The price of paradise: how communities tolerate chronic coastal flooding in rural North Carolina

Abstract

Sea-level rise (SLR) poses a growing threat to the livability of coastal communities, leading to many projections of out-migration in the coming decades. However, communities’ experiences with and responses to SLR-driven flooding remain poorly characterized, especially in rural areas. Here, we investigate flooding tolerance in Down East Carteret County, North Carolina, a region of 13 unincorporated communities experiencing chronic coastal flooding. We thematically analyze interviews with 36 residents and local experts from June 2024 to June 2025 and triangulate with planning documents and direct observations at community meetings and events. Community members reported wide-ranging impacts from chronic flooding to property, roads, infrastructure, children, and other emerging areas. Despite these impacts, 14 of 18 households wanted to stay forever, calling flooding “the price of paradise.” Leveraging their local knowledge, residents tolerated flooding cognitively, behaviorally, structurally, and institutionally, though they also recognized limits to that tolerance. Desires to stay reflected deep attachment to place and resistance to community change, especially an increase in second homes and in-migration. For those who contemplated moving, chronic flooding amplified concerns about emergency services, aging and health care needs, and more to shape migration intentions. Our findings contribute to a growing literature questioning the inevitability of coastal out-migration, and we highlight how household and community characteristics moderate responses to chronic flooding. In a context of perceived community and landscape change, flooding tolerance and staying in place hold social significance beyond personal safety and property values. To build trust and support residents’ aspirations to stay or leave, resilience planning in rural coastal areas can address uncertainty about government action and supplement existing flooding tolerance strategies.

1 Introduction

It’s the price you pay to live in paradise … We were not aware of the road flooding due to king tides and things like that when we moved here. But it’s not a reason that I would ever leave from here…—Middle-aged professional in Atlantic, North Carolina.

Coastal communities face growing risks from recurrent flooding driven by relative sea-level rise due to tides, wind, and rain taking place on higher average sea levels (Sweet et al., 2022). Before becoming permanently inundated, coastal communities experience a long period of transition during which flooding becomes increasingly frequent (Mydlarz et al., 2024; O’Donnell et al., 2024b; Hino et al., 2025). We refer to this as chronic coastal flooding. As global sea-level rise and groundwater extraction continue, coastal flooding will likely become a more frequent and widespread hazard (Sweet et al., 2022). In contrast to storm surge flooding that damages property and initiates disaster recovery, chronic flooding largely impacts daily life by interrupting travel and economic activity (Hino et al., 2019; Fant et al., 2021; Best et al., 2023; Hauer et al., 2023).

What will happen as communities gradually become inundated? Researchers have often assumed regular to permanent inundation will make areas unlivable and drive out-migration (Hauer et al., 2020), and most empirical work in the U. S. has focused on urban areas (Xu et al., 2025). However, migration decisions are complex. Some communities are adapting in place, seeing migration as an adaptation of last resort (Adams, 2016; Campbell et al., 2021; Castro, 2024). Empirical evidence is needed to disentangle the many factors that shape responses to chronic coastal flooding remains limited, especially in rural areas.

This knowledge gap arises partly from a paucity of observations of where chronic coastal flooding happens, particularly in rural areas (Mydlarz et al., 2024; O’Donnell et al., 2024b; Hino et al., 2025; Xu et al., 2025). As opposed to storm-driven flooding, these more localized floods are typically inferred from observed water levels at sparse marine tide gauges, but this approach can mischaracterize flood frequency in rural areas far from tide gauges (Hino et al., 2025). The lack of observational data in turn impairs research into resident responses, including whether people choose to stay in place and tolerate flooding or aspire to move. Understanding these dynamics is important as rural communities face distinct threats from sea-level rise (O’Donnell et al., 2024a), societies struggle to manage risks stemming from exposed but immobile populations (Thornton et al., 2023), and scholars question the inevitability of climate-induced displacement (Boas et al., 2025).

Here, we present new evidence from Down East Carteret County, North Carolina, a region of 13 rural, aging communities where residents are highly impacted by sea-level rise and chronic coastal flooding. Despite considerable present-day impacts, many community members expressly want to stay in place even when they perceive governmental support as tenuous. We interviewed residents and local experts in sectors important for general livability to investigate (1) how chronic coastal flooding currently impacted day-to-day life, (2) how residents and other actors tolerated chronic coastal flooding, and (3) what other factors shaped (im)mobility aspirations. Our observations from Down East help ground broader migration trends by illuminating ways in which people experience and grapple with chronic coastal flooding and sea-level rise in rural areas.

2 Background

Sea-level rise and chronic coastal flooding impact communities in several ways. Sea-level rise and high-tide flooding depress real property values (McAlpine and Porter, 2018) and local economic activity (Hino et al., 2019). Flooded roadways delay commuters (Hauer et al., 2023), increase mortality risk through delays (Mueller et al., 2024), and can disconnect residents from services (Best et al., 2023). Elevated groundwater compromises onsite wastewater systems (Vorhees et al., 2022; Iverson et al., 2024) and impairs drinking water quality (Lassiter, 2021). Urban communities experience property and vehicle damage, disruptions to plans, lost tenants, distress, and temporary relocation (Campbell et al., 2021). Sea-level rise in rural communities changes ecosystems, degrades resources, strains institutional capacity, and erodes local and indigenous knowledge (O’Donnell et al., 2024a).

While demographers anticipate sea-level rise and inundation will drive widespread migration, critical cases and perspectives have emerged. Demographic models based on historical migration flows and population dynamics suggest age-patterned depopulation of U. S. coastal areas (Hauer, 2017; Shu et al., 2023). However, whether people necessarily migrate in response to sea-level rise hazards is a topic of ongoing debate (Hauer et al., 2020; Suliman et al., 2019; Farbotko, 2022; Yee et al., 2022a). A growing literature questions whether such hazards necessitate migration (Boas et al., 2025), and documents how coastal households adapt in their everyday lives to stay in place (Campbell et al., 2021; Castro, 2024; Castro and Sen, 2022). Emerging evidence indicates exposed communities live with flooding in place, seeing migration as an adaptation of last resort (Adams, 2016; Jamero et al., 2017; Yee et al., 2022b).

