All language subtitles for PBS.Sinking.Cities.Miami.1080p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org.eng

♪♪

-In order to understand whether
hurricanes are getting worse,

we have to understand
what they've done in the past.

-Joanne Muller is
a paleotempestologist.

She's a scientist who studies
the forensic record

of ancient storms.
[ Thunder rumbles ]

-We're looking for evidence
of past hurricane events

to try to understand
what the hurricane history

is on the west coast
of Florida.

♪♪

-Every major hurricane
to ever hit Florida's coast

has left behind a calling card
like the sediment

buried deep
beneath this lagoon.

By sifting through the evidence
of long-ago hurricanes,

Muller will help Miami
predict storms of the future.

[ Thunder rumbles ]

The world's great cities
face threats they have never

before encountered --

New York,

Tokyo,

London,

Miami.

The threats come from the sea,

from above

and from below.

These are the problems
and their solutions...

♪♪

...for when the water comes.

[ Waves crashing ]

♪♪

-At their Florida
Gulf Coast University lab,

Joanne Muller's team
analyzes sediment cores

to create a timeline
of hurricanes

that happened centuries ago.

-This is essentially
the overwash

that the hurricane has produced,
so this is what the hurricane

has brought back
into the lagoon.

-Muller is looking at samples
from 1,000 years ago.

From 950 to 1250 A.D.,
the Medieval Warm Period

was a time when the Atlantic
Ocean was warmer than usual.

She finds that there's
more sediment overwash

and evidence of more hurricane
activity in that period.

-Well, what we're seeing here
in southwest Florida

is time periods
of activity and inactivity,

and these time periods
of activity

are correlated with warmer
sea-surface temperatures

in the main development region
of the Atlantic,

so, for example, during
the Medieval Warm Period

when sea-surface temperatures
were warmer,

we see quite a few more
overwashed layers

during that time period whereas,
during the Little Ice Age,

which was a relatively
cooler period,

sea-surface temperatures
were relatively lower out

in the main
development region.

We don't see any
overwashed layers.

-With Atlantic Ocean surface
temperatures now rising,

Muller's research indicates
that Florida should expect

more hurricanes
in the 21st century.

-So what this is telling us
is that,

when sea-surface
temperatures are warmer,

we tend to see more
landfalling storms

here in southwest Florida,

and we should be expecting
more storms like this.

[ Thunder rumbles ]

-From Miamians, the upside
of living by the water

has always outweighed
the drawbacks,

but while most residents
are used to the flooding

and heavy rains that comes
with tropical storms,

they're now facing
a new kind of flooding,

which comes from
below the ground,

often when there's not
a cloud in the sky.

It happens during
what's called king tides.

Locals just call it
sunny-day flooding.

-The first time that,
that happened,

I was surprised
because what you find, it's --

At the end of this road
in particular,

you'll find a bunch of water
and big puddles.

-Laura Pantano is a
real-estate agent.

She lives in Shorecrest,
a neighborhood in Miami

on the shore of Biscayne Bay.

-I really was ignorant
about the king tide,

and I knew that the tide
is controlled or influenced

by the moon
and the full moon,

but I never realized
how you could wake up

in the morning like this

and find water
at the doorstep of your house

for no other reason
than the tide,

and then I will find in my
driveway all of the debris...

Like that, what you see here,
that I have to clean up.

...because everything
is literally on your house,

and it's sunny,
and you don't understand.

-King tides are
the higher-than-normal tides,

which usually occur
during a full or new moon.

Because of rising sea level,
high tides now often push up

through Miami's drainage system
and onto the streets,

carrying debris
along as they go.

The water might then disappear
between tides

only to flood back up again
12 hours later.

-As the sea is rising,
those same tides,

they're riding on higher seas,

so the water comes through
those drains and pipes

and pops up in the streets.

There are some figures
that say that a sea-level

rise in that area of Miami

is six times faster
than the global average.

By 2030, it's expected
that they will see

about 50 tidal floods a year

and, by 2045,
about 250 times a year.

Yeah.
Can you imagine?

-It's not seawater flooding.

It's freshwater in the aquifer
stored beneath the city,

which is being pushed up
by the rising tide.

-Cities like Miami
are a complicated machine.

They try to keep saltwater
from the ocean

from coming
into the well zones,

and they recharge the
groundwater from rivers

and canals.

We need the groundwater
to be high,

sufficient for using it
for water resources,

but not too high.

We need the rain
but not too much rain,

so it's difficult to balance
how they're going to maintain

a thick enough lens
of freshwater

in the water table
for water use

and not let the sea level
push it up out of the ground.

-In Miami Beach,
king-tide flooding

has increased 400 percent
in the past 10 years.

