The Shining Future Islands of South Florida

 

The Shining Future Islands of South Florida

 

The year is 2150. Most of the South Florida area is under 10-50 feet of water from climate change. Miami is inundated. High rise condominiums and office buildings poke up out of the water like a surreal scene from a movie. Further up the coast you can see Ft. Lauderdale roof tops and other tall buildings half submerged. The water extends all the way to I-95 making the area look like the Louisiana bayou as I-10 crosses over and through it. Everything south of lake Okeechobee and up through West Palm Beach along the east coast is flooded or half underwater. It is the most flooding in heavily populated areas the world has ever seen. 4.5 million people have been displaced.  Many years ago in the 2050’s, the flooding gained momentum and became increasingly worse as time went on. Mitigation efforts included raising homes, canal diversion programs and increased stormwater retention however none of it worked. Interstates like I-95, I-595 and the Turnpike have been raised at various high  water points to still provide a modicum of travel and commerce. Some areas of these roads are permanently shut down as alternate routes have been built over the years. The Everglades is now connected to the Atlantic Ocean which has changed the Florida aquifer and made large swaths of land uninhabitable and remote.

Prior to 2050, the King Tides of South Florida were an ominous warning of how bad it could get in the Southeast Florida region. Miami, Ft, Lauderdale and Palm Beach residents suffered through innumerable high tides that blanketed the roads and flooded yards continually. The tides were an annual event for a couple of months and soon became a permanent fixture of the area. Everyone was under water pretty much all of the time. Driving became more difficult. The tides ruled your day and your life.  Residents had to gauge how high the tide was before leaving the house, hoping they would be able to get back. This also presented a major problem for the thousands of homeless living on the beach, at bus stop overhangs and loitering in front of drug stores. Many were seen in makeshift boast at semi dry intersections going about their day panhandling and holding up signs, unabated by the water. Oar attacks at intersections became the norm. The homeless had oars from their rowing activity and used them to bash windshields and innocent people. The rising water brought with it a rising anger on the streets and amongst the general public. South Florida was already bursting at the seams with transplants from out of state, vacationers and industry.  A saving grace to the area was that most of the new construction along Sunrise Blvd and other areas had to go vertical to account for overpopulation. As the waters rose, the high density 10 to 20 story buildings provided refuge for existing residents. Small boat sales spiked exponentially. Parking was no longer an issue, light, maneuverable water craft was. The larger boats and yachts were in the process of being re-located to North and Central Florida. There was no use for them and they became a dangerous liability to own or operate. The same held true for cars, trucks and all manner of vehicle within the area. There was a slow and steady sell off of all land based vehicles in South Florida from 2050 to 2100. Everyone saw the water coming in and had to adapt or leave the area. The upside of it was decreased traffic and less congested roads in an already over burdened and poorly managed highway and interstate system. Restaurants and hotels were also forced to change their business models and adapt to the incoming tides. Ft. Lauderdale, once the glittering jewel of Venice like waterways, famous bars and restaurants and tropical ambiance was sinking onto the ocean at an ever increasingly rapid pace. Street names like Rio Vista were mockingly called Rio Underwaterah as the population looked for levity in the disaster.  Ft. Lauderdale airport was shut down in 2087 as a precaution to the sudden and violent flooding experienced during hurricanes and heavy rain storms. The airport was relocated to Loxahatchee, one of the few remaining high and dry pieces of land, several miles west of I-95. The area is rural and underdeveloped, however suitable for an airport.

An engineering survey of the land stretching from  Ft. Pierce to Miami, along I-95 and the Turnpike showed several areas in South Florida that still remained high, dry and potentially viable for existing residents. Much to the surprise of the survey engineers, the landfills of South Florida remained at least 55 feet above water. Throughout the years, the landfills increased in size to eight times their stature in 2045. The massive uptick of solid waste mountains created in South Florida over the years now looked like a viable alternative for housing and a refuge for what was left of the population.  A leading edge construction and building tech firm invented a process to solidify the waste within the landfills to make it impervious to decay while maintaining the tensile strength of concrete block. Known as “Waste Blocks”, they had the ability to be formed and utilized for future construction on the islands that remained. Applications also included sealing the existing trash island ground with a perma-freeze solution that provided for a more permanent foundation to build housing and light commercial buildings. As with any new and unproven technology, there were drawbacks. The most prescient of these was the fact that the waste blocks were  de-gassing methane and carbon dioxide, just as the trash heaps from the past. Work arounds to this included micro-piping within the blocks for efficient de-gassing and re-piping into the ground and surrounding waters for the foundations to be built. The future was bright for the existing Trash Islands as people began to consider living in the new island paradises of South Florida.

The new Trash Islands were now known as the “TI’s”, similar to the “DR” for the Dominican Republic and the “VI” for the Virgin Islands. The TI’s stretched from Ft. Pierce to Palm Beach then to Lake Worth with Palm Beach having the largest TI  of them all, just off the now submerged Jog Rd. The Covanta Waste Facility generously granted all future usage of their mountainous trash heap to the State of Florida, for the benefit of the people of South Florida. Covanta and their subsidiaries received an enormous tax break for their donation, Their only stipulation was that the State of Florida  name their particular TI “Covanta Island”, which the state quickly ratified. The rest of the new found island chain bordered the Turnpike just south of Hollywood and then down to Homestead and Florida City. These were in fact the new Keys, leading into the existing Florida Keys. Since Miami was now completely under water, the downtown area of Miami was relocated to Florida City, the new bustling metropolis of South Florida. The elevation at Florida City and Homestead was high enough to remain habitable to accommodate the new residents, infrastructure and buildings required to approximate the former Miami. Most of the electric infrastructure of Homestead and the surrounding areas was underground pad mount transformers which helped greatly for the new residents and businesses.

Tourism in South Florida still flourished. Hotels and residences were built on the TI’s. Real Estate was sold quickly. Caveats in closing documents included “..De-gassing may occur within the structure of your home or business. It typically goes unnoticed however a slight odor may occur from time to time. Vortex’s and whirlpools may occur within the surrounding waters of the TI’s however engineers have assured us that this is a rare event and will quickly pass”. While consumers and potential land owners were made aware of this, they still bought up the existing land on the islands quickly and soon moved to their new island paradises. Travel between the TI’s was mainly by small or mid-sized boats. Small marinas were built to accommodate limited boat travel. Vertical Take Off and Landing craft were very popular as there was no way to build runways for air travel. These craft took off and landed on all of the TI’s and added to the mystique of the new islands. The Coast Guard utilized the VTOL’s to confirm rogue whirlpools and vortices in the water in between the islands.

The Trash Islands of South Florida provided a unique glimpse into the ingenuity of humanity and triumph of man over environment. It is a bright and shining reminder of the ability of our species to overcome any obstacle and to succeed where the odds are stacked against us. Long live the Shining New Trash Islands of South Florida!