2.1 Conceptualizing flooding tolerance

In the context of chronic coastal flooding and migration, understanding flooding tolerance can elucidate adaptation behaviors and (im)mobility aspirations. The benefits and drawbacks between doing nothing, adapting in place, or moving away can be framed in terms of risk tolerance. One’s risk tolerance is the level of risk at which the perceived cost of further reducing risk becomes greater than that of potential losses (Fischhoff et al., 1978). Anderson et al. (2024) argue that characterizing risk tolerance can help address the “risk perception paradox,” that perception of natural hazards is a weak causal determinant of adaptation (Bubeck et al., 2012; Wachinger et al., 2013). In the context of chronic coastal flooding and migration, we extend risk tolerance to conceptualize flooding tolerance as living with flooding without aspiring to permanently leave one’s current residence. Flooding tolerance can be understood as a form of voluntary or acquiescent immobility (Schewel, 2020), depending on one’s sufficient or insufficient mobility capabilities, respectively (de Haas, 2021). We use flooding tolerance to describe an orientation towards chronic flooding risks that organizes cognitive process, behaviors, and meanings in ways that align with adapting in place and discount the adaptive utility of relocation. While adaptations are adjustments made in response to environmental change, flooding tolerance emerges through the individual and shared experience of adjusting to chronic flooding impacts over time.

2.2 Risk perception, sense of place, and (non-)migration

Studies of the relationship between subjective perceptions of flooding risk and protective behaviors have frequently applied cognitive-behavioral theories, such as Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and Protective Action Decision Model (Bubeck et al., 2012; Kellens et al., 2013). PMT is increasingly used to characterize perceptions of risk and coping capacity which drive preferences for adaptation and relocation (Grothmann and Patt, 2005; Koerth et al., 2013; Song and Peng, 2017; Mallick et al., 2022). PMT has also been extended to conceptualize immobility aspirations and non-migration as outcomes distinct from being “trapped” in place (Mallick et al., 2022). In this study, we investigate factors relevant to PMT, including risk perceptions and coping appraisals. However, rather than limit our analysis to those constructs, we use flooding tolerance as an analytical concept to more comprehensively unpack, describe, and organize immobility-related cognitive processes and behaviors.

Sense of place is another concept commonly applied to (non-)migration aspirations, and it consists of the meanings, instrumental and emotional attachments, and ways of self-identifying that relate to one’s physical environment (Masterson et al., 2017). The interface of adaptation to sea-level rise, (im)mobility, and place attachment has been studied extensively (Solecki and Friedman, 2021), indicating that residents often resist adaptation measures that significantly alter places as well as migration-as-adaptation when a place is still “livable” and one’s situation is tolerable (Adams, 2016; Simms, 2017; Clarke et al., 2018; Dandy et al., 2019). Describing flooding tolerance by asking how communities live with flooding without aspiring to move from a place elicits attachments, meanings, and ways of self-identifying that relate place to (im)mobility aspiration.

2.3 Flooding tolerance in the rural, coastal United States

We know relatively little about how rural communities in the United States tolerate and adapt to chronic coastal flooding. Over 1,656,000 people resided in rural Census tracts within 5 km of shorelines in 2024, and about 59% of this population lived in a tract with at least a quarter of residents aged 65 and older.¹ Rural communities face challenges regarding socioeconomic transformations (Ulrich-Schad and Duncan, 2021); hazard mitigation planning (Horney et al., 2017); maintaining civic organizations (Walters, 2020); and health outcomes, aging, and depopulation (Cohen and Greaney, 2023; Monnat, 2025). Through interviews, Bukvic and Harrald (Bukvic and Harrald, 2019) found rural communities on the Chesapeake Bay were cohesive and coping with flooding but less politically visible than nearby urban areas. Castro (Castro, 2024) ethnographically investigated how homeowners on North Carolina barrier islands and inland shores adapted to tropical cyclones and chronic flooding, finding they paid home adaptation costs while assuming governments would maintain infrastructure. Both studies conceptualized adaptation largely as structural changes to the built environment, e.g., home elevations, swales, and bulkheads.

In coastal areas exposed to storm surge, mundane cognitive and behavioral responses to chronic coastal flooding may be less apparent than structural adaptation to deeper flooding. Unlike prior work, we focus exclusively on chronic coastal flooding and apply activity space to conceptualize the geographies created by daily mobility within which people contend with flooding. In human geography, activity space is “the set of places individuals encounter as a result of their routine activities in everyday life” (Cagney et al., 2020). Rural residents spend more time traveling than the national average (Voulgaris et al., 2017), and rural roadway inundation from sea-level rise can occur well in advance of home inundation (Jasour et al., 2022). Conceptualizing impacts across activity space therefore makes non-structural chronic coastal flooding impacts and responses more legible in these areas.

We advance the study of chronic coastal flooding impacts and tolerance in the rural United States, focusing on Down East Carteret County, North Carolina. We contribute to the coastal adaptation and climate (im)mobilities literatures by providing new evidence on rural flooding impacts, how residents tolerate flooding to stay in place, and what motivates and limits this tolerance.

3 Data and methods

3.1 Study area

Down East Carteret County, North Carolina (“Down East”) is an informative site for investigating chronic coastal flooding in a rural area. The state has seen continued floodplain development in recent years (Hino et al., 2024), and about 67,500 North Carolinians lived in rural tracts within 5 Km of shorelines in 2024. Carteret County (Figure 1) is in the middle of the state’s coastline and includes the southern Outer Banks, destination beaches, and low-lying saltmarsh. In 2024, the population was 69,148 with 27% age 65 and older (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026b). Carteret County has been called “one of the most vulnerable counties in the state” to the effects of sea-level rise as it is particularly low-lying (Clark et al., 2010).

