"Damage From Sandy Forces Long Island Golf Course To Close For Good"

Thanks to reader Anthony for the sad CBS2 New York report that Hurricane Sandy's wrath was too much for Middle Bay Golf Club, recent host to the Blind Golfers championship, employer to many and home to a lot of charity events.

The video version of the report:

Comments

[fred jones]

Middle BayCC was a fine course with several grand holes on the Bay. They were hanging on by their fingernails the past few years as many of their members retired & moved to Florida. Sandy was the deathblow. The property has mega real estate value.

[KLG]

It is a bad thing when a golf course closes.

"The property has mega real estate value."

Not anymore, it doesn't. At least not without the National Flood Insurance Program. And it is time to begin phasing out that insanity. As the ocean takes back what should never in the first place have been claimed for human habitation or other uses, these properties should no longer be eligible. And that includes every other bay, beach, flood plain property in the country. Middle Bay was relatively sheltered compared to Staten Island and the Rockaways and look what happened. Next time will be at least as bad. And just as predictable.

[smails]

Yeah KLG! Lets shut down Pebble! Cypress--turn it over to the frogs! National and Shinny? Plow em under.

Golf originated in a flood plain.

And Middle Bay will provide housing for a lot of people who will have been displaced from the beach. Sorry to see KLG that you dont like firemen and cops, who were a big part of these communities.

As for Middle Bay--While i mourn the loss of any golf course, this course lost money for years. Better to see other courses like Rockaway and seawane get more business and hopefully make it.

[digsouth]

Smails, I don't think you get Ky's point.

I'm not going to cite a bunch of stats, but the bottom line is the rebuild in common flood plains, or in barrier islands is to deny what nature is going to do.

Florida is the red headed step child of insurance providers, taking swamp, and ,well you see what happens at least once a decade.

Pebble and Cypress are not in flood plains, I do believe.

[digsouth]

Sadly, a small community of golfers, and such will have to shift gears. I wish them all well.

[smails]

you guys are geniuses. dont build in a flood plain. got it. what else. I was attempting to relate KLG's post to golf, but i guess golf had nothing to do with it.

Pebble and Cypress are on the coast, unless you guys tell me they aren't-- a coast that gets re-shaped by nature, except when a seawall gets built. thought you guys wanted to roll it all back to nature.

[Brad]

Great post snails, you make your namesake look like a genius
If you've ever been to Pebble or Cyprus, you would instantly realize coastal flooding would not occur. Reshaping over millions of years of erosion, yes. Totally different ball game than the east coast

[Pat Burke]

No offense to anyone, but take a look at the engineering on the seawalls at Pebble.
HUge effort to beat back mother nature

[FW]

Brad--thank you, spot on.
Smails--Where to start with your post. Suffice to say that questioning KLG, the professor, is risky at best, but to take the ridiculous leap that he doesn't like firemen or policemen is...dumb! The California coast doesn't have hurricanes. Read Brad's comment again.

[smails]

read my comment again. unless i type "coastal erosion" in all caps, you guys miss the point. one bad Feb storm takes out 1/4th of the 18th at Pebble, were it not for a very large seawall that took years to get through the coastal commission. the opposition to this made, strikingly, the same "point" KLG made--i.e. that nature destroys coastline, and nature should be allowed to destroy the 18th at Pebble. Not milliions of years. One storm. remember that course in Palos Verdes that lost a couple holes to a storm a few years ago?

"ridiculous leap"--is that like taking a discussion about a golf course and injecting a discussion about flood plain insurance?

lets not insure people who live on the beach. ok-give em all u hauls and tell em to go inland? what do you do when they dont go inland, and the next storm hits. i got an idea, $60 billion of Sandy relief!

[digsouth]

Pat-

Come on. A small seawall relative to the hundeds of miles of coastline.

Meanwhile, the Carolinas, Florida, etc have large construction endevors (sp) on barrier islands, islands ehich are meant to protect the mainland. Texas has this dumb shit going on. I live 1/2 hour from the coast, and I have seen what can happen. Galveston- the site of the largest natural disaster, in terns of human lives lost, raised the city 20 feet, and have miles of seawall, and they are still cleaning up and rebuilding from Hurrican Ike a couple of years ago. Galveston is built on a barrier island. Look at the eastern seaboard. Look at Texas- then look at the Western exposure to the Pacific. Different ball games.

Have a good week.

[Pete North]

Smails, You may have made the largest leap in GS posting history. As a cop that has family all over that area I am perplexed how KLG's post implies that he doesn't like cops and firemen. Some of my best friends in the world have homes that are way too close to the ocean, both in that area as well as the coast of NC. I don't dislike them because they live there. Why can't you just disagree, make your point, and wait for a response? Why the ridiculous throw-in comment that makes you seem ignorant.

[Pat Burke]

Digger,
Plenty of natural disasters to go around.

The Olympic club lost holes, Ocean trails.
Beach homes in southern CA are routinely battered by winter storms, far less severe than the likes of hurricanes.

Plenty of issues to go around, not just back east! :)

[digsouth]

Pat-

Thanks for bringing up the SoCal winter storms--I really question the building of large homes on dirt- no piers sunk to secur the foundation, and dirt cliffs- not rock based. These homes would be in harms way in a heavy rain- oh wait- mudslides!

I get the beauty of the sites, but man, they are not stable if someone pees in the back yard.

And as to ''plenty to go around''.....yes, Mother Nature really does have a nasty side, doesn't she!

[KLG]

Judge, for those already there, they keep their security and will be compensated, once, if and when the inevitable happens. That is fair and reasonable. Rebuild, or build new construction in a flood plain or low-lying tidal basin or barrier dunes all you want. Just don't expect the rest of us to subsidize your insurance or rebuild it for you when the inevitable happens. Again. That was my one and only point. I certainly have nothing against FDNY and NYPD. My home grounds have been overrun with pretty but expensive and at the same time cheap slab houses and condominiums built in unstable, ever changing barrier dunes, all because the local zoning board is little more than lint in some very deep pockets. My favorite is a $5 million dollar monstrosity 50 feet from an inlet that due to naturally shifting sands and channels is unrecognizable as the same place since I graduated from high school, which was about 3 seconds ago on a geological time scale. One Category 2 hurricane will leave the house tilting and the pool filled with sand. A Category 3 storm will leave the house in splinters and the pool covered with two feet of sand. Category 4+ and there will be no evidence there was ever a house on that spot unless you dig through 6 feet of sand and find the slab. All because such things are insurable. They should not be, going forward.

As for the Left Coast, well, money also has its prerogatives. Even with the California Coastal Commission...