Latest / Seth Grossman – Liberty and Prosperity / Wooden bulkheads and concrete seawalls are all we need. Piles of sand are expensive, ugly and useless.

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Wooden bulkheads and concrete seawalls are all we need. Piles of sand are expensive, ugly and useless. · Seth Grossman – Liberty and Prosperity

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  - Alright. Citizen Seth Grossman is here because while
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  - everybody's thinking that the flooding happens because of
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  - the ocean, there are those who believe it's
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  - happening
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  - at the back bay so that the bulkheads,
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  - not the dunes,
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  - are
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  - your more rightful protection, if you will. The
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  - whole thing with the sand dunes reminds you
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  - of a story my dad used to tell
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  - me when he was stationed here for a
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  - few weeks during World War two. One of
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  - his jobs was to guard the boiler room
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  - of the Saint Charles Hotel
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  - with a wooden rifle. I said, what did
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  - he give you a wooden rifle for? He
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  - said, well, they didn't have any real rifles
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  - to give out, so they gave us wooden
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  - rifles. I said, well, what good is the
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  - wooden rifle? He said, well, we sure kept
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  - the Germans away from the Saint Charles Hotel,
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  - don't we? That reminds you of this. So,
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  - basically,
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  - how do we get the bulkheads? In 1944,
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  - we had a devastating hurricane in Atlantic City
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  - that wiped out the old Hines Pier, the
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  - Marquette Boardwalk. Yep. And in response to that,
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  - the city
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  - with no federal aid, no state aid, the
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  - city, with the new luxury tax,
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  - built those wooden bulkheads
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  - by the boardwalk. And, of course, it wasn't
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  - just the hurricanes.
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  - Before that, the old timers would talk about
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  - the Northeaster of nineteen '38, which knocked out
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  - the Brigantine Bridge and allowed a guy called
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  - Cap'n Thorne to make a fortune taking people
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  - back and forth from Brigantine, and that's how
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  - he got the money to do, a lot
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  - of his, improvements at Cap'n Thorne's. We grew
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  - up with those wooden bulkheads
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  - all along the ocean. They were normal. And
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  - in some street ends, you actually had concrete
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  - barriers. You know, that wooden bulkhead,
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  - stopped basically the water from coming up from
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  - the ocean in 1962.
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  - Almost all the the flooding came from the
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  - Back Bay, and we went through this with,
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  - Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
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  - When you look at the photographs,
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  - you'll see right by the Morgan Elephant,
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  - that same wooden bulkhead that was built in
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  - Atlantic City by the boardwalk
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  - was also built through Ventnor, Margate, and Longport.
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  - And that bulkhead
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  - during hurricane Sandy of two thousand twelve stopped
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  - the, flooding. We went away from what worked,
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  - and we put something in that doesn't work.
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  - Oh, yeah. But you don't have to be
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  - an expert engineering to to watch during the
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  - storm. You would see the waves would break.
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  - You had a long beach. The waves would
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  - break 50 yards away from where the bulk
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  - head was, and just the water would come
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  - up, and the bulk head would would stop
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  - the water. If you look at the photographs
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  - of the Margate Elephant, you'll see that the
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  - wooden bulk heads
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  - stopped the water. And only flooding that took
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  - place during Sandy down in this area was
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  - from the back bay. So why did we
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  - get in with this nonsense with the sand
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  - dunes? I was on city council in Atlantic
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  - City during the nineteen eighties when the nonsense
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  - just started, and then I represented
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  - as a private lawyer the owner of one
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  - of the peers in Atlantic City when the
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  - Department of Environmental Protection was trying to talk
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  - everybody into giving all the oceanfront properties into
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  - giving easements
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  - to basically turn their property over to the
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  - Army Corps of Engineers, which was insanity.
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  - And then I realized what the whole,
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  - dune thing was about. It was like a
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  - a marriage of convenience
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  - between these environmentalists.
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  - They did not want private people to enjoy
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  - themselves on the beach. They wanted the public
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  - access.
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  - They wanted to have... If they had their
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  - way, nobody would live by the beach. They'd
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  - turn the whole beach over to the piping
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  - plovers, and the wildlife. They wanted to make
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  - the beaches unattractive and uninhab... Habitable. They didn't
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  - want people enjoying ocean views. The whole boardwalk
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  - was built in the first place so that
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  - people could walk on a boardwalk and enjoy
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  - a view of the ocean without tracking sand
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  - onto the trains that would take them back
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  - to Philadelphia. That's why mister Boardman invented the
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  - boardwalk. And now you walk in a boardwalk
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  - in Atlantic City. You can't even see the
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  - ocean. Yeah. You can't even feel the breezes.
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  - And I remember I was screaming, you know,
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  - when I was on... When I saw this
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  - coming on city council and as an attorney,
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  - a combination of the Army Corps of Engineer
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  - where which I found out was a bunch
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  - of very political people. All they cared about
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  - was getting their funding, getting their money, getting
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  - their promotions. And if the Wacko environmentalists
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  - were gonna say, well, instead of building bulkheads
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  - and dams, you know, build sand dunes and
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  - we'll give you all the funding you want.