Figure 1

Down East is a set of 13 unincorporated communities spread among saltmarsh and inland shorelines east of the North River Bridge. The peninsula is bounded by Pamlico Sound to the north, Core Sound to the east, and Back Sound to the south. Located along inland shores, Down East homes are not threatened by barrier island movement and beach erosion like other communities along the Outer Banks, e.g., Buxton. Nonetheless, coastal flooding is chronic in Down East, where neighborhood roads can flood more than a third of a year (Hino et al., 2025). Down East communities are deeply familiar with coastal hazards. Many lifelong residents’ ancestors lived on nearby barrier islands and sustained themselves through boatbuilding and lifesaving (Garrity-Blake and Amspacher, 2017). After the islands were severely flooded by a hurricane in 1899, many families relocated to present-day Down East by floating their homes across shallow estuaries (Garrity-Blake and Amspacher, 2017). Along with employment in nearby towns and military bases, Down East communities supported themselves through entrepreneurial commercial fishing operations, which throughout the 20th century shaped the local economy, cultures, and shorelines (Garrity-Blake and Amspacher, 2017; West and Garrity-Blake, 2003). Residents have had many experiences with hurricanes in recent decades, especially Florence in 2018, which severely flooded the region (Stewart and Berg, 2019).

Many “old-timers” say Down East began a difficult socioeconomic transition in the 1990s when foreign seafood imports and conservation-oriented state fishery regulations created competition and costs that drove many captains and local fish houses out of business (West and Garrity-Blake, 2003). Down East now faces pressures like those seen across the rural United States at the turn of the century, as development interests index formerly productive landscapes in terms of property value and natural amenities (Ulrich-Schad and Duncan, 2021). More recently, some residents have struggled to recover from Hurricane Florence, motivating the communities to prioritize resilience and adaptation. During our fieldwork, the county was developing a climate risk and vulnerability assessment which included public meetings and produced new planning documents. These natural, historical, and emerging factors make Down East Carteret County an informative case of chronic coastal flooding impacts and tolerance in a socioeconomically transitioning rural area.

3.2 Interview recruitment

Between June 2024 and June 2025, we interviewed 36 adults who lived or worked in Carteret County in 27 semi-structured interviews. No hurricanes made landfall in the area during this period. The last author is a lifelong resident of Down East and staff of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island, a well-regarded local institution. The author team prepared for fieldwork by reading oral histories, ethnographies, and other works recommended by the last author. We also attended and volunteered at events hosted by the museum and other civic groups to meet residents and publicize the study.

We purposively recruited respondents directly and via referrals to yield enough variation in flooding experiences. Because flooding regimes varied from one community to the next, we prioritized recruiting respondents from as many of the 13 communities as possible. We also aimed to recruit respondents across a variety of demographic groups and backgrounds. To mitigate concerns about research fatigue, the last author identified and initiated contact with potential respondents via phone or email in most cases (23 of 36 respondents), and another six respondents were identified and recruited directly by the first two authors based on our fieldwork in the area. At the end of each interview, we asked respondents to refer additional potential respondents. Seven other respondents were identified and recruited by the first two authors via these referrals.

Because we recruited largely among people connected to a community museum and heritage center, our sample likely overrepresents people who are engaged in community life, potentially with strong attachment to and family history in the area. We describe how this recruitment strategy may have shaped our results in the Discussion section.

3.3 Interview format

Interviews contained three sections, and all questions were open-ended and optional. We prefaced by defining non-storm flooding as any amount of standing water on land not caused by a hurricane or nor’easter. In the first section, we asked about current flooding adaptation actions and behaviors at home or as a local expert. In the second section, we asked residents about important places for daily life and road segments where they saw flooding. We recorded these locations in a digital map while sitting alongside the resident. For local experts, we asked follow-up questions about day-to-day operations and flooding impacts in their sector or industry. In the last section, we asked for ideas on how to reduce flooding impacts, how long the respondent would live and/or work in the area, and what factors were important for deciding whether to stay or go. With residents, we concluded with demographic questions. Through pilot interviews with collaborators who had resided Down East, we refined interview items prior to fieldwork.

Most interviews lasted about 90 min. Interviewees chose the setting, usually at home or a private room at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum. The first two authors of this study conducted interviews together in summer 2024. In later fieldwork, the first author conducted interviews individually. After obtaining voluntary informed consent in writing, interview audio was recorded, transcribed, and anonymized.

3.4 Sample characteristics

The resident interview sample varied in age, residential location, income level, educational attainment, and livelihood. We interviewed 26 individuals as residents in 18 households, and six interviews involved multiple household members. Residents lived in 10 different communities: Atlantic, Beaufort, Cedar Island, Davis, Gloucester, Harkers Island, Marshallberg, Sea Level, Straits, and Williston. Each of these communities had one to three respondents except Williston, which had six. Residents had lived in the county an average of 35 years; all but four had lived in the county for at least 10 years. Of these four, we interviewed three as “new arrivals,” and these three had lived in the county for 3 to 8 years. Sixteen residents were female; 10 were male. 24 residents were White; two were Black. Ages ranged from 24 to 74, with a median of 61.5. Residents’ total household income in the most recent tax year was mostly between $90,000 and $149,999 (n = 10), then $65,000 to $89,999 (n = 7), $30,000 to $64,999 (n = 5), $15,000 to $29,999 (n = 2), and greater than $150,000 (n = 1), with one refusal. Educational attainment ranged from high school diploma to graduate degree, with most obtaining at least a bachelor’s degree (n = 16). Demographic information is further summarized in Supplementary Table S1.

Compared to 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates for the county (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026b; U.S. Census Bureau, 2026a), the resident sample was older (median age 61.5 versus 51.2), had higher educational attainment (62% versus 33% with a bachelor’s degree), and was more female (62% versus 51%) and non-Hispanic White (92% versus 85%). The binned median income of the sample, $65,000 to $89,999, was comparable to the 2024 county median household income, $72,322, but higher than that of the four tracts covering Down East, Merrimon, and South River (9701.01, 9701.02, 9701.03, 9702), $61,152.

We interviewed 10 individuals as local experts holding positions in agriculture, public safety, electric utilities, real estate, parks and conservation, K-12 education, and fuel services. Local experts ranged from visiting the county frequently for work to being lifelong residents from Down East.