The underlying reason why
Miami experiences increased

flooding has to do not only
with global sea-level rise

but with the city's
unique foundation.

Doug Marcy has been
studying sea level

for more than 20 years.

-This is a fossiliferous
limestone.

It has calcium carbonate
and quartz sand.

Most of southeast Florida
and Miami-Dade area

is built on top of
this type of limestone.

It's hard, so it's good
for building

into for high-rise structures
and things like that.

It's very porous as you can tell

and has a lot of these holes
that are basically --

got little mini caves,
if you will.

So to show you how porous
this rock really is,

if I pour this seawater
into the top...

...it goes right through kind of
like Swiss cheese.

So groundwater doesn't flow
that fast,

but the main point is,

there's no impedance
to the flow here.

-Most of Miami
and southern Florida

sit on this giant bed
of limestone.

As the ocean levels rise,

seawater pushes up
through the porous rock,

and as it continues to be
forced up through the limestone,

it will infiltrate
the natural freshwater aquifer.

-It actually can come up
through storm drains

and close roads and cause
transportation-access problems,

also can cause problems
with businesses and whatnot,

so as the saltwater wedge
moves in

and drinking-water wells
come in contact with that,

then it'll start to become
higher salinity values,

and they won't be able to use
that for drinking water anymore.

-But it's not just salt
contaminating Miami's

drinking water.

There's an even worse problem.

20 percent of Miami-Dade
still uses septic tanks

to collect sewage,

and as the water
seeps up to the surface,

it gets into those tanks,

causing the flood water
to mix with the sewage inside.

-It's definitely not clear,
fresh water.

It's muddy.

It's for sure contaminated,
and it travels to your house,

to where your children
walk barefoot.

-The City of Miami
advises residents

not to come in contact
with the flood water

and to wash immediately
if they do.

James Murley is chief resilience
officer for Miami-Dade County.

By air, he can see the problems
that surround the Miami area,

problems that were right there
from the beginning.

-When man intervenes in nature,
you end up

with a lot
of unintended consequences,

and we try to learn from the
mistakes we made in the past.

-One of those mistakes

was the removal
of the mangrove forests,

nature's protection
for coastlines.

This is what Miami looked like
before it was developed.

-All along here, everything
you see green is mangrove.

Mangroves are very valuable.

They protect.

They break down the storm surge
coming in.

It's must cheaper to maintain
mangrove forest

than it is to build concrete.

You build concrete walls
or dikes.

-The mangroves area
Miami's prehistory,

which needs to be restored.

It's the city's human impact

that is destined
to be destroyed.

-What we see coming up
is a mobile-home park.

They were built decades ago
in a time

when people thought
we would keep the water out,

but now we know
we can't do that.

-The most vulnerable areas
are also Miami's most valuable.

Even at a glance, it's clear
they will be underwater

when the ocean rises.

-This is in the city
of Coral Gables.

It's their most expensive
real estate.

We understand the value
of this real estate

in terms of real-estate taxes,

but we also realize that those
decisions we made decades ago

to allow this kind of
development right on the coast,

we're not going
to keep doing that.

If we were to experience
a huge catastrophic storm,

then we'd have to relook
at how we redevelop.

It may be better in the future

to relocate
those most vulnerable areas.

-Dr. Keren Bolter
is a climate scientist

who was born
and raised in Miami.

She was alarmed to see
how climate change

was transforming her city
while being ignored by many.

-When I learned about
climate change,

it blew my mind
that all of these

dramatic changes were happening,

and people still were wondering
whether it was a problem,

and once I had kids, I realized
it was my life mission

to get people to wake up
and understand what's happening.

-Bolter has modeled
how sea-level rise

will affect Miami-Dade County
through the next century

based on predictions from NOAA,

the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration.

-So these tools and this data

is a really good communication
method to show what's happening.

We already see 20 days a year
that just high tide,

the water is higher
than the land,

and how does that increase
in the future?

Two to three feet of sea-level
rise basically takes

Downtown Miami, Miami Beach
and puts it below sea level,

and these areas are where
the movie stars live

and the famous people.

These are the low-lying areas,

but they stand out
not only because of that

but because
they have the resources.

This is very high
property value,

the highest in all of Florida,

but if you look further north,
we have these vulnerable areas.

What I did was, I actually
modeled low-income populations

at low elevation,
and what I found was,

there's a huge hot spot
in this area.

-The hot spot is only 15 miles
from Miami Beach.

Much of the population here
lives below the poverty line.

-So there's a huge
social vulnerability

and physical vulnerability
in this kind of hot spot.

These are the people
that will be truly displaced.

-My name is Eric Bason,
and I'm a community activist

working around issues on climate
change and sea-level rise.

-Eric Bason is among

those living
in Miami's most vulnerable area.

