Serving Highland Beach and Coastal Boca Raton
February 2022
Along the Coast
Tidal flooding, rising seas put focus on sea wall height
Volume 15 Issue 2
Highland Beach
Fighting a deadly wave
LINTON BLVD
By Larry Barszewski King tides are serving as an early warning system for communities along the Intracoastal Waterway, providing seasonal examples of flooding that — in future decades — will become more frequent and more intense as sea levels rise. The main barriers keeping salt water from flooding even more waterfront property and streets during the king tides are the existing sea walls, but most of those structures probably aren’t high or strong enough to protect against the rising sea levels to come. In January, Delray Beach became the first city in southern Palm Beach County to shore up its sea wall regulations to address climate change. City commissioners at their Jan. 11 meeting set a minimum height for sea walls and approved other policies for when new or replacement sea walls will be needed. The new regulations won’t force all property owners whose sea walls are lower than the minimum height to come into compliance. They will apply only to new sea walls, those on properties undergoing major renovations, those in need of major repair and those that fail to stop water from washing over them and flooding neighboring
Even on a cool, cloudy day, the Intracoastal Waterway in Highland Beach can look like a crowded raceway in which big wakes intensify the perils. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
Second fatality in five months and other injuries reflect growing trouble on stretch of waterway plagued by congestion and excessive speeds
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By Rich Pollack
2 1 Location of Jan. 15 fatal accident.
3
2 Life-changing accident, June 6.
SPANISH RIVER 3 Location of Aug. 29 fatal crash.
See SEA WALLS on page 11
It’s happened again. For more than a decade Highland Beach residents living along the Intracoastal Waterway have complained that speeding boats throw off wakes that damage sea walls and docked boats. They lobbied state legislators and the state agency with jurisdiction to create a no-wake zone and slow boaters down, warning that if nothing was done there could be dire consequences. In August, those predictions came true when a 37-year-old woman was killed after the northbound center-console boat she was in crashed into a sea wall, ejecting her and six others, including children. Then last month, a northbound centerconsole boat hit a wake and went airborne before crashing into pilings and hitting a docked boat. A 63-year-old grandfather died after he and two boys were tossed into the water. The injured boys were helped by residents from the nearby Seagate See BOATING on page 19
Along the Coast
Gumbo Limbo treats turtle attacked by shark By Larry Keller
As if a green turtle dubbed Brontosaurus didn’t have enough obstacles to reaching old age — ingestion of and entanglement in plastic debris and fishing nets, boat strikes, discarded fish hooks, ocean pollution and climate change — it also had to fend off a shark attack. In late December, Hank Davis was fly fishing in Briny Breezes when he noticed a group of children staring at
Hank Davis of Delray Beach rescued this green turtle while fishing along the beach in Briny Breezes. Photo provided
a turtle struggling to swim no more than six feet from shore. “I thought that’s strange, because turtles don’t usually come in that close, especially if there are a lot of people around,” said Davis, a retired psychology teacher in the international baccalaureate program at Atlantic High School and a Delray Beach resident. “I got this guy to hold my fly rod … and I put one See TURTLE on page 10 PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID WEST PALM BCH FL PERMIT NO 4595
Theatrical journal When it comes to community theater, you can go home again. Page AT10
Taking shape Atlantic Crossing set to transform Delray. Page 18
Hotel happenings Updates for luxury resorts in Boca, Manalapan. Page AT1
Obituaries
Page 32-33
Coastal Star Marketing professor pledges $2 million to FAU. Page 2