3.5 Direct and participant observation

In addition to interviews, we observed and participated in social life. The first two authors lived in Down East from May to July 2024, and the first author made seven follow-up visits from November 2024 to November 2026. Throughout fieldwork, we participated in community events including shrimp fry fundraisers, a student mentoring night, and hurricane preparedness meetings. We observed social life in public spaces, including the museum, restaurants, farmers’ markets, on boat outings with residents, and aboard a commercial shrimp trawler. These experiences gave us an understanding of local history and customs, and this understanding helped us establish rapport with interview participants.

The first author directly observed and recorded field notes at four public meetings related to flooding. In November 2024, museum staff organized a community open house in Davis. There, the authors, other researchers, and the contractor conducting the county’s climate risk and vulnerability assessment set up interactive tabletop activities and information for residents. In January 2025, museum staff and their research partners organized a resilience network meeting at the museum which included the authors, other researchers, journalists, state staff, and community leaders. Concurrently, museum staff organized another community meeting in Davis which was attended by the authors and county and state staff and officials. Finally, in May 2025 the state Department of Transportation held a public outreach meeting in Beaufort as part of the 10-year Comprehensive Transportation Plan process for Carteret County, which was attended by the first author.

3.6 Analytical approach

We collected and analyzed data concurrently throughout repeated site visits. Interviews were analyzed in a thematic explanation building approach (Yin, n.d.). While collecting interviews, we also collected other documents and materials including oral history transcripts in the museum archive, land use and resilience plans, real estate listings, and museum newsletters. We generated transcripts with Otter.ai and Apple Voice Memos, manually corrected them with Microsoft Word, and analyzed them with Atlas.ti 25. We coded transcripts inductively with open and process coding. Open codes were applied to relevant passages in multiple cycles of analysis. Process codes, focused on phenomena unfolding over time, were titled with gerunds, e.g., “STAYING HOME” or “PLAYING IN WATER.” We arrayed codes in an empty network canvas for each research question. We then grouped similar codes together visually to identify substantive themes. As we gathered additional interviews and re-read transcripts, we iteratively coded and networked until codes were organized into themes and related to each other, e.g., “is similar to” or “contradicts.” We triangulated interview themes with observations and documents, particularly the climate risk and vulnerability assessment. In quotations presented here, we omit filler words and identifying information for clarity and anonymity.

4 Results

We first identify how Down East communities were impacted by chronic coastal flooding—hereafter “flooding” unless specified otherwise—and then describe how flooding tolerance manifested in day-to-day life and why flooding tolerance was constrained but enduring in Down East.

4.1 Chronic coastal flooding is the PRICE of paradise

Right now, it’s just kind of a minor nuisance. I mean, it’s just kind of, quote, the price you pay for living in paradise. You’re gonna have high water. – Retiree returned to Williston, North Carolina.

Residents were aware of chronic coastal flooding and distinguished it from acute, storm-driven flooding. We repeatedly heard that flooding was the “price of living in paradise.” We extend this idiom and use PRICE as an acronym to organize the impacts described in interviews: property, roads, infrastructure, children, and other emerging domains.

4.1.1 Property

Flooding impacted property through damage, perceived devaluation, and limiting land development. In interviews, we heard how flooding damaged low-lying buildings and property. A retired couple replaced flooded ductwork four times over 15 years, twice from hurricanes and twice from tidal flooding. In some cases, residents thought their property values and ability to sell were indirectly impacted, even though they generally perceived increasing demand. A graduate student raised on Harkers Island said a real estate agent suggested a lower asking price based on those of nearby, more flood-exposed houses:

[W]e were selling my grandma’s house, and the realtor was trying to talk us down the price. Because she was like, ‘There’s a house on Oak Hammock [Road] that’s $50,000 less.’ And we are like, ‘Yeah, but it’s to Oak Hammock, the lowest spot on the island.’ So, Oak Hammock, down that little stretch always floods…

Additionally, public documents suggested flooding stymied transactions of low-lying properties. In the climate risk and vulnerability assessment, input from a group of community representatives notes, “Campground in Sea Level purchase was impacted once potential buyers learned of flooding” (Dewberry Engineers Inc., 2025, Appendix A).

Except for Harkers Island, which has package wastewater treatment plants serving some homes, Down East communities use onsite wastewater treatment systems. In North Carolina, a parcel must pass a soil evaluation to obtain a septic tank permit. Interviewees frequently mentioned these “perc tests,” such as when we asked a retired couple in Williston about their home septic system:

We have not had any problem with our septic yet … but it is a concern to build down here because we have some property we’d like to sell, but we do not know that we’d perc, and so then you’d have to look at doing above ground septics or something.

Sea-level rise and higher water tables complicated land development as residents and business owners encountered setbacks and expense in permitting septic systems for homes and businesses. Direct impacts of flooding on septic systems are described below.

4.1.2 Roads

Flooded roads were a common concern. Down East is sparsely developed and spread out, with a population density about a fifth of the county’s.² It takes 45 min to drive 38 miles from the farthest community, Cedar Island, to Beaufort, the nearest town with a large grocery store. Knowing that saltwater rusts metal vehicle components, most residents avoided driving through even shallow floodwaters. Residents listed off roads that flooded with ease, and all but one of the 18 households said they avoided flooded roads. From retail workers to teachers, people missed work to avoid driving through water, which employers understood as a valid concern. The fuel services business owner explained:

I would say 10 to 15% of my staff at times have been affected by flooding events that prevented them from being able to commute either to work or whatever their desired trip was … there’s times when you cannot get through it all … and we are not going to put our equipment or our staff, more importantly, at risk.

The extent of observed roadway flooding (Figure 1) represented a geography of exposure and impact extending throughout activity spaces, and other factors amplified this exposure. Long stretches of highways Down East lacked shoulders and guardrails and were flanked by canals.³ Residents recalled times when drivers ran off the road and drowned in the canals. When flowing, deep, or turbid flooding made it difficult to discern lane markings, they avoided travel and potentially “losing the road.”