-Well, the community
is low-income communities,

and members such as myself
are highly effected

because we don't have
the resources when, like,

a flood happens.

I try to educate
community members

about what's accessible to them.

When they're having meetings
at city hall,

should make sure that they go
and have their voices heard

so that more resources
could come down

to help low-income
communities like mine.

-What's going on?
-Somebody is paying

for the roads to be fixed,

so somebody is paying
for flood prevention.

-See you, man.
-All right.

-People who live here want
to make sure

they get their fair
share of that money.

-There's a lot of money
being given

for low-income communities
to offset their flooding,

but it doesn't seem to go
down to these communities.

When you vote for these people,
you hire them,

and it's our responsibility
to hold them accountable

and especially
for poor people

if they plan
on getting any help.

The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

It's just that simple.

-As Miami's chief
resilience officer,

Jane Gilbert recognizes
that low-income communities

are much more vulnerable
to the rising sea.

-Just under 30 percent
of the City of Miami population

is living at poverty level
or less,

and I would say a little
over 60 percent

have a hard time
meeting basic needs,

whether it's rent or child care
or transportation,

because we have very high costs

of both housing
and transportation costs.

The majority of our population
is having a hard time

making ends meet,
so that needs to be built

into our resilience strategy
as part of it.

-For all its citizens,
Miami needs a plan to survive.

According to
current projections,

sea-level rise will impact

Miami more than any other city
in the US.

Miami could experience as much
as a 3-foot rise by 2080

and as much as
a 6-foot rise by 2100.

-This is an extremely
frightening scenario.

It's scary to even think that,
as a worst-case scenario,

it's possible,
and the fact that it's possible,

we need to consider it.

And even more alarming,
further south,

we happen to have
right along the coastline

a nuclear power plant,
Turkey Point.

All of the cooling canals
in the surrounding areas

are extremely low, so there's
a really big vulnerability

for the nuclear power plant.

It's a little scary for me
living so close

to a nuclear power plant
that is that low-lying.

-Miami-Dade Chief Resilience
Officer James Murley

is also worried
about Turkey Point.

-So the plant was built there
in 1976,

and it's cooled by a large area
of cooling canals.

Those probably
wouldn't be the way

we would permit it today,

but, you know,
that's what we had to live with.

We'd like to have
cooling towers.

That may be in the future,
but that's where we are.

-Miami is also considered
the most at-risk

city worldwide
for potential property damage

due to rising sea level
and storm-related flooding.

More than $416 billion
in real estate is at risk here.

-If you look at Downtown Miami
right now,

you see crane
after crane after crane,

and you see new construction
after new construction,

gleaming towers
rising out of the bay.

You think to yourself,
"Wait a second.

Who's buying this?
Who's selling?

Aren't these people crazy?

How can they be plunking
this amount of money into it?"

We're going to get probably
2 feet of sea-level

rise by 2060, and by 2100,
we might get 6 feet of water,

and none of this
construction is, by law,

required to take into account

that sea-level rise
within its design.

-So we have to look
at infrastructure.

We have to look at building
and land-use codes,

and we have to do a lot around
citizen-resident outreach,

education, information.

♪♪

♪♪

-If Miami Beach is underwater
within the next century,

these buildings are doomed.

-How much is the real estate
in Miami Beach

worth when the beach is gone?

So I think that Miami Beach
goes eventually.

If you look at the incomes
of people in Miami,

Miami Beach, North Miami,

the high-income zone is still
along the saltwater shore zone.

-It's only a matter of time
before these houses,

along with their mortgages,
end up underwater.

-But when your bathroom
doesn't work anymore,

can your house retain its value?

Somebody has to give them
the economic signal

that those properties
are losing value.

Until they feel it, like,
the bank says to them,

"You know what? Your house
isn't worth the mortgage

that you have for it,"

so we'll see what happens
to a lot of people

as this slower-moving trend
starts to become a real issue

in the very thin crust
of infrastructure in Miami.

-Today, developers continue
to build

on Miami's
most vulnerable ground,

and buyers keep demanding
those condos with a view,

but developers are focused
on the immediate future,

not beyond.

There's no long-range plan
other than build, sell, repeat.

-So are these pieces
of real estate

the equivalent of junk bonds?

Are these investments
that people are never

going to see a return on?

At some point, the Miami
real-estate market

is going to really have
to start integrating accurately

the price of rising sea levels
into how much stuff costs.

-That may already be happening.

A recent study found that houses
on the coast

now sell for seven percent less
than houses in the interior,

but what isn't changing is the
high demand for property here.

-So who's buying in Miami?

Well, the honest answer is that,
sometimes, we really don't know.

Miami has two property markets.

