I have the great honor of working closely with Leon Panetta (a distant relation of our own Lewes Board of Public Works President Tom Panetta), who often says that in a democracy you can govern either by leadership or by crisis. He goes on to say, “I choose leadership.”
The Environmental Subcommittee of the Lewes Planning Commission, by recommending that the minimum height of new structures in the 100-year floodplain be elevated to a total of 36 inches above the base flood elevation, is exercising leadership, and helping citizens and homeowners avoid a future crisis. And it is one we know is coming.
I find the comments of subcommittee member Dennis Reardon, who I consider a thoughtful and engaged member of our community, to be curiously ill-informed when he states that there is not any real science to back up claims of future sea-level rise, only speculation. The Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper, on the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaves no doubt about the global and local impacts of melting glaciers, intensified storms and warming temperatures on our coastal communities. Go to this site and type in the ZIP code for Lewes: coast.noaa.gov/floodexposure/#-8365483,4690944,15z.
Amy Marasco and the environmental subcommittee are to be highly commended for their visionary leadership. Hopefully the full Lewes Planning Commission and city council can follow suit. Our county and state leaders would do well to follow their example.
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