4.1.3 Infrastructure

Although roads were a top concern, flooding impacted other infrastructure systems as well. Saturated soils prevented septic systems from working properly, causing toilets and washing machines to back up and be unusable, as the owner of a local mariculture facility explained:

I know the septic at [our facility]—because it—when it floods there, it can fill the septic, and then you have to wait for it to filter out before you use it again, because the septic can back up into that building.

Residents said internet service was disrupted when exposed broadband junction boxes flooded. In interviews, staff for one of the area’s electric utilities noted recent investments to harden substations against storm surge. While they did not expect flooding would damage assets, they were unsure whether routine maintenance and operations were impacted.

4.1.4 Children

Flooding disrupted K-12 education. When asked what flooding brought to mind, a young professional who graduated from East Carteret High School recalled missed classes:

I know in high school, my senior year of high school, we actually missed a whole week of school because it was raining for 20 days straight, and then it was the king tides and the road … So we just got school canceled for tides.

Schools sent students home early or held them after class to avoid bussing children down flooded roads. Two administrators of Down East public schools estimated how many days in a school year flooding impacted operations. “This past year,” 2023 to 2024, “was probably, maybe, three or four. But I think on a normal year, probably about five,” one said. The other thought “anywhere from like 10 to 15 percent” of students in each of their two schools were impacted, but “it all depends” where students live. Although we struggled to recruit parents of school-aged children for interviews, disruptions to school-related travel were consistently mentioned in meetings and documents.⁴

4.1.5 Emerging concerns

Residents described other current and foreseeable flooding impacts. Docks were damaged by waves atop higher water levels, washed-out debris created boating hazards, and flooded boat launches created difficulties. Small businesses told customers that flooding delayed order shipments. Two newer arrivals were concerned flooded roads would delay ambulances. One who worked in healthcare and was near retirement age recalled explaining this concern to Department of Transportation staff:

And [I] did not really think about my husband at the time, but he had a cardiac event here on the porch, and [the] ambulance could get here, did get here. It seemed like it took them forever to get here. And I was doing CPR this whole time… But I cannot imagine continuing CPR longer than I did, waiting for them to get here.

4.2 Residents tolerated chronic coastal flooding to stay in place

All respondents were aware of chronic coastal flooding in their communities. Despite these impacts, 14 of the 18 households wanted to stay forever, and local experts did not express plans to withdraw assets or operations because of flooding. Respondents described how they tolerated flooding via cognitive processes, behavioral practices, structural adaptations, and institutional strategies (Figure 2).

Figure 2

4.2.1 Cognitive processes

Respondents expressed reasoning and beliefs that supported flooding tolerance, including normalizing flooding, bargaining between drawbacks and benefits, reframing flooding positively, and dismissing flooding issues. Residents normalized flooding when describing its significance or lack thereof. “I think if you grew up here, it’s so normalized,” a healthcare worker from the area said. One couple used the term “normal flooding” to distinguish chronic and hurricane-driven flooding. Respondents described flooding as “just part of life,” “just a part of living here,” and “a way of life” in low-lying coastal areas. When we asked if flooding disrupted operations, an emergency services professional from Down East pushed back:

I would love to give you a straight answer on that, but the real answer is that people are so accustomed to it that it’s not… I mean, it’s not a new thing … maybe the level is higher.

Others bargained the burdens for the benefits of living Down East, invoking desirable amenities while acknowledging that flooding was detrimental, as the newer arrival to Atlantic explained:

[N]o matter where you live … you are going to have something that you have to deal with, and it just happens to be road floodage down here … we chose this house, mainly, because of the privacy factor. It was like being in the country at the beach. You do not have people living right on top of you … but you still have good fishing in the sound … It’s just far removed from the rest of civilization.

Residents also reframed flooding as a benefit or amenity compatible with their lifestyle, enjoying better birdwatching or canceled plans. Many residents dismissed flooding as a non-issue, saying it “does not really keep me from going nowhere,” that it “can be an inconvenience, but there’s only a few hours,” and that, “When you live here, you do not notice it.” Cognitive flooding tolerance was limited by resignation about reducing impacts. Seven households indicated low-lying topography and proximity to the ocean made it impossible to stop flooding completely.

4.2.2 Behavioral practices

Residents tolerated flooding in their daily routines, activities, and social life (Table 1). These behavioral practices included staying put, preparing, modifying routines, safeguarding vehicles, informing others, and recreating in floodwaters. All but one household stayed home during flooding to avoid driving through saltwater. Remote work made it easier for five households to adjust schedules around tidal flooding. To prepare, a healthcare professional who commuted from Sea Level to Morehead City kept extra clothing in her car should flooding prevent her from returning home. Respondents commonly modified routines and plans. When the area around her home flooded, the healthcare worker waded to the end of her street to catch a ride. A mother and daughter, during past and possible pregnancies, respectively, adjusted delivery plans based on anticipated roadway flooding. The newer arrival in Atlantic created tide-based itineraries for visitors. When septic systems failed, residents avoided flushing toilets and used a laundromat in Beaufort instead of their own machines. People safeguarded vehicles by relocating them to higher ground at churches and post offices. A retired lifelong resident of Marshallberg explained she would go without her car for days during extended periods of strong winds:

[T]he tide will come in and it will come right on into my backyard … I usually take [my car] to my church and park it there because it’s higher ground … [the tide] can come in and go out for a number of days before it finally eases off and stays out … we have been flooded in down here for at least three or four days.

Seven of the 18 households we interviewed kept older, less valuable, higher-clearance “junk trucks” or “trash trucks” for driving through floodwaters. Residents informed themselves about flooding with various apps and websites, especially local news stations. They informed each other by sharing firsthand observations via group texts and Facebook groups. Residents also recreated in floodwaters. A commercial fishing advocate enjoyed walking through shallow floodwaters on quiet streets, and young adults recalled paddling small boats in floodwaters as children.