One is the market for people
like you and me

who are looking
for a place to live,

and the other is the market
for the world's one percent.

They're looking for a place
to plunk their money.

Something like two-thirds
of the properties in the city

are actually owned by
limited-liability corporations

whose providence is opaque.

We don't know who owns
these places.

It's a great haven for offshore
funny money

from developing countries

and people trying to escape
taxes in those places,

putting money in Miami.

-Miami is no stranger

to resourceful
if not shady business deals.

Its very inception
was a huge risk.

-If you look at Miami-Dade
County today,

you've got millions of people
living in what was the swamp.

This map depicts Florida
at the time of 1835 to 1842.

The Everglades was massive.

It measured from Lake Okeechobee
down to Florida Bay,

about 4 million acres
of swampland.

There were mosquitoes
everywhere, so again,

there's just really nobody here.

There's really --
Other than the coastal area,

there's no place
you can really live.

You can't live in the swamp.

-In 1891, an Ohio businesswoman
named Julia Tuttle moved there

and began lobbying another
Ohioan, Henry Flagler,

to extend his railroad
to the coast.

Flagler enlisted Bohemian
and other migrant workers

to build the railway,

which reached
the Atlantic coast by 1896.

Then, in the early 1900s,

another entrepreneur
from the north, Carl G. Fisher,

arrived
and really got things going.

Fisher cut down
the mangrove forests

and dredged sand from the bottom
of the bay to fill the swamp.

Miami Beach was born.

Carl Fisher turned a swamp
into a dream,

and almost immediately,
Miami's fragile beginnings crack

with the arrival
of a devastating storm.

[ Thunder rumbles ]

-The Miami hurricane of 1926,

it did tremendous destruction
to the area.

The damage was unreal.

An estimated 10,000 people
were homeless

and thousands of structures
uninhabitable at the time.

The flooding
was incredibly severe.

-Over 300 people died
in that 1926 hurricane.

Adjusted for inflation,

it caused more than
$100 billion worth of damage.

[ Waves crashing ]

Hurricanes hit Florida from June
to November every year,

but the biggest storm
of all still strikes fear

into the hearts
of South Floridians,

Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

It's a night that changed
the lives

of Miami's Petersen family.

-The evening before the storm
hit, we were --

-I think we were at a store.

-We were out to dinner,
I believe.

-Something, but...
-And then...

-...we didn't take it
as seriously.

-...we heard the news,

was on maybe the television
that was in the restaurant,

and it said
that Hurricane Andrew

has taken a severe turn
to the west.

-But Hurricane Andrew suddenly
changed course and intensified,

confounding the experts.

The state quickly called
for an evacuation of more

than a million residents.

-The police came,
and they said,

"If you're not leaving, give us
next of kin, please," so --

-That kind of sealed the deal.

-But the Petersens,
unable to move quickly enough,

found themselves
trapped in their home

with no way
to protect their young son.

-This is Bryan.
He was 4.

-So get in your closets.

Put the mattresses over
the opening of the closet

and protect yourself
from any debris

when your windows break,
and your windows will break.

-I remember my dad having to
carry me on his shoulders,

the water being so high
that it was up to his chest,

and me sitting on his shoulders,
I could feel it on my toes,

and I'll never forget
how cold the water was.

I remember the roof being gone.

I remember the entire
neighborhood

looked like somebody
had just flattened it

out of a pop-up book.

-And I remember my son saying,

"You can go through a hurricane
and think you die."

Just --
-Yes.

-Because we put pillows on him
in case any --

It was scary,
still bring tears to me.

-A wall of seawater rushed in.

173-mile-per-hour winds

sent deadly debris
hurtling through the air.

-The middle of the night while
we were watching out the window,

we saw the green lightning,

which wasn't really
green lightning.

It was the power substations
exploding.

[ Explosion in distance ]

-Andrew left Miami in ruins,
25,000 houses destroyed,

more than 100,000
others damaged.

It left 15 people dead.

-The building code
had been insufficient

for that type of a windstorm,

so structures were built
in a way

that the roofs weren't capable,
you know, flew right off.

There was plenty evidence
of what we needed to do

to tighten up our building code
and other standards.

-The damages were enormous,
totaling $27 billion,

enough to put eight insurance
companies out of business.

At the time, it was the most
expensive natural disaster

to strike the United States,

only surpassed
by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Now, as sea levels rise,
the storm surge experienced

when Andrew hit would be
even more devastating.

A quarter century later,

Miami is still not
fully prepared.

♪♪

September 7, 2017 --

Hurricane Irma barreled
toward Miami.

It was the ninth named storm
of the year for this area.

-We were thinking of water
surge of,

I don't know, 20, 30 feet,

which means, I mean,
it's a whole house.

It's gone.
I was prepared for the worst.

