Rising sea levels and major rainstorms are bringing concern to coastal communities throughout the country. Newport, R.I., is one city that is working on resiliency in the face of some difficult issues.

Newport is an island community founded in 1639, sitting in Narragansett Bay between Connecticut and Massachusetts. The city of 25,000 has a variety of geography, from bluffs overlooking the Atlantic to historic neighborhoods sitting at sea level.

“As a coastal community, we’re feeling the impacts of increasingly severe weather, from coastal erosion to abnormally high tides. That, combined with high winds and flooding, is swamping Newport treasures like King Park,” explained Newport Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong.

King Park is the site where 6,000 French troops landed to help the colonists defeat the British during the Revolutionary War. Today it is the site of concerts, picnics and a popular beach.

 “We need to aggressively pursue every available resource to help Newport make the investments it needs to weather these events,” the mayor stressed.

The city recently received a $2.3 million grant from Infrastructure Bank, Rhode Island’s hub for making infrastructure improvements to the much-loved park. The grant will be used to improve the park and its resilience to catastrophic weather events by removing a portion of the existing seawall, expanding the beach area and planting salt-tolerant plants.

The improvements are aimed at mitigating damage from flooding and ensuring that the park will be a recreational asset for future generations.

“We think multi-generationally here,” said Khamsyvoravong.

Looking at the city’s history, he said the historic buildings of Newport have presented “massive resiliency challenges.” His own home dates to 1777 and sits right at sea level.

Centuries of Nor’easters and hurricanes have passed over and through Newport’s 11 square miles. In recent history, changes in the weather and the intensity of storms, and a rise in sea level have far outpaced anything experienced even a generation ago. “We’ve been feeling the pain of this for a couple of decades,” he noted.

A 2022 report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other federal agencies indicates that the 1-foot sea level rise that was anticipated by 2100 will actually occur by 2050, a full 50 years earlier. That 1 foot could affect thousands of homes in Rhode Island alone.

Noting that the majority of Newport’s infrastructure is at least 50 years old, Khamsyvoravong said the systems were not designed for current water from deluges and have hit a breaking point. Even areas that are set a few miles back from the coast are seeing flooding just because of the volume of stormwater that sewers and drains must handle. Add to that the seawater that is being washed inland, and a breach in the drinking water supply could be catastrophic.

Educating the public about what city officials have been considering is part of the resiliency process that Khamsyvoravong hopes will preserve many of Newport’s resources.

In September 2023, the city council sponsored a workshop to help people understand what is being done and what they can do to enhance the process.

In addition to climate change and aging infrastructure, the workshop discussed how urban growth has contributed to flooding with impermeable surfaces like concrete and the encroachment on floodplains and wetlands. One of the projects discussed at the workshop was a creek that, years ago, had been covered over: Instituting a process called “daylighting” at that creek and elsewhere will improve water quality by restoring natural water flow and increasing natural habitats.

Workshop participants learned that the city has made a commitment to keeping storm drains clear and managing flooded roadways. They were to keep catch basins and curb lines clear as well as use sandbags, deployable barriers and other tools to protect their property when storms are expected.

The outcome of the workshop included the organization of a government structure to focus on climate change issues, with a regional resiliency director who works in conjunction with the public utilities director. A grants coordinator will be part of the team and will help find financing for future projects.

The mayor pointed out that future construction will have to address other climate issues as well, such as high winds. “It is important to design buildings that can withstand hurricane-strength winds.”

He said that among the solutions to flood damage to buildings is elevating future buildings and even raising some of the existing historic buildings in Newport. It’s almost too late, as flooding in January nearly destroyed 8,000 historic photos housed in the basement archives of the Newport Historical Society.

“We look around the country and talk to mayors about how to engineer and finance these resiliency improvements,” the mayor said. “In this world of climate change, we all have to work together. We look to each other for best practices.”

He added that very few of their own city council meetings close without some discussion of climate change issues. “It’s hard for people when they see the demolition of beloved beach structures because of storm damage. We’re not closing things because we want to. We want to ensure the health and safety of the people who use them.”

Khamsyvoravong added that in the year and a half that he has been mayor, he has found himself doing numerous video interviews sporting waders in order to stay dry in the midst of flood waters. “It used to be that you would see a mayor on television wearing a jacket or windbreaker with the city seal on it. We’re now into an era where it will be waders with the city seal.”

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