4.2.3 Structural adaptations

Residents adapted their structures and surroundings to tolerate flooding (Table 1). Although largely motivated in response to storm surges, these measures protected against chronic flooding as well. Residents and businesses elevated buildings, air conditioning units, generators, electrical outlets, well pumps, septic systems, appliances, docks, flower beds, bridges, and electric substation equipment. Residents and businesses undertook elevation autonomously using stilts and fill soil and installed flood vents per building codes. To accommodate flooding on their property, residents installed sump pumps and saltwater-tolerant materials and landscaping plants. Most had at least considered raising their homes, but only seven of 17 households had already done so.⁵ Those who decided against home elevation cited prohibitive costs and lack of prior flooding during hurricanes. Five households had priced out structural measures including elevating structures, retrofitting septic systems, and installing flood vents. They decided such measures were either too costly or, in the case of flood vents, did not earn a significant discount on flood insurance premiums.

4.2.4 Institutional strategies

Residents and local officials bent institutional rules and lobbied governments and organizations to tolerate flooding. The two school administrators used COVID-era leeway in attendance rules to excuse students who lived down flooding roads. They also used their authority to hold or release students early to avoid transporting students through floodwaters. They trusted local school bus drivers, sometimes personally assisted by the district superintendent, to help safely bus students. Three households had asked governmental officials and civic organizations to address flooding through infrastructure improvements and educational programs regarding ditch cleaning, road maintenance and elevation, and alternatives to septic systems. As described below, these efforts achieved mixed results.

4.3 Flooding tolerance in personal and social context

4.3.1 Flooding tolerance was constrained by flood frequency, personal aging, and medical concerns

Behavioral practices were common and limited by flood frequency, making frequency an important constraint on flooding tolerance across communities. Seven households said weekly or monthly flooding could be intolerable and prompt them to consider moving away. The couple in Williston, who had retired to Down East after living in another state, said:

[W]e can handle it a couple times a year, two or three times a year. But if it’s every month, we are gone. Forget about it.

While flood frequency was most salient for long-term (im)mobility aspirations, flood extent, depth, turbidity, and flow were also relevant to day-to-day mobility. Most residents said that only water completely covering the road would impede travel. Inundation depth mattered for some and, if water was shallow enough, they would slowly idle their vehicle through.⁶ Residents turned around if water was opaque or flowing such that it obscured lane markings or could erode the roadbed.

Although community ties were important for older residents, challenges stemming from flooding led some to consider leaving as they aged. Older residents maintained social ties by visiting nearby family and friends, volunteering, and attending church services. Many felt accustomed to flooding and preferred to face hazards they knew rather than unfamiliar ones elsewhere. Flexible schedules helped retirees and people senior in their careers adjust to flooding. However, flooding amplified the physical challenges of aging, as four residents and households mentioned. The retired lifelong resident of Marshallberg whose yard and street flooded alluded these burdens and the importance of social support from her neighbor:

Another big concern of mine here is that as I age… these stairs — I can always put in an elevator or that type of thing. But as I age, do I want to be here in my later years, or do I want to be closer to [my daughter]? As long as I got [my neighbor], I’m okay … We kind of look out for each other … Right now, I can still handle everything here … But as I get older, there’s gonna come a time where I will not be able to do that, and I do realize that.

An older couple planned to leave because of concerns about emergency medical care. A high-earning professional who moved to Atlantic in recent years initially said flooding was not a reason she would ever move. However, she later said concerns about her husband’s health and possible delays in care had led them to consider moving:

If we had a major medical issue and the roads were flooded over, I do not know how the ambulance is going to get between here and Morehead [City] … that is a major concern. So yes, that is part of our decision to potentially move away … if the road’s flooded, how are they going to get here?

While county land use plans identified retirees as a key demographic for population growth and economic development, aging Down East residents lacked full-service medical and long-term care facilities east of North River Bridge. Greater need for such services in older age meant potentially greater exposure to flooded roadways while traveling to and from services in nearby cities.

4.3.2 Flooding tolerance despite low confidence in government

Residents were determined to stay despite expressing low confidence that county and state government would effectively manage development and flooding risks. Over recent decades, lifelong residents observed economic decline across Down East relative to the county’s growing municipalities. Newer arrivals questioned what they got in return for paying rising property taxes, as the middle-aged professional in Atlantic, with the highest income of our respondents, explained:

It’s not that I cannot pay it, it’s just the fact that… we have nothing, and I mean, absolutely nothing Down East. We have no grocery store. We have no hardware store. We have no urgent care center. We have no… anything down here. But yet they are going to increase our taxes at the same percentage that they increased all of Carteret County who do have those conveniences.

This frustration coincided with conflicting demands for ditch maintenance. Respondents said that cleaning sediment, vegetation, and debris from ditches would mitigate flooding, but a newer arrival and a local business owner predicted even these efforts would elicit consternation. The experience of two retired couples in Williston, living minutes away from each other, suggested why seemingly desirable action might be suspect. One spoke appraisingly of county-funded ditch maintenance around their property in the past year:

They just pulled the trees out of the pond and them in the woods … They were digging out trenches all the way back through there … The best part was it do not cost you anything … he took some stumps out for us.

The other couple expressed frustration at seemingly pointless work:

[T]hey did not do a cauldron (pipe and culvert) here in the front … they said, ‘Well, that’s just a private lot’ … They dug the ditch out on both sides of it, but the water cannot go to it, right? All the water does is it comes across the road, goes in the ditch, and floods in my yard.

Although we observed calls for government action coinciding with state and county involvement at public meetings and the climate risk and vulnerability assessment, residents were not confident government would prioritize their needs and implement solutions. For their insistence, residents did not always receive clear answers about public services and assets. The January 2025 public meeting in Davis erupted over the subject of ditch cleaning and roadway elevation. As residents became restive, a county official asserted that state environmental permitting would make roadside ditch maintenance nearly impossible with limited funding, saying, “We need some deregulation.” County representatives often invoked jurisdictional complexity, noting that ditches, even if hydrologically connected, often ran across private property and public right-of-way managed by different agencies. County staff averred that the county was not equipped to coordinate work among many parties and should not take sole responsibility for cleaning ditches. Inconsistent outcomes and uncertainty drove distrust and undermined collective action, leaving residents to tolerate flooding and adapt ad hoc if they wanted to stay.