-Facing the prospect
of a category 5,

the most intense storm possible,

Miami did the only thing
it could, evacuate.

♪♪

Irma battered the city
with powerful winds.

Water poured into the streets.

Nearly the entire city
went dark.

♪♪

In the aftermath of that storm,

Miami was forced to reckon
with catastrophic damage.

-This road was
completely flooded, completely.

We're talking 2 feet
height of water.

-But the most shocking fact

was that Irma didn't even
hit Miami directly.

It shifted course
at the last second.

Now even near misses
are leaving Miami underwater.

One of Florida's biggest
challenges

is a hurricane phenomenon
called rapid intensification.

All Atlantic hurricanes
start near Africa,

and most grow or dissipate

predictably as they make
the crossing,

but as they approach
the Gulf of Mexico,

they encounter warmer waters.

Together, with other weather
conditions, such as wind shear,

rapid intensification
becomes deadly,

and as forecasters know,

it's almost impossible
to predict.

-Nightmare scenario is the
storm that intensifies rapidly

and catches people by surprise.

-Brian Haus does research
in an attempt

to predict rapid intensification
with more accuracy.

-The relatively
simple explanation is but,

you know, it's the heat
coming off the ocean.

The heat takes the form
of the temperature,

the sensible heat, we call it,
and then

the more critical component
for development of a hurricane

is the latent heat,
the water that is evaporated,

so I think that's probably
the part that may be not as well

understood is really
the evaporation at the surface.

Then it's also slowed down
by the interaction

with the ocean itself,
the waves on the ocean.

That's the friction
that it's spinning over.

-Despite centuries of hurricane
research,

predicting rapid intensification
is still next to impossible.

Cracking that code may help
preserve Miami's future.

-And you need to know
these things as soon as possible

because you can't make these
decisions at the last minute

in a place where
four million other people

are making
the same decision as you,

and there's two roads
to get out,

so the sooner we can
get good forecasts

that everybody can trust,

the sooner people can
make intelligent choices

about whether they're
evacuating their house,

to what level
they protect their house.

-A wave generator at the
Rosenstiel School of Marine

and Atmospheric Sciences
allows Haus to collect data

he can't get from
real hurricanes.

-What's unique about
our facility here is,

we can take a decently
sized chunk of water,

and we can recreate
controlled hurricane conditions

over the top
of that chunk of water

and really try to understand

what happens right
at the interface,

and we can use that information
in computer models

to predict the intensity
of the storm.

A lot of these processes,

the heat transfer
and the spray generation,

all that, are really happening
at small scales.

We can create
those conditions here,

and we can understand
what's happening

right at the interface,
this spray that's coming off

and how that contributes
to the transfers of heat

up into the storm

and also how it contributes
to the way

that the storm feels
the friction of the surface.

We can generate a wind up

to a really intense
category-5 hurricane,

up to 200 miles an hour.

This interface between the air
and the water

where a lot of
the action happens,

you see all the spray that's
starting to be generated here

at these intense conditions that
just explode up into the air.

-Haus has learned
that sea spray

is a key component
of intensification.

When wind kicks up the spray,
the heat in it

is transferred
to the atmosphere above.

That heat helps fuel the storm.

-There is a significant
increase in the amount

of rapid intensification.

This year, it happened
with almost every hurricane.

Miami has a lot to worry
about in the future.

-Stronger and more
frequent hurricanes,

gradual loss of the most
exclusive shoreline in Florida,

sunny-day flooding through
porous limestone bedrock --

These are the problems
Miami faces.

To survive, Miami needs to adapt
and to find new solutions

or risk being lost
to the rising sea.

♪♪

The development along
Miami's shores

is still primarily
vertical towers rising out

of its Swiss-cheese-limestone
foundation.

However, an increasing
number of them

are designed
with resilience in mind.

-So if you're talking about
a dense urban downtown

where you have
lots of high-rises,

you can invest in infrastructure
to raise things,

build strong flood barriers
and pump and piping systems

and raise roads over time
to live with that water.

-With our project,
Grove at Grand Bay,

we raised the terra firma,

or the ground level,
20 feet into the air.

-The Grove at Grand Bay
is one of dozens

of condos being built
on the water in Miami,

but it's not like any condo
that came before it.

Project leader
Kai Uwe-Bergmann's design

is part of Miami's ambitious
new building code

for the 21st century.

-Because of sea-level rise,

the city is literally
acknowledging

that that will occur
and that properties

that are being developed now
actually move higher.

-All-new developments
along the city's coast

must be raised
by almost 13 feet.

They must also be built
to withstand flooding without

being crippled in the event
of a 15-foot storm surge.

-The plan does stipulate

that any of the sort
of mechanical rooms

are above the flood stage or,
in this case, the ground floor.

