Radio Free Montone: The Dead Are Rising On Tangier Island
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
The Army Corps of Engineers says the island which was settled more than 500 years ago on the Virginia side of the Chesapeake Bay is sinking into the water. The most noticeable and to some the most horrifying evidence are the coffins and skeletons popping out of the muddy soil. The Corps predicts that because of rising sea levels Tangier will be nothing but marsh in less than 50 years. That will put an end to a place populated by some of the country's most prolific "watermen," who still catch the bulk of the bay's blue clawed crabs. Islanders pray that Congress will come up with the money to build a seawall before a major hurricane hastens its demise.
I thought often of Tangier Island as I drove along New Jersey's coast last week. Our beloved Jersey Shore from Cape May to Belmar. The ageless beauty, Mary Montone, and I walked on beaches, stopped to take pictures of snow geese at the Forsythe Refuge in Galloway and of a fox at Island Beach State Park. We strolled along the Barnegat Bay in Seaside Park and the honkytonk boardwalk in Seaside Heights. We also spent time on LBI where we are building a new house on the same lot where three years ago 39 inches of sea water crashed into our garage.
Fools and their money soon parted, some might say, building between the ocean and bay. But build we are and we are not alone. All along the coast new houses are under construction and old ones are being raised to conform with new federal flood guidelines. This occurs even as local newspapers report a dramatic spike in flooding on barrier islands and near back bays. So why do we ignore the ominous signs of a warming world? The answer was plain to see as the new year approached. People surged to the shoreline drawn by the briny as they have been for centuries, a reminder that the first fauna caught a wave and surfed to shore. Millions of years later hotels and bars and boardwalks were packed with revelers and those seeking solace near the sea as the old year gave way to the new.
As Tangier Island sinks my spirit sometimes does as well. Empty lots littered with wood and bricks where mansions once stood in Mantoloking reminded me that some of the well-heeled are waving the white flag. But for most of us our love affair with the crashing surf is too deep to uproot for a lake in the mountains or a ranch on the prairie. In poetry and photography, cinema and song we celebrate the sea.
As Longfellow wrote, "My heart is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me."
Couldn't have said it any better.