4.3.3 Flooding tolerance was facilitated by local knowledge and motivated by resistance to change

Local knowledge was an important precursor of flooding tolerance. Experiential understanding of the marshes, tides, building codes, recovery programs, neighbors, and local government facilitated daily life during flooding. Residents based their perceptions of flooding on their prior experiences. Local bus drivers familiar with the area could drive through shallow floodwaters. Local business owners understood flooding delayed commutes and encouraged employees to leave early when waters rose.

Residents demonstrated material and informational capabilities to move should they so choose. Over half had a household income of $65,000 or more in the prior year. Residents, mostly homeowners, perceived a rapacious demand for property in the area. Many mentioned family and friends in other places to which they could relocate. However, selling property that was highly impacted by flooding was perceived to be more difficult, as mentions of the Sea Level campground and “perc tests” suggested.

Flooding tolerance was motivated in part by resistance to changes associated with a perceived influx of newcomers from elsewhere. Lifelong residents associated newcomers with forces that prioritized tourists, retirees, and the wealthy over entrepreneurial commercial fishing and working families. This insider-outsider dichotomy was reflected in local vernacular and perceptions of the built environment. Using teasing and/or derogatory colloquialisms, Down Easters scoffed at “dingbatters” from “off” who built large “martin box” houses on exposed waterfront lots. A retired engineer from the area recounted seeing newcomers purchase a low-lying property down the road:

Waterfront properties. ‘Got a boat dock, I can do this and that.’ They do not understand the hardship of living here. It’s a commitment. It’s something… my great grandfather lived on Shackleford, and after the storm in the 1800s or early 1900s. I think he was 13 years old. They all left Shackleford, and they took their houses apart and floated … it’s just something that’s born in you to live here.

For lifelong residents, living Down East year-round and contending with flooding required a “commitment” to endure “the hardship of living here” and aspire towards immobility, a commitment they suspected so-called “dingbatters” lacked. For those who had moved to the area, (im)mobility aspirations were more based on household-level considerations than perpetuating a community-level way of life. A middle-aged father who had moved to Williston for work balanced expectations about flooding and his daughter’s education:

I do not think I’ll live here forever … in 10 years my primary residence may shift … [flooding] does enter my calculations, the calculus I live in here, because I do foresee it getting worse over time … I do not want to move right now, because I would like my daughter to finish out her school.

Differences between lifelong residents and those who had moved to the area indicated how nostalgia and resistance to change was entangled with flooding tolerance.

Lifelong residents wanted their dynamic, maritime community of the late 20th century—and the social support it brought—to persist, and this desire was threatened by a regional socioeconomic transformation towards tourism, retirement in-migration, and absentee ownership. Respondents expressed concern over school consolidations, business closures, and higher property assessments. Flooding was just one of many challenges with which Down East communities contended. Resisting change involved staying in place to continue rural, coastal lifeways shaped by boatbuilding, lifesaving, and commercial fishing, even as flooding increasingly impacted daily life.

5 Discussion

5.1 Immobility aspirations despite chronic hazard and potential out-migration mechanisms

Our findings provide new evidence regarding the extent to which rural communities tolerate chronic coastal flooding in day-to-day life. In line with past research, respondents reported that chronic coastal flooding largely affects vehicular travel (Fant et al., 2021; Hauer et al., 2023), and they use strategies like changing travel plans, moving cars, and keeping a “go bag” (Campbell et al., 2021; Castro, 2024). Residents also more readily enacted lower-cost cognitions and behaviors in day-to-day routines than higher-cost structural adaptations (Koerth et al., 2013). Our focus on chronic coastal flooding emphasizes non-structural measures, like normalizing flooding and recreating in floodwaters. Such measures may be otherwise overlooked when impacts and adaptation are conceptualized vis-a-vis structures and the built environment.

Extending Castro’s (Castro, 2024) concept of “ad hoc adaptation,” we find that flooding tolerance is facilitated by local knowledge and limited by resignation, flooding frequency, and trust in institutions in addition to financial capacity. Drawing on prior experiences, residents felt confident in their ability to cope, leading many to normalize flooding while nonetheless adapting to it ad hoc (Koerth et al., 2013; Caryl et al., 2026). Strong place attachments, which manifested in concerns about declining maritime livelihoods and threats to private property rights, contributed to doubt that government would effectively adapt (Clarke et al., 2018). While low trust in institutions helped largely individualize the responsibility to adapt, this devolution made the prospect of more frequent flooding feel less tolerable. Because we recruited through social networks, our sample likely overrepresents well-established residents with the resources and willingness to tolerate flooding, although two newer arrivals recounted distinct ways of tolerating flooding despite their own pessimism about government intervention. Identifying flooding frequency as a significant limit on tolerance comports with Castro’s (Castro, 2024) concept of an “energetic” capacity for ad hoc adaptation, as more frequent disruptions strain energetic capacity to adapt. However, frequency is a physical characteristic of flooding that can be modeled, planned for, and modified through adaptation.

Additionally, the social meanings of flooding tolerance in light of perceived socioeconomic change are similar to findings from climate (im)mobilities and sense of place literature. Lifelong residents’ construction of the “dingbatter” archetype was like the differing attitudes towards storm evacuation differing between “been-here” and “come-here” residents in the rural eastern Chesapeake Bay (Bukvic and Harrald, 2019). We find such meanings can extend from short-term evacuation to longer-term residential (im)mobility. These social and place-based meanings are components of place identity (Masterson et al., 2017), such as when enduring “the hardship of living here” becomes part of one’s non-“dingbatter,” “been-here” identity. Like other rural communities facing sea-level rise (Simms, 2017), resisting relocation and enduring the hardships of a place were part of Down East residents’ place-based identity and meanings. These meanings could also be understood as extrinsic rewards for staying and adapting in place, in which self-identity and community belonging are affirmed, which can significantly influence (im)mobility aspirations (Mallick et al., 2022). These feelings may be particularly strongly felt among our respondents, who are likely more attached and engaged to their community than most. Nonetheless, their attitudes illustrate how flooding tolerance was entangled in a broader struggle to resist change and realize desires for the future.