-Miami's plan is just
a Band-Aid

in the face of rising seas.

The city needs to look much
further into the future

if it hopes
to survive the inevitable.

-So we have a citizen
sea-level-rise

advisory committee
that is made up of engineers,

ecosystem naturalists, land-use
attorney, architect, developer,

someone representing some
of our low-income communities,

and they're advising us
on public policies,

advising our commission
on how to approach it.

-But it'll take much more than
committees and consultations

to stop the water that's already
at Miami's doorstep.

-You can't escape it.

Water is coming from the side,
from below, from above,

and I think Miami
is at that point

where they've got to decide,

"How do we solve the issues
of sea-level rise?"

I do, however,
think that we as humans,

if we're posed a challenge
and there's a way to solve it,

we will find the energy,
the resources to do it.

♪♪

-While coastal real estate

has always been Miami-Dade's
most desirable,

some buyers now prefer
higher ground

where they won't be
as affected by flooding,

whether from storm surge
or from rising sea level.

The term climate gentrification
has been coined to describe

how some people
move away from the shore

into traditionally less
desirable lower-income

neighborhoods.

-Liberty City is a
predominantly African-American

and Latino community.

When they originally
built Miami,

the beach was supposed to be
for the affluent, tourists

and things like that, so we were
not allowed to be on the beach.

Because of racism and redlining,

they pushed us
to the center of the city...

♪♪

...and now they're
trying to take it away

after all these years

when they didn't want it because
the place that they love so much

is going to be underwater.

We're starting to see a lot
of developers come in

and buy up blocks at a time,
taking over communities.

-The gentrification that's been
transforming neighborhoods

across America has taken
a unique twist in Miami.

-Climate-change gentrification
in Miami

would be funny
if it weren't so sad.

It's the sort of thing where,
because of redlining and racist

housing practices historically
in the United States,

you have minorities
being confined

to the less desirable areas
on the coastal ridge

away from the nice beaches

and the nice sea
breezes and stuff,

and now that everybody
is realizing,

"Like, hey, man,
this whole beach thing

might not really work out
while the water is rising,"

these areas have been gentrified
in an amazingly rapid rate.

-My family has been in Miami
for generations.

-Gunder is worried that
climate-change gentrification

will force her and her neighbors
from their homes

and erase a vital part
of Miami's culture.

-My family has been
in Overtown.

They've been in Liberty City.

They've been in Lemon City,
been in Little Haiti for years.

My Miami is the west side
of the causeway

where the cameras
usually don't come

or people don't think about
when they think about Miami.

My Miami is everyday
working people,

hundreds of cultures,
children playing outside.

It doesn't look like
South Beach.

It's not lined with beautiful
palm trees

and million-dollar hotels
and a beautiful, clean beach.

Even though we're 15 minutes
away from the beach,

I can name hundreds of people
who've never been there,

and they've been here
their entire lives.

-60 percent of Miami
is living paycheck

to paycheck to paycheck,

and fully 66 percent
of the city rents.

They don't own their house.

-Which leaves people like
Valencia Gunder no choice

but to move
to a more vulnerable area

as the money moves
into her neighborhood.

-Now all of the working-class
families in Miami

or most are being pushed
to lower-lying areas,

so if you have
a sunny-day flooding

or even a very rainy incident,
it's going to take you twice

as long to get
from your house to work.

That's a cost on society.

That's a burden.

-Rich or poor, officials
in Miami face the challenge

of making sure everyone

is protected
from Miami's rising sea.

-We are currently designing
infrastructure

for the next 40 to 50 years

to 2, 2 1/2 feet of sea-level
rise over that time.

We don't know what's
going to happen

in the next 40 to 50 years.

Projections are going to change.

We're going to have to
recalibrate our projections

every 5 years based on
new scientific information.

Policy can happen.

Technology can happen,
and frankly, you know,

most cities, a long-range plan
is a 20-year plan.

We're doing a 40-to-50-year
plan.

-Miami Beach is fighting
sea-level rise on three fronts

with one of the most ambitious
public-works projects

in the United States.

♪♪

-This is a very exciting time
for an engineer

to actually see
what they've designed

and actually seeing it
actually come together.

[ Indistinct conversation ]

-When Bruce Mowry was the chief
engineer of Miami Beach,

he had the Herculean task of
keeping the most vulnerable area

in all of Miami dry.

♪♪

He oversaw the installation
of a series of pumps

along Indian Creek Drive

following a canal
just west of the beach.

It's part of a huge new
pumping system.

-We have a total of about 70,

so we're going to be building
about 40 more pump stations

throughout the city
over the next 3 to 5 years.

This will sustain a much drier
street for us

and a better quality of life

for our residents
and businesses.