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  - That's where this nonsense started. And one of
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  - the pure insane things they did... So basically,
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  - as I see it, the whole thing is
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  - hokey. It's a racket.
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  - And and we local people need to stand
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  - up and say what what the the founding...
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  - Not the founding fathers, what the... What Atlantic
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  - City local people came up with after the
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  - hurricane in 1944.
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  - Where we're visiting with citizen Seth Grossman, was
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  - it the Army Corps of Engineers? No. It
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  - wasn't their idea. They just went along with
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  - it to get the funding.
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  - Whose idea was The idea was the the
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  - wacko environmental people who just, hate cars. The
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  - the same people who came up with the
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  - so called road diet where you take a
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  - a good road with two lanes in each
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  - direction, and then you say if you wanna
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  - get federal money, you have to, turn it
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  - into one lane in each direction so you
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  - have a constant traffic jam Yeah. Because those
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  - people hate cars. They hate modern life. They
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  - want us to all go back to riding
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  - bicycles. We had sand dunes when Atlantic City
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  - was created. And then in 1854,
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  - Jonathan Pitney and Sam Richard build their famous
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  - railroad to nowhere to an empty sand,
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  - island, and they build a hotel there. And
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  - they say, we're gonna create a brand new
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  - resort, and we're gonna call it Atlantic City.
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  - That first summer was a disaster for two
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  - reasons. Number one, of course, the people, when
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  - soon as they go off the train, they
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  - wanted to see the ocean. They walked on
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  - the beach. They tracked the sand into the
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  - fancy hotel Yeah. Into the into the railroad.
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  - They were ruining the furnitures, ruining the carpeting.
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  - They said we gotta do something about... The
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  - the dunes were there. They build the boardwalks,
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  - and people stop tracking sand into their trains
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  - and the hotels. Right. The second problem were
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  - the greenheads. The greenheads and the bugs and
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  - the mosquitoes were so awful, it threatened to
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  - destroy the entire project. So that winter, they
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  - completely leveled the dunes. And the following summer,
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  - no greenheads,
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  - no mosquitoes,
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  - no bugs, and Atlantic City thrived from that
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  - point on.
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  - So after that, every single resort that was
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  - built by the ocean, the first thing they
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  - did was level the dunes. And you could
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  - look at the photographs of Atlantic City from
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  - 1870,
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  - 1890,
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  - 1910,
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  - 1920, 1950,
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  - 1980,
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  - flat sand, everybody enjoying themselves,
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  - bulkheads protecting the, you know, the hotels and
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  - the and the streets and the and the
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  - restaurants from flooding.
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  - It worked for a hundred years. So you
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  - didn't have a problem
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  - until number one, you had these... This woke
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  - culture started to come about in the nineteen
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  - eighties and nineteen nineties that whatever
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  - made America great, whether it's the family, whether
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  - it's the automobile,
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  - whatever, whether it's schools, religion, anything, they had
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  - to destroy everything.
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  - And one of the things was to make
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  - it imp... You know, to punish rich people
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  - for enjoying
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  - an oceanfront house where they could look out
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  - the window and see the ocean. As someone
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  - who grew up here, we all know that
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  - this... That sand moves.
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  - And normally, the sand moves, you know, down
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  - and moves towards the south because
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  - northeast storms, by their very nature, the strong
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  - northeast winds push the water and push the
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  - sand down. I don't know about Wildwood, but
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  - I do know Atlantic City. I do know
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  - when they built that long jetty in Brigantine
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  - right across from the inlet, That is when
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  - the uptown Atlantic City began to lose its
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  - beach at that point. And the sand moves.
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  - I I mean, sand moves. It's been moving
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  - for a billion years. The lighthouse of Atlantic
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  - City, that was right by the beach when
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  - it was first built. And now it's, like,
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  - what, two two or three blocks away from
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  - the beach. So, yeah, the sand... This is
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  - a barrier island made of sand, and sand
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  - moves around. Just just like my dad swore
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  - that that wooden rifle he held in his
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  - hands kept the crowds away from the Saint
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  - Charles Hotel
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  - in World War two. Yeah. And one thing
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  - I've noticed, you know, over the years, ordinary
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  - people using common sense, whether they're at a
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  - Liberty and Prosperity breakfast, they're more likely to
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  - get it right, to get to the truth
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  - and come up with common sense facts and
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  - solutions
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  - than so called experts because the so called
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  - experts are not interested in the truth. They're
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  - interested in getting their funding for next year,
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  - pleasing the politician who hired them. And if
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  - you just know people who live their entire
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  - lives by the shore, they know
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  - that the sand dunes are absolutely ridiculous. They're
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  - insane. But the people who are making lots
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  - of money from it, they'll come up with
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  - study after study.