Our case adds to growing evidence of voluntary immobility in the context of sea-level rise and chronic coastal flooding while illuminating how voluntariness is contingent on broader forces (Campbell et al., 2021; Jamero et al., 2017; Yee et al., 2022b). Although most were determined to stay, resident homeowners demonstrated capabilities to move should they so choose. However, when contingent on selling property, migration capability could diminish with more severe and/or frequent flooding. We found three instances in which property sales were reportedly affected by chronic flooding. Our findings suggest these cases could become more common as flooding worsens in depth and duration and buyers use tools like property-level risk ratings to avoid or offer less for exposed properties. For homeowners trying to finance a move out of a flood-prone area, lower and fewer offers could constrain the capability to migrate conferred by selling. Additionally, our respondents had a higher median household income than the Down East population. Lower-income residents and owners of less valuable property in Down East and other unincorporated coastal areas may already face challenges covering transaction and moving costs and attracting buyers. Social processes generally afford or constrain access to material, affective, and informational capabilities to migrate based on personal characteristics (de Haas, 2021), plausibly making the aspiration to stay in a place that floods more or less voluntary across demographic groups.

Our study also suggests mechanisms that could drive population aging in areas exposed to sea-level rise (Hauer et al., 2024). We heard how chronic flooding is disruptive to children’s education, a burden which could drive families with children to leave. Chronic coastal flooding may drive rural out-migration in later life as well. In an aging, rural population like Down East, long-term care needs and concerns about emergency medical service delays could act as factors driving mortality risk (Mueller et al., 2024) and out-migration.

5.2 Implications for coastal resilience planning in rural areas

In unincorporated coastal areas where inundation is likely and public services are threatened, uncertainty will likely arise about how governing entities will (or will not) act. Down East residents were frustrated when government representatives recognized chronic coastal flooding impacts yet projected uncertainty about bureaucratic barriers to action. For residents, tentative, murky signals about government (in)action amplify uncertainty about the physical and financial risk they personally bear by staying. Resolving this uncertainty through long-term visioning, follow-through on commitments, or other planning methods would be worthwhile to inform ad hoc adaptation, grow community trust, and foster inter-organizational coordination.

To avoid duplicative or maladaptive efforts, decision-making in rural coastal communities can build on existing, informal measures by managing risk while preserving local knowledge. For example, local governments could materially support resident networks and organizations that circulate local, timely flooding information and coordinate moving vehicles to higher ground. To enhance social capital and community capacity to safely manage flood risk, participatory planning among nearby communities can elicit and propagate local knowledge on facing flooding risks.

As evidence mounts that people attached to their environments and engaged in their communities tolerate chronic coastal flooding instead of moving away, communities and governing entities have an opportunity to shape proactive hazard and resilience planning that accommodates voluntary, adaptive, and just (im)mobilities (Thornton et al., 2023; Sheller, 2018). Planning for the well-being of rural communities who wish to stay in chronically flooding coastal areas is a relatively undefined area of practice.

The right to stay despite worsening hazards is an active moral debate (Iyer and Schewel, 2024). Our findings raise pressing questions for organizations, governments, and utilities seeking to balance the public good with private interests while facing growing coastal flooding risks. For example, how can shrinking rural school districts reconcile cost savings from campus consolidations with students traveling farther across flooded roads? When and how should governments elevate, repair, or decommission chronically flooding roads? What planning approaches can manage chronic coastal flooding risks while centering rural communities’ desires for the future?

5.3 Limitations and future research

Our study is limited primarily by our sampling strategy. We initially planned to recruit respondents at randomly sampled addresses. However, responding to concerns about research fatigue, we ceded some agency in identifying respondents to project partners. This approach resulted in a non-representative convenience sample. While we collected data until themes became saturated, we likely did not hear some perspectives that complicate or contradict our findings.

Our conclusions regarding (im)mobility aspirations were limited by only sampling current Down East residents and local experts. Prior residents who were more willing to migrate away because of flooding had likely already done so. Our sample therefore reflects a network of relatively engaged residents and community leaders who were concerned about chronic coastal flooding and committed to a future Down East. However, our interviews with recent arrivals offered perspectives from those still actively negotiating their (im)mobility aspirations.

Our study is also limited by how we navigated sensitive topics during interviews. Prior to fieldwork, community partners warned us that asking about climate change, sea-level rise, relocation, and finances could be met with suspicion. We sought to mitigate suspicion and refusal by studying local histories, building rapport, focusing on “flooding,” asking about income in ranges, and letting respondents broach sensitive topics. However, during transcription and analysis, we recognized instances in which these strategies precluded more detailed follow up questions, likely omitting deeper explanations and unexpected themes.

Our work and its limitations suggest several directions for future research. In general, more research on chronic coastal flooding in U. S. rural areas is needed. We note knowledge gaps on how children and youth-serving institutions like schools experience and deal with chronic coastal flooding. Ours and similar studies are largely qualitative case studies. A more comprehensive understanding of flooding tolerance and (im)mobility aspirations could be obtained from a representative survey of current and former coastal residents. Our sample was recruited through community networks and skews more aged, female, White, and educated than the broader population, potentially overrepresenting perspectives of those who are well-positioned to tolerate flooding in daily routines. Younger adults and families with children may have less flexible daily schedules than older, retired adults, making it harder to tolerate flooding by staying in place and changing plans. Representatively sampling across residential status and demographic characteristics could better elucidate how much adaptive behaviors and (im)mobility aspirations vary with risk perceptions, sense of place, and demographic group membership. Future work can also more explicitly characterize (im)mobility capabilities in addition to aspirations. Finally, because flooding tolerance was particularly sensitive to frequency, physical modeling could further assess effective ways to characterize, communicate, and modify flood frequency. Additional community-engaged research can evaluate strategies for effectively communicating flood model outputs among rural communities.

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