-The pumps are part of
a $500 million initiative

to send seawater
from the streets into the nearby

canals at a rate of about
5 million gallons per minute,

reducing the impact
of king tides.

Miami's first challenge
is to get all that water

out of the city
and back into Biscayne Bay.

-And the way that it works is,
after the pump station treats

the water collected from
the entire drainage system,

that pump station
pushes the water

through an underground system

and discharges into the bay
after treating it.

-The water from the pump
station gets sent

to a treatment station
south of the city's core

where it gets purified
with waste held in tanks.

The clean water then gets pumped
back into Biscayne Bay.

-We can't retreat 1 inch.

We don't have any land available
to say,

"We'll let that part go."

We need to defend
at the waterfront now.

-The second front of the plan
involves raising seawalls

along Miami's canals and creeks.

-This wall was constructed
approximately 75 years ago,

and this was the level of which
they were anticipating tides

or high waters to come in.

During high tide, water will
actually come over it,

and so we're looking at a wall
well over 4,

almost 5 feet higher
than the existing walls

built 75 to 100 years ago.

We believe it's necessary

because of what to be
expected sea-level rise,

that this is going to be
our standard requirements.

This is a very direct indication
of how climate change

and sea-level rise is changing
the conditions in this world.

-But because of Miami's
porous foundation,

even Miami's chief resilience
officer, Jane Gilbert,

is skeptical
that raising seawalls

is an effective
long-term solution.

-Even if you have
the barrier there,

the water comes up from behind

and creates its own
flooding event,

so we need to learn over time
to live with that water.

-Living with the reality
of rising water requires

a third front in the battle,
something far more radical.

-What the city has done is,

they actually went into
some of those low-lying streets

and started raising them
incrementally.

Now what we're raising today
may not be the final elevation

50 to 100 years from now,

but it's not appropriate
to try to raise

in a developed city
all at one time.

-The greatest challenge
in Miami Beach

is the substrate of our soil.

We live on a barrier island
made out of limestone,

coral and sand.

The water is coming up as much
as it's coming over any seawall,

and if we don't elevate our land

and literally have our
infrastructure above the water,

it's going to come in
and flood anyway.

-The best example of elevation
can be found

in Miami Beach's
Sunset Harbour neighborhood.

-This was the most
vulnerable area

of our community at the time.

The area we're standing in now
during high-tide events

would be water in the streets.

We literally see people
kayaking in the streets.

It was so low,
so we started here,

and this area was raised
30 inches in many spots.

-This restaurant's patio
was once popular

for people-watching.

Now its tables
are below street level.

-The elevation difference
between where I'm standing

and what you can see

was the original elevation
of the sidewalks and streets,

so when we finished
these neighborhoods,

we bring soil in
from the mainland.

We installed underground pipes.

We'll build our roadbed,
our drainage structure

and pave the road,
and it'll be 30 inches higher.

-Sunset Harbour is a 6-block
neighborhood in South Beach.

Raising the streets there took
2 years and $27 million.

-That's 2 years
of roads blocked,

lot of dust from road
construction, noise,

just interrupting normal life
routine, but the bottom line --

They suffer 2 years
to rebuild a community like this

in exchange
for 30 years of security.

-Many believe it's too little
too late

and that a 30-year life span
is too short

before the rising seas force
Miami Beach

to do it all over again.

♪♪

-The problem is that sea-level
rise is going to continue,

so raising your city
is kind of like walking a plank.

It works as long as you don't
get to the end of it,

and the sea-level-rise dynamic
is going to continue,

so I don't think they can raise
themselves out of the problem

maybe more than 3, 5 feet,
and even with that,

they have to be ready
for serious hurricanes

and the more extreme rainfall
events project for the future,

which are raising
their groundwater,

and that's a very important
piece of the flooding problem.

-One of Hill's strategies for
living with rising groundwater

has already been tested
in the Netherlands.

-I think that we can use
earthworks,

landforms to structure areas
that are safe where water ponds,

and then we can float urban
districts in those safe ponds.

I'm not talking about floating
stuff in the Atlantic Ocean.

And the Dutch idea of canals
is a great one

because it mostly relies
on gravity to drain groundwater

out of high-water-table zones,
but that would be a way

for us to adapt
to living with more water.

-Miami-Dade Chief Resilience
Officer James Murley

has looked at the Dutch model
of building dikes,

canals and levies but doesn't
think that it will work in Miami

due to its unique geology.

-The idea of building dikes or
levies with the porous limestone

means that they're not going
to be nearly as efficient

as dikes and levies
in other parts of the country.

They will have an effect
of lessening

an onrushing storm surge,
but the water itself

is going to go right
underneath through the lime rock

and is going to raise
the freshwater water table,

and, you know, it's a situation
that is unique to our geology,

and we have to work with that
as we move forward.

