Smith Island residents try to preserve Chesapeake Bay home as climate change threatens community
Smith Island doesn't sit in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, so much as it bobs there. Time marches on while the land recedes, turning to marsh as sea levels rise, storms come fierce, and erosion unleashes its ground game… We talk often about what climate change does to far away continents, countries and cities. But its impact in the U.S. might be felt most sharply in a small coastal community…a Maryland island struggling to survive, where crabs are plentiful, crime is non-existent, and the residents—who trace their lineage and dialect back to the 1600s—might be among this country's first climate refugees.
Not even 100 miles from D.C. and Baltimore, Smith Island is a tapestry of marsh land, winding creeks and mud flats. Waterfowl outnumber people here. Then again, the population—having dwindled by more than half since the 1990s—hovers around 200. With no airport or bridge, everything - groceries, utility workers, doctors, even the pastor—comes by boat, 40 minutes from the mainland. Life on the island must abide by mother nature's fickle nature…Tides. Winds. If the weather is bad, you're stuck.
So it is that native Smith Islanders like Mary Ada Marshall persist on a combination of spine, heart and guts….
Jon Wertheim: How do you characterize this place to people who have never been here?
Mary Ada Marshall: Alright well, I've been here my entire life. I don't feel isolated, but people that come here sometimes they feel like, "I can't get off. I can't get to my car. I can't"-- we learn we're survivors. We learn how to adapt with the weather, it's like a big family. But let me tell you something, if you do wrong everybody knows it too.
Here, the school bus floats. The ambulance flies…incomes are modest—this is part of the poorest county in Maryland. The citizens live by an unwritten code based on personal morality.
Jon Wertheim: I'm wondering what role faith plays on Smith Island.
Mary Ada Marshall: A big part. That-- that's the government of our island. It really is. We-- we don't really have government much. I mean, we-- we don't have any law. We don't need it. We don't have--
Jon Wertheim: You don't have any crime.
Mary Ada Marshall: No crime. Speed limit's a golf cart. I mean, how fast can you go in a golf cart? (laugh) And -- here I feel so safe. I do. I-- I mean, I just feel like if I need anything that I can pick up my phone. And I don't care what anybody's doing, they'll come say, "What's the matter? What do you need?" That's golden.
Mary Ada Marshall: And you gotta have a lotta faith to live out here in the middle of this bay.
The island was first chartered by Captain John Smith in 1608. Today, most residents can draw a direct line to the first Smith Islanders to brave a life here…Tyler. Evans. Marshall. The same last names adorning the weathered gravestones adorn the mailboxes now. Among those born and raised here: Eddie Somers and Mark Kitching.
Jon Wertheim: How far do your families go back?
Mark Kitching: So my-- my grandmother, the-- grandmother Kitching was originally an--an Evans. And she goes back to the Tyler and Evanses, you know, way back.
Eddie Somers: 1785 on the Tyler and Evans part of me, and Somerses just came in 1870. Around 1870.
Here, the past courses through the blood; and also the brogue. Linguists come to study the singular accent—part Elizabethan English; part Southern…
Jon Wertheim: Can we talk about the accent? (laugh)
Eddie Somers: You know what I tell people about our accent? I'll say we were here first. You all screwed (laugh) it up.
The accent is original and so is the signature Smith Island backwards talk - saying the opposite of what you mean. It's about timing, tone and…it's best left to the locals.
Jon Wertheim: I walk off the boat, and I say, "Smith Island isn't anything special," how-- how's that-- how's that get received.
Eddie Somers: We'll tell you to get back on the boat. (laugh)
Also learning the lingo - Shanon Abbott - a newcomer from New Jersey.
Shanon Abbott: I made our-- our neighbors-- a casserole, I don't know, few weeks ago. And they said, "That-- that ain't fair," and I'm, like, okay. That means it's good.
Jon Wertheim: How do you explain this place to people from South Jersey?
Shanon Abbott: It's like that feeling when you were a kid, like, that first day of summer vacation. And you're, like, "Hmmm, what am I gonna do today? I'm gonna go find bugs, make mud pies, whatever it is, stay out 'til, you know, the fireflies are out at night." That's what this place is, to me.
Jon Wertheim: --transports you back to bein' a girl.
Shanon Abbott: Exactly.
Time has largely been frozen here for centuries…the economy—and everything else on Smith Island—was (and is) based in, on, and around the water.
Cronkite clip: (The Sailing Oystermen) "The skipjack sailors of Chesapeake Bay who, propelled only by sail, hunt the oyster."
Walter Cronkite saw romance in Smith Island and its watermen. That was 1965. Not much about this culture has changed since. Same methods. Same rhythms. Crabs in the summer. Oysters in the winter. Modern-day watermen like Mark Kitching see the job, yes, as a means of income, but also as an inheritance.
Jon Wertheim: What do watermen mean to this community?
Mark Kitching: Well-- you know, going back-- you know, you go back 75 years ago, that's all it was. There was no-- no-- no-- you know, no other thing but watermen.
Jon Wertheim: How many watermen now?
Mark Kitching: We're down to about 20.
By the turn of this century, fears surfaced that Smith island might not last another century. Better job opportunities on the mainland caused an exodus. There are now so few children, the island's only school recently closed. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, erosion eats away up to 12 feet of shoreline a year and the bay is trespassing on homes. Rising tides…that don't lift boats…In 2013, concerned about the island's bleak and vulnerable future, the state of Maryland earmarked $1 million, encouraging residents to relocate to the mainland. the deal: we'll buy your property…and tear down the buildings.
