The Task Force
Once the Report was completed Kiawah leaders began the
process of studying its contents and initiating activities
to address the challenges outlined in it. The Community
Association Finance Committee established an Infrastructure
Task Force (Task Force) to study how to manage and improve
safety during extraordinary water events. Dave Morely chairs
the Task Force. The group recognizes the challenge as two
pronged: (1) managing high levels of water on the Island
during storms or higher than usual tides or a combination of
both of these; and (2) finding ways to prevent excess water
from coming onto the Island. The Task Force divided its work
into two phases. Phase I involves developing strategies to
manage excess water on Kiawah. They are identifying areas
where flooding is known to have been especially severe with a
view to finding ways to mitigate the impact. The Task Force is
also taking an adaptive management approach, working with
what is known now and basing recommendations on present
conditions. As time passes and we are able to find out whether
water levels are in fact rising at higher rates than in the past,
we can initiate strategies to address those levels. Once study
and analysis of Phase I is completed, the Task Force plans to
turn to the challenge of keeping excess water off the Island.
The Sea-level Rise Committee
The Report is the work product of a special Town
subcommittee on flood mitigation and sea-level rise adaption.
Kiawah resident John Leffler, who has a PhD in Zoology and
Ecology from the University of Georgia, was a member of the
subcommittee. Formerly a college professor, upon moving to
South Carolina, John worked 10 years for the South Carolina
Using a variety of available data, Lucas works to simulate
and predict which Kiawah roadways and homes will be
impacted by flooding in the future, using models within a
Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. GIS
tools can easily overlay many layers of information (high-
resolution elevations, land use, and flood extent) to create
maps and images of the impacts of future flooding events. The
final part of this project will be to analyze the flooding data
in conjunction with the concerns of residents, Town Council,
and other Island entities to develop strategies and ideas
that will help Kiawah better prepare for future storms and
mitigate the flooding that comes with them. The optimum
approach to all these issues is termed “adaptive management,”
a system utilized by the United States Department of Defense.
Essentially the method uses water levels as predicted over a
relatively short period of time and implements changes to
address them. Rather than try to plan for 70 years out, steps
are taken to address where the water is predicted to be in
four or five years. At that time, a new assessment is made to
see how closely the prediction matches the actual water level
then and how effective any changes have been. As a result of
this assessment, a new plan can be formed based on what has
been learned over the four- or five-year period.
Of paramount importance in all of Lucas’s work is
educating the Kiawah community. He says, “Kiawah is a
premier community—we want to keep the Island ahead of
the game. By being flood ready, it shows that we’re pushing
toward becoming a community that can respond quickly
and can potentially become a model for other coastal
communities.”
WINTER/SPRING 2020 • VOLUME 42
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