"Everyone said I was daft to build a castle in the swamp"

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20090316/ARTICLES/903161998/1155?Title=Efforts-revive-to-allow-structures-for-stopping-erosion

Mayors from Brunswick and Pender Counties are upset... because their beachfront communities are in danger from erosion. Hmm... people put millions into houses that are mere yards from the ocean, and then whine when there's a chance that the ocean will swallow their house during a storm? This seems like a logical conclusion to me. I'm sorry, but I really lack sympathy for anyone who builds on a barrier island and expects anything less than the eventual destruction of that property, because they clearly didn't investigate what barrier islands are.
For you edification, a barrier island is (oversimplifying here) a large sand bar. As sea level rises, they roll landward, over themselves, moving back into the marsh and abandoning what was once beach to the offshore system. Likewise, inlets on those islands migrate in the direction of the longshore current (North to south on east facing beaches along the US coast, generally), moving through whatever happens to be in their way. These natural processes can be slowed by hardened manmade structures, but eventually those too fall into the ocean unless replaced with larger ones. Seabright, NJ is the classic example of that happens to towns that try things like groins and seawalls: you get a beach only at low tide, with a big concrete wall on the landward side of it. Beautiful.
Conveniently, the people on the Coastal Resources Commission are pretty reasonable people, who are going to squash this nonsense without the legislature being able to override.