-You can elevate houses.
You can elevate buildings.

You can elevate roads.

People are doing it all over
the country, all over the world.

They're elevating
whole buildings,

but can you elevate all of
the buildings of Miami Beach?

I don't know,
and if you elevate it

and the limestone underneath
is all full of saltwater,

you're going to have to
pump water from way inland,

so there are all these things
that you have to consider.

-The City of Miami Beach
is committed

and planning to overcome
the challenges long-term,

no matter what the cost.

-All the South Florida people
are very strong-willed,

resilient people.

The people in this community,
in Miami Beach,

have determined that retreat
from sea-level rise

is not an option at this point.

We will rise above,
and we will stay.

♪♪

-One building here
is a shining example

of what Miami could do
to face the future.

The Pérez Art Museum
opened in 2013

when the reality of
a sinking storm-battered Miami

became accepted
by most residents.

The museum's designers faced
that challenge head-on.

-Here, we're standing on
the south side of PAMM,

the Pérez Art Museum Miami,
right at our front doors.

To the east of me
is Biscayne Bay.

We are a modern art museum.

The art starts at 22 feet
above sea level

with the second level of art
being at 40 feet

above sea level.

The materials that were used
are unbelievably solid

to withstand
major weather conditions.

Certainly the concrete
throughout the entire structure,

any wood that was used
on the building could sustain

both wind and water.

-While the structural materials
defend

against sea level and storms,

other features work with water,
ushering it into cisterns

that are used
to irrigate the grounds

and then funneling
any access water

quickly back out to the bay.

-As we're walking toward
the east of our building,

you'll notice that the ground
that we're walking on

are basically
like concrete planks.

That's to allow water to flow
underneath the structure

to the PAMM garage.

We're at exactly 8 feet above
sea level at level zero

in the PAMM garage.

We have a gravel surface here,
and the idea behind this

was to allow the water
to drain as quickly as possible.

So we do have a generator,

so PAMM will never be
without power,

and I think about PAMM
a lot of times like a hospital

that we have art
that is living and breathing

and needs 70-degree temperature,

50-percent humidity at all times
and allows the art to be safe.

-The Pérez Art Museum proved
its worth during Irma.

-We've learned a lot.

We've changed our procedures
over the years,

but the building has sustained
no damage since we've moved in.

We would never
change our location.

We wear it as a badge.

-The big storm
is more frightening

than the gradual rise of water.

Absolutely, and that's why
we respond so intensely

to the big storm
and the hurricanes.

It's a natural response.

-According to Caldas,

Miamians should be
less concerned about hurricanes

and more worried
about sea-level rise.

-It is more important
to consider tidal flooding

than it is hurricanes.

Hurricane can come
or cannot come,

but the tide comes in every day.

It's only getting worse.

The measurements are there.
The data are there.

It's only going to get
worse and fast.

So we have three options.

We protect.

We try to build berms and walls
in different areas.

We accommodate the water.

We build areas that can flood
without damage,

or we retreat,
which is the, you know,

the last-resort thing
that you have to do.

If your place has been flooded
250 times a year,

it's, like, it's time to leave.

We got to get out of here.

-You start thinking, "Okay.
What if I don't have my car?

What if I don't have my job?"
because if there's no houses

to sell, no condos to sell,
that's my livelihood.

What if I don't have a home
to return to?

-What we found is,

people are going to ask
for the opportunity to retreat.

They weren't being told
to leave.

They were saying,
"We prefer to leave."

They were willing to sell
their property and move.

That could change in the future,

but that's sort of
where we find ourselves today,

so there's a lot of thinking
going on.

There's a lot of different
options being considered.

-Everybody is doom and gloom.

They're all saying,
"Sea-level rise, climate change

is going to be the end
of all coastal communities.

You'll never, ever be able to
save the City of Miami Beach,"

and I'm saying,
"No, that doesn't have to be."

We got to solve problems.

We can't just talk about how bad
they are

and how much worse
they're going to get.

We have to also talk about what
we're going to do to correct it.

-Eric Bason says he will stand
his ground, no matter what.

-I'm not planning on moving.

I plan on fighting for people
in my community,

low-income communities
to live the best life possible.

-I would say that I'm more
hopeful than I am worried.

Maybe that's just because
I'm an optimistic,

positive person,

but I do see humanity in a way
that there's so much potential,

and there's so much innovation.

There are solutions
that we don't even know exist,

and once we have the willpower,

the movement,
we're going to find them,

and America, the world
is not going to let Miami go.

♪♪

♪♪

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on DVD,

visit ShopPBS
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is also available
on Amazon Prime Video.

♪♪