On Chicago’s South Side, neighbors fight to keep Lake Michigan at bay

Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News, Borderless, Ensia, Planet Detroit, Sahan Journal, and Wisconsin Watch, as well as the Guardian and Inside Climate News. The project was supported by the Joyce Foundation. You can read the launch story from Ensia, “Inundation and Injustice: Flooding presents a formidable threat to the Great Lakes region,” here. This story was originally published by Grist, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.  Jera Slaughter looks at her backyard with pride, pointing out every feature and explaining how it came to be. The landscaping committee in her apartment building takes such things seriously. But unlike homeowners who might discuss their prized plants or custom decking, Slaughter is describing a beach, one covered in large concrete blocks, gravel and a small sliver of sandy shoreline that overlooks Lake Michigan. It’s a view worthy of a grand apartment building built on Chicago’s South Side in the 1920s and deemed a national historic landmark. But repeated flooding has over the years radically remade the private beach. Slaughter has lived in the Windy City long enough to remember when it extended 300 feet (91 meters). Now it barely reaches 50 feet (15 meters). Her neighborhood might not be the first place anyone would think of when it comes to climate-related flooding, but Slaughter and her neighbors have been witnesses to a rapid erosion of their beloved shoreline. “Out there where that pillar is,” she says, pointing to a post about 500 feet (152 meters) away, “that was our sandy beach. The erosion has eaten it away and left us with this. We tried one year to re-sand it. We bought sand and flew it in. But by the end of the season, there was no sand left.” Recent years have seen high lake levels flood parking garages and apartments, wash out beaches, and even cause massive sinkholes. It’s a growing hazard, one that Slaughter has been desperately fighting for years. “All things considered, this is our home,” she says. Lake Michigan… Read More
The post On Chicago’s South Side, neighbors fight to keep Lake Michigan at bay appeared first on Ensia.