What Would Edgewater and Mayo Look Like in a 3-Meter Flood?

By D. Frank Smith and Jenni Pompi

Every wonder what would happen if catastrophic flooding hit Edgewater and Mayo? 

According to these maps, made using Google Earth projections, the Selby area of the Mayo Peninsula—including the Selby Marina—would be completely submerged should waters rise three meters, which is about 9.8 feet. The South River Marina would also be left underwater. Little Island and parts of Turkey Point Island would also be lost. 

What inspired this little project?

A deep-sea biologist and novelist used Google Earth to predict what major US cities would look like if sea levels rose to unprecedented levels and found some scary results.

Using geological software and Google Earth, Andrew David Thaler posted his projections on the blog, Southern Fried Science. He focused on major cities experiencing catastrophic flooding from 80 to 168 meters for the blog, but then opened the floodgates by accepting requests for projection from around Twitter, using the hashtag #DrownYourTown.

One of the requests was for Annapolis with 3 meters of flooding.

After seeing the Annapolis projections, I wondered what Edgewater would look like if sea levels rose dramatically. 

Thaler wrote that he was doing these projections as research for his dystopian novel Fleet: The Reach, where the Earth has undergone an 80-meter sea rise.

He updated his blog after the concept took off, noting that these are merely projections, and should not be used for real estate purposes.

"They are not validated and there are many variables that influence sea level rise which are not taken into account. This is a fun way to visualize potential sea level rise but it would be inadvisable to use it for real estate speculation," Thaler wrote.