveston Island and beyond. Enormous gates would span the 3-kilometer-wide channel through which ships pass in and out of Galveston Bay. ...Today, that first brainstorm has morphed into a $31 billion plan from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the nation’s builder of mammoth water infrastructure. The state of Texas has embraced the idea, creating a taxing district to help pay its share. In July, Congress authorized the Corps to proceed—though it has yet to appropriate money for construction.... 

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