Global Coastal Flood Advisory: The World’s Wettest Invitation No One RSVPs To
A Coastal Flood Advisory: The World’s Wettest RSVP
By Ignacio “Iggy” Montalbán, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker
The alert arrived on every phone from Jakarta to Jacksonville at 03:17 local time—like a drunk ex texting “u up?” at closing time. Coastal Flood Advisory. Nothing says “good morning” quite like the polite promise that your neighborhood may soon double as an unplanned aquarium. From Bangladesh’s Sundarbans to the Hamptons’ hedge-fund hinterlands, the same four bureaucratic words now constitute a planetary lingua franca: Sorry, water’s coming. Bring sandals.
In the grand tradition of global equal-opportunity disasters, the advisory is refreshingly democratic. It doesn’t care if your passport is burgundy, green, or that tragic shade of blue the Americans insist is stylish. Venice’s gondoliers are stacking sandbags next to Lagos’ floating slum dwellers, who are trading WhatsApp tips with Miami Beach waiters on how to waterproof AirPods (rice is involved; dignity is optional). The advisory, in its bureaucratic brevity, has become a sort of UN resolution written by Poseidon: “Resolved, that your living-room décor shall henceforth include kelp.”
The science is as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh, but the choreography has 21st-century flair. Greenland sheds ice like a celebrity dropping albums at midnight; the Gulf Stream meanders like a lost tourist; sea levels rise with the inexorable certainty of a group-chat argument about vaccines. Meanwhile, insurers update their actuarial tables with the cheery fatalism of blackjack dealers. Lloyd’s of London now sells policies that cover “brackish-water intrusion” but exclude “existential despair”—that’s filed under Mental Health.
Wealthy nations, naturally, have developed sophisticated coping mechanisms: inflatable dams, amphibious cars, and the ever-popular “managed retreat” (real-estate jargon for “run away, but tastefully”). The Dutch, who turned water management into a national pastime, export their expertise the way the Swiss export chocolate. Rotterdam’s latest sea wall is so sleek it has its own TikTok account—#DamGood. Meanwhile, low-lying island states like Tuvalu host climate conferences where delegates nod gravely between sips of imported bottled water, then fly home to sign off on new coal plants. Irony, unlike carbon, is endlessly renewable.
Global finance has taken note. The New York Stock Exchange recently toyed with relocating its servers to a decommissioned aircraft carrier, reasoning that if markets are going to be irrationally buoyant, they might as well be literally buoyant. BlackRock has started classifying coastal real estate as “depreciating cultural heritage,” a phrase that makes drowning sound almost tasteful. In Singapore, sovereign wealth funds are investing in floating data centers—because nothing says “progress” like outsourcing your cloud storage to the actual clouds.
And yet, the advisory persists in its quaint understatement: “Minor to moderate flooding expected.” It neglects to mention that “minor” now means ankle-deep in sewage and “moderate” means negotiating with a sea cucumber for the last dry barstool. Humanity, ever the optimist, responds by building taller lattes and taller seawalls in equal measure. Social media influencers wade through flooded boutiques clutching designer umbrellas, #ClimateChic trending faster than the waterline rise. Somewhere in Davos, a thought leader coins “blue-sky resilience,” pockets the speaking fee, and books next year’s summit in Reykjavík—elevation 15 meters above sea level, cocktails included.
In the end, the Coastal Flood Advisory is less a warning than a recurring appointment in our planetary calendar, like Mercury in retrograde but with property damage. It is the polite cough before the tsunami of consequences arrives. Because whether you’re a shrimp farmer in the Mekong Delta or a Bond villain in a glass cliff house, the ocean is the last true egalitarian. It will RSVP to every shore, no dress code required—just bring yourself, preferably in a wetsuit.
And should you find yourself ankle-deep in brine tomorrow morning, remember: it’s not the end of the world. It’s merely the world’s way of reminding us that we’re all, quite literally, in the same boat. Just hope it has Wi-Fi.