Eddie Somers: The homes on 'em had to be demolished and nothing could ever be built on 'em. And I said, "That's the death of Smith Island."
Surprisingly—or maybe not; community has always outweighed money here—not one resident took the easy payout…and the state abandoned the plan.
Jon Wertheim: What was your reaction the first time you heard about the buyout offers that were coming from the government?
Mary Ada Marshall: You really wanna know? I said, "I ain't going nowhere. Just like everybody else."
Still, the moment was the equivalent of a foghorn blowing…a warning. Smith Island needed saving. Suddenly watermen and retirees were learning how to apply for grants and lobby state legislators….and they've been strikingly successful, receiving more than $43 million for elevating roads, building jetties, restoring buildings and drawing in tourists….But the environmentalists and climate scientists we consulted worry that even Smith Island grit is no match for a rapidly changing environment.
Hilary Harp Falk is the CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She lives in Annapolis and travels all around the mid-Atlantic, fighting to preserve the bay. But her work around Smith Island is personal. This is where she spent her childhood summers.
Jon Wertheim: These pelicans we see, you-- you're saying these weren't here when you were a girl?
Hilary Harp Falk: No. So these nesting pelicans have been moving north. They're summering now-- in-- in more northern places.
Jon Wertheim: As a result of a changing climate?
Hilary Harp Falk: Correct.
Jon Wertheim: How does the rising sea level here at Chesapeake Bay compare to other bodies of water?
Hilary Harp Falk: Right now we're expecting in Maryland to see-- an increase in sea level rise by one to two feet by 2050 and more than four feet by 2100.
For the record, that means the bay has the highest rate of sea level rise on the East Coast…the water that has sustained places like Smith Island has now become a threat.
Jon Wertheim: Explain why we have this high rate of sea level here.
Hilary Harp Falk: Mostly 'cause it's really low lying. I mean, we have-- we have that. We also are seeing issues of erosion as well as issues of subsidence. So we're actually-- some of the land is actually sinking.
Jon Wertheim: Some environmental scientists will say that Smith Island, these could be some of the first climate refugees in the country.
Hilary Harp Falk: And I think we're seeing with the projections they could be right.
Jon Wertheim: 10:18:09;24 What does that tell you about the people who did stay?
Hilary Harp Falk: If you ask them, it would be because this is home. And it would be asking someone to leave their home or their hometown-- to leave whole histories. And I think when you spend time here, there's a saying that you get mud between your toes. And--
Jon Wertheim: What does that mean?
Hilary Harp Falk: It means that Smith Island never leaves you, that you will always be connected to this place. And-- for those of us that have mud between our toes, I think we can understand what it means to-- to not have Smith Island-- anymore.
And it's not just an abstract concern. Holland Island, just 10 miles north, was once bustling. But erosion came, people left and now, names on gravestones are the only indication of what once was. Nevertheless…the Smith Island locals say grim projections have always been part of life here.
Mary Ada Marshall: When I was a little girl they used to say, "The island's sinking." Now, this weren't yesterday. This has been a long time ago. Well, fast forward 60-70 years, we're still here, you know?
Besides, they pride themselves on adapting to meet challenges. Mark Kitching isn't driving an Uber to supplement his income; he's using his boat to host eco tours around the pelican rookery... Mary Ada Marshall runs her business out of her kitchen making Smith Island cakes. Once baked by the island's women to sustain their husbands during the oyster harvest, these 8-layer confections are now celebrated as the Maryland state dessert. Mary Ada takes orders by phone and then ships her creations off-island to…just about anywhere.
Mary Ada Marshall: Well I did one for Okinawa, and one for Iran and they got there. And I don't take a cent 'til they get their cake then they mail me a check.
Jon Wertheim: They don't pay-- you don't-- they don't pay in advance.
Mary Ada Marshall: I don't have no credit card machine or nothing. No.
And it's not just that the natives won't give up. Despite the specter of sea level rise, there's been a real estate boom here. Twenty percent of the homes on the island have changed hands in the past three years. A chance at affordable island life and optimism about the government's infrastructure investment have led folks like Shanon Abbott to defy the warnings for a slice of Smith Island charm.
Jon Wertheim: Does the isolation worry you at all?
Shanon Abbott: No, it doesn't. Because back home, I'm just the street address. Here, I'm Shanon. Moving here, I made a difference right away, just by moving here. Because-- when were having dinner with our neighbors she said, "It's so great just seeing the lights on." You know, because for years, it would just-- you know, they would see people move away, and the house go dark.
She and her husband paid $80,000 for this waterfront home they are now rebuilding. Not just as a place to live out their days but as a legacy.
Jon Wertheim: Did you elevate this?
Shanon Abbott: We did.
Jon Wertheim: Let's be clear, this is no weekend house.
Shanon Abbott: This is no weekend house. This is it. We have four kids-- a grandson, and we're hoping that they will be able to bring their grandchildren and their grandchildren here.
Jon Wertheim: How do you reconcile hearing these pretty grim reports with your desire to make this this generational house?
Shanon Abbott: Five years ago, we never thought we would have a pandemic, and live through COVID. I mean, things can change tomorrow. So why worry about it? We can live in New Jersey where it's safe. Or we can say, "Forget it, let's-- let's really live." Let's be passionate about what time we have left, and who cares if we only have a hundred years left, or 75 years left, it doesn't matter. Because something could come tomorrow, and it'd all be gone anyway.
Produced by Michelle St. John. Associate producer, Matthew Riley. Broadcast associate, Elizabeth Germino. Edited by